wifi brain trust

[Rtrorkt]

have a combo modem and wireless router that does not reach to the far edges of my house. Suggestion is to buy a new modern (24 channel what ever that is) and wireless router. Obviously doable

Question is, i have 6 smoke detectors, 2 thermostats among other things connected to the wireless system. If i put in the new wireless router and give the channels the same name as the ones i have now and the same passwords, will everything automatically connect since channel is the same name with the same password.

[svandamme]

Not necessarily. If the 2 AP's for one reason or another don't behave ,
or your client wifi is iffy, you probably won't have the best kind of automatic switcheroo between the 2.

Unless off course you fork over serious moola (Think North of 500 bucks at the minimum) for professional AP's,
you'll probably find that getting Wifi to work like this relies heavily on Bllack magic and luck or lack thereof.

Especially if your house is not Wifi friendly (lot's of metal and thick walls)


Sometimes it's better to just pick 2 seperate SID's so at least they don't confuse each tother.

[Rtrorkt]

going to replace the existing router with a new one so there should not be any conflict
there. So one new router with the same channel names and same passwords.

[stomachmonkey]

What you want is known as a dual band router, operates in 2.4 and 5 ghz specteums.

I know you are looking for the easy answer but the thing about wifi is it operates at the speed of the slowest connected device.

Obviously without knowing much about your current devices hard to say what speed a, b, g or n they run on but seeing as they are not really communication devices, pass large amounts of data, its safe to assume they are slow.

Get the dual band and put all the slow / unknowns on 2.4 and all your newer know N a/c devices on the 5 spectrum.

Now there is also no gaurantee a newer router will provide broader coverage so if you can run some cat 5 close to your dead zones you may just want to run two wifi networks.

Saves you from having to reattach those other devices to boot.

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by Rtrorkt

have a combo modem and wireless router that does not reach to the far edges of my house. Suggestion is to buy a new modern (24 channel what ever that is) and wireless router. Obviously doable

Question is, i have 6 smoke detectors, 2 thermostats among other things connected to the wireless system. If i put in the new wireless router and give the channels the same name as the ones i have now and the same passwords, will everything automatically connect since channel is the same name with the same password.

I had a similar issue,
solution was to buy a Netgear PL1200(or PLP1200)
These use your house AC wiring to carry the signal from your router, you plug a unit into a house hold AC outlet near the router and another near the device that needs the signal then run a normal Ethernet cable(supplied) at each end to connect. It works great w/ no fuss, you also can encrypt the signal very easily, just push a button on each Pl1200. They also have lights to diagnose signal speed. I have 4 of them(2 sets) so can feed 3 devices far away from the router.

They claim 1200mbps but the actual speed is way less, a get ~75mbps through the router and ~60mbs at the furthest node.

The PLP1200 is the same but has a pass through AC outlet.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Rtrorkt

going to replace the existing router with a new one so there should not be any conflict
there. So one new router with the same channel names and same passwords.

You don't have to replace the existing unit.

If it supports gigabit Ethernet just connect the new router to the old and enable it in bridge or access point mode.

Again that saves you from having to reconfigure the other devices.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Bill Verburg

I had a similar issue,
solution was to buy a Netgear PL1200(or PLP1200)
These use your house AC wiring to carry the signal from your router, you plug a unit into a house hold AC outlet near the router and another near the device that needs the signal then run a normal Ethernet cable(supplied) at each end to connect. It works great w/ no fuss, you also can encrypt the signal very easily, just push a button on each Pl1200. They also have lights to diagnose signal speed. I have 4 of them(2 sets) so can feed 3 devices far away from the router.

They claim 1200mbps but the actual speed is way less, a get ~75mbps through the router and ~60mbs at the furthest node.

The PLP1200 is the same but has a pass through AC outlet.

You are not getting the theoretical speed most likely because the two outlets are not on the same circuit.

I've had to resort to using them in a pinch and they work best on the same circuit.

I've had situations where they don't work at all if the circuits are not in the same panel.

[Rtrorkt]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

You don't have to replace the existing unit.

If it supports gigabit Ethernet just connect the new router to the old and enable it in bridge or access point mode.

Again that saves you from having to reconfigure the other devices.

well that sounds promising. So don't by a new modem, just find a way to connect the better router into the current router and presto?

[Shifter]

I just went through this. I had two routers in a bridged configuration so I could wire my tv into the second router without having to run cabling all over the house. I have a three story home, so running copper was a no go.

The secondary router started dying, so I needed to replace it.

Did a bunch of reading, and I ended up buying new routers, and I went with Portal wifi. They can use bridge or mesh. I went with the mesh, and now I have great coverage and the price wasn't too bad.

https://www.amazon.com/Portal-mesh-wifi-system-2-pack/dp/B01MYRZNAQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1490475602&sr=8-3&keywords=portal+wifi

Setup takes about ten minutes, and you don't need your neighbor kid to do it.

[Ayles]

I have an airport extreme and two expresses set up to extend the signal. I have a massive chimney and the airport expressess have worked really well.

[Rtrorkt]

thoughts on this unit? Seems like a well thought out concepthttps://help.amplifi.com/hc/en-us#/hc/en-us/articles/235222547-Mesh-Mode

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

You are not getting the theoretical speed most likely because the two outlets are not on the same circuit.

I've had to resort to using them in a pinch and they work best on the same circuit.

I've had situations where they don't work at all if the circuits are not in the same panel.

You miss the point, even the reduced throughput is ample to stream multiple 4k video streams to the far end of the house where the PL feeds an older spare Wifi router.

each 4k video feed needs way less then 20mbps

[Rtrorkt]

https://amplifi.com
sorry, link did not work. Thoughts on this unit

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Bill Verburg

You miss the point, even the reduced throughput is ample to stream multiple 4k video streams to the far end of the house where the PL feeds an older spare Wifi router.

each 4k video feed needs way less then 20mbps

Sorry Bill,

You missed the point which was why you are not seeing anything close to the theoretical throughput of the device.

It was simply guidance on why, trying to help you get a better result, nothing more.

But while we are at it, no, you can not stream multiple 4 k streams over 20mb.

If you are able to do that then Amazon, Netflix, HULU all want to talk to you and your solution is worth billions.

Two get two 4K streams going (ignoring bandwidth consumed by overhead) you need to get each stream to 10 Mbps which means 40%-50% efficiency on the compression and a frame rate of 24 fps. That's what the math says.

Netflixs minimum for 4K streaming is 15 Mbps dedicated meaning you'll need space for overhead and anything else on the pipe so if you are checking OT while streaming you are pushing it. That's a moderately aggressive compression and reduced frame rate. The recommended dedicated bandwidth for quality 4K streaming is 25 Mbps per stream.

Anything less than that and you are better of watching it on blu-Ray.

[RKDinOKC]

Have a cable modem connected to a hub. The hub has a wired connection to another hub to two computers in another room. It is also wired to a wireless router for my home wifi. The wireless router has 3 wired connections, AppleTV, smart TV, and desktop computer as media server with TV as monitor. The wifi network has the smart TV, a color laser printer, My laptop, an iPhone, an iPad and a 2nd network interface on one of the wired computers.

Had 25mb/5mb connection to internet with my cable modem. Using speedtest.net got 20mb/5mb everywhere on all devices, even testing 2 at the same time.

Found some movies on youtube with my laptop I wanted to watch on the TV so just used Airplay to send my laptop screen and sound to the AppleTV with the TV as the output device for the AppleTV. It didn't work very well unless I moved the laptop to the same room as the wireless router to get full signal strength. Upgraded my wireless router to one of the newer dual bands and it worked fine with the same speeds everywhere using speedtest.net

Upgraded my Internet connection to 50mb/10mb. My iPhone speedtested 50/10 no matter where I was in the house. Laptop and hard wired servers only speedtested at 20/10.

Double checked the wire going between the two hubs and it had a hole in the wire from where a tree fell through the roof and was only supporting 10mb instead of gigabit. Pulled a new wire and the wired computers started getting 50/10.

The laptop in the same room as the wireless router would get 50/10. But on the desk I used it it only got 20/10. Put my old wireless router and set it up on the desk where I typically used the laptop. Set it up to extend an existing wireless network. Now the laptop speedtests at 50/10. I was surprised. Thought I would have to setup the second wireless router by having it wired and putting it in bridged mode. Glad I didn't as I found the Airport Express only supports 100mb ethernet instead of Gigabit.



If you just need to extend your home wireless network you can use another wireless router in extend and existing wireless network mode. I have all Apple wireless routers, ie Airport Extreme and Airport Express right now. Only assume this can be done with other wireless routers.

[stomachmonkey]

When extending wifi the devices should be connected via Ethernet whenever possible.

Creating the network over wifi will only provide throughput equal to what is available where the devices ranges overlap.

Doing it over wifi also introduces a lot of additional management overhead that can easily degrade the repeated throughput by half.

[RKDinOKC]

Mine sped up. At least to the speeds of my cable modem which is as fast as I need.

I put a wifi network in my nephew's large home. And the new home had those metal studs throughout.
Used 3 wireless routers in Bridge mode each wired to a central wireless router to get good coverage.

Wasn't necessary just to get faster coverage in the rooms at either end of my house that were just getting lower signal.

Also did an unwired wireless router in my brother's home. His TV and AppleTV had a fireplace between it and the main wireless router. Putting and unwired wireless extender in good range of the base router and line of sight with the blackout area bumped blackout area up to the same speeds as the rest of the wireless in his home. And didn't have to pull any wires.

[stomachmonkey]

If it sped up that means you fixed a pre existing configuration or infrastructure issue.

There are no circumstances under which bridging over wifi will yield a better result than properly configured Ethernet.

[RKDinOKC]

Changed nothing, just dropped in an unwired router set it to extend the wireless network and in that low signal area it sped up the wireless speeds to match that of the cable modem. I will say it again the unwired extender speeds up the low signal area's to match the speeds of the cable modem. Never said it made the optimum wireless network.

[Bill Verburg]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Sorry Bill,

You missed the point which was why you are not seeing anything close to the theoretical throughput of the device.

It was simply guidance on why, trying to help you get a better result, nothing more.

But while we are at it, no, you can not stream multiple 4 k streams over 20mb.

If you are able to do that then Amazon, Netflix, HULU all want to talk to you and your solution is worth billions.

Two get two 4K streams going (ignoring bandwidth consumed by overhead) you need to get each stream to 10 Mbps which means 40%-50% efficiency on the compression and a frame rate of 24 fps. That's what the math says.

Netflixs minimum for 4K streaming is 15 Mbps dedicated meaning you'll need space for overhead and anything else on the pipe so if you are checking OT while streaming you are pushing it. That's a moderately aggressive compression and reduced frame rate. The recommended dedicated bandwidth for quality 4K streaming is 25 Mbps per stream.

Anything less than that and you are better of watching it on blu-Ray.

More missed point
they advertise 1200 mbps, maybe w/ 1200mbps input they do better
but I have ~75mbps through the modem/router
going from 75 in to 60 at the far end is no big deal as far as performance goes, even for multiple 4k streams using encryption
and chances are the 2 ends of this setup will always be on separate circuits so one should always expect some loss of signal