home wifi coverage
Discussion
We have the dybious honour of having a virgin media hub router. Its always been pretty poor, we have a 3 storey house and have never really had strong wifi. I have managed to improve it with devolo dlan500 powerline wireless extenders. My eldest has come home early from uni' and is continuing to do online lectures and Zoom conferencing - She is complaining about the wifi/connectivity in her room, which is the top floor.
I guess the devolo units are 5 or 6 years old, so I am guessing there might be some better options these days. I note that devolo have a product (Magic 1 &2) which offer higher speeds and 500m range. So maybe effective, I should be able to cover the house with a hub and one extender. The alternative would seem to be a Mesh system. or I could just get another devolo dlan500 for the top floor.
whats the pros and cons of Mesh, would I be able to get the mesh to extend to the detached garage/gym which is about 25m from main house? - I popped a spare devolo unit out there and it's been surprisingly useful
I guess the devolo units are 5 or 6 years old, so I am guessing there might be some better options these days. I note that devolo have a product (Magic 1 &2) which offer higher speeds and 500m range. So maybe effective, I should be able to cover the house with a hub and one extender. The alternative would seem to be a Mesh system. or I could just get another devolo dlan500 for the top floor.
whats the pros and cons of Mesh, would I be able to get the mesh to extend to the detached garage/gym which is about 25m from main house? - I popped a spare devolo unit out there and it's been surprisingly useful
As a short-term fix make sure she's connecting on the 2.4Ghz band - it's not as fast as 5Ghz but it does give much better range and will be more than sufficient for Zoom calls from a performance perspective.
If she can't get reliable 2.4Ghz connection then newer extenders as others have mentioned should do the trick.
If she can't get reliable 2.4Ghz connection then newer extenders as others have mentioned should do the trick.
jamoor said:
journeymanpro said:
Been well happy with my ubiquiti ac lr access point. Covers whole house including garden and garage with ease on a 3 bed semi.
This.Literally never had a problem
sawman said:
whats the pros and cons of Mesh, would I be able to get the mesh to extend to the detached garage/gym which is about 25m from main house? - I popped a spare devolo unit out there and it's been surprisingly useful
I used to to have a devolo to garage and also found it slow. Think the problem was the length of circuit and the fact that it was on a different fuse circuit rather than being on the same supply. Mesh is great if you get it right. Think of it as several APs that share the same SSID but play nicely together. You can generally run them in one of three ways 1) wired connections to each AP; or 2) wireless connections to remote APs; 3) a mix of the two. Obviously if you can get a wire to them you’re working will higher network speed as the signal doesn’t need to hop from one AP or the other. We use a hybrid approach with those that can be wired wired, but with one in a lower traffic area connected wirelessly to boost signal and act as a bridge to a hub that then serves a couple of wired PCs.
Ubiquti Unifi is great, probably overkill for most domestic purposes (if the spec sheet you’ll see that each AP is capable of supporting 250+ clients and all the examples they give are corporate/metro type installs), but they do have some very neat devices in the range. Main con is that it is very easy to spend £500-1000+ when you start adding APs all over the place, controllers etc, when sometimes one really good AP/router might have done the job.
No experience of it but Ubiquiti has just launched a new range Amplifi that seems targeted at home users and may well be worth a look.
sawman said:
whats the pros and cons of Mesh, would I be able to get the mesh to extend to the detached garage/gym which is about 25m from main house? - I popped a spare devolo unit out there and it's been surprisingly useful
Several of us very happy with the TP-Link Deco stuff on this thread https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...The P9 that I have uses powerline for the link between units so should be fine to the garage. Most of their units also have a couple of Ethernet ports on them as well, unlike a basic wifi extender so can be used as a bridge for stuff that needs a wired connection rather than just providing WiFi coverage.
Fore Left said:
While great - I have one myself - Ubiquiti products are not designed for the average home user. They take some knowledge to set-up and maintain. A mesh set-up is far more user friendly.
I have no knowledge of networks at all. I opened the box, followed the instructions and set it up with the app. If I can do it I bet most could. journeymanpro said:
Fore Left said:
While great - I have one myself - Ubiquiti products are not designed for the average home user. They take some knowledge to set-up and maintain. A mesh set-up is far more user friendly.
I have no knowledge of networks at all. I opened the box, followed the instructions and set it up with the app. If I can do it I bet most could. I’m looking to swap my Tenda MW6 for the new unifi all in one hub the dream machine if anyone has tried one would be interested to hear thoughts.
RizzoTheRat said:
sawman said:
whats the pros and cons of Mesh, would I be able to get the mesh to extend to the detached garage/gym which is about 25m from main house? - I popped a spare devolo unit out there and it's been surprisingly useful
Several of us very happy with the TP-Link Deco stuff on this thread https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...The P9 that I have uses powerline for the link between units so should be fine to the garage. Most of their units also have a couple of Ethernet ports on them as well, unlike a basic wifi extender so can be used as a bridge for stuff that needs a wired connection rather than just providing WiFi coverage.
Edited by sawman on Tuesday 7th April 11:37
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