Upgrade MESH wifi for thick walls - hybrid solution
Discussion
I moved house 2 years ago and my old house I had 5 Velop nodes (the early ones).
My house is quite large (c.3500sq ft) and has very thick walls. I now run 8 nodes and have ok coverage but the network is slow as anything.
At peak I get maybe 100mb/s but in reality its 30-50mb/s. To get full coverage I need lots of nodes, but lots of nodes slows everything down and also I often get weird routes set up - so I am constantly re-starting to try and force it to take better paths back to the master.
Would a TP-Link Deco PX50 help me? I have never heard of a hybrid solution like this before.
In an ideal world I would drag cat 6 to each room but its basically impossible due to the layout of the house and I am not starting to drill through walls etc.
TIA
My house is quite large (c.3500sq ft) and has very thick walls. I now run 8 nodes and have ok coverage but the network is slow as anything.
At peak I get maybe 100mb/s but in reality its 30-50mb/s. To get full coverage I need lots of nodes, but lots of nodes slows everything down and also I often get weird routes set up - so I am constantly re-starting to try and force it to take better paths back to the master.
Would a TP-Link Deco PX50 help me? I have never heard of a hybrid solution like this before.
In an ideal world I would drag cat 6 to each room but its basically impossible due to the layout of the house and I am not starting to drill through walls etc.
TIA
I dont want to pull cables. Its an 1890s house and the chances of getting cables to where I need them are low. PnP would be better.
If it was a modern build I would just drop some cables in but its lath and plaster with a combo of limestone (3ft thick in places) and brick construction.
There are fire places / chimney stacks etc - its just a nightmare for running cables.
If it was a modern build I would just drop some cables in but its lath and plaster with a combo of limestone (3ft thick in places) and brick construction.
There are fire places / chimney stacks etc - its just a nightmare for running cables.
The issues are how many power link devices you can support and what kind of speed you looking to achieve?
I’m assuming that your mesh nodes have a Ethernet connection if so I’d buy four power line nodes and try connecting the four depending on the layout, obviously one needs to connect to your router and the rest can be split apart.
Don’t expect power line devices to fix everything, they are not like wired Ethernet where everything can be run at its rated capacity, if I recall correctly it’s more like a token ring system where each node can only generate traffic and then hands over to the next node.
It might be better than what you have it might not, only testing will tell.
Obviously buy from Amazon and if it’s not working then send back.
Again obviously you might find you get better coverage with a mix of power line connected nodes and WiFi mesh nodes, but again testing is key.
Good luck.
I’m assuming that your mesh nodes have a Ethernet connection if so I’d buy four power line nodes and try connecting the four depending on the layout, obviously one needs to connect to your router and the rest can be split apart.
Don’t expect power line devices to fix everything, they are not like wired Ethernet where everything can be run at its rated capacity, if I recall correctly it’s more like a token ring system where each node can only generate traffic and then hands over to the next node.
It might be better than what you have it might not, only testing will tell.
Obviously buy from Amazon and if it’s not working then send back.
Again obviously you might find you get better coverage with a mix of power line connected nodes and WiFi mesh nodes, but again testing is key.
Good luck.
Do you have TV coax running to many parts of the house? You can buy stuff that uses that which is much better than powerline.
I’d maybe look at a mixture of technology. If you can get a few decent connections to another part of the house, maybe using external grade Ethernet cable and attaching it to behind guttering, and/or the coax carrier option, then using these as effectively hard wired access points would improve the mesh performance for any you can’t get to. The coax route also means you’d be able to attach tvs to essentially wired connections which for streaming would be ideal.
All I’ll say is in our barn conversion which has challenges we ended up finding ways to hardwire whenever the opportunity arose as it’s much more robust than power line (albeit the capabilities it had 10 years ago) and WiFi mesh.
I’d maybe look at a mixture of technology. If you can get a few decent connections to another part of the house, maybe using external grade Ethernet cable and attaching it to behind guttering, and/or the coax carrier option, then using these as effectively hard wired access points would improve the mesh performance for any you can’t get to. The coax route also means you’d be able to attach tvs to essentially wired connections which for streaming would be ideal.
All I’ll say is in our barn conversion which has challenges we ended up finding ways to hardwire whenever the opportunity arose as it’s much more robust than power line (albeit the capabilities it had 10 years ago) and WiFi mesh.
I found powerline devices are better than nothing, but that's not a very high bar 
The key thing with a mesh network is to always have a good connection between two nodes all the way to the router.
Place the nodes not where they are good for the end devices but where they get a good connection to another node.
Also floors are generally better at passing radio waves than walls, so think vertical placement rather than horizontal.
If you have a spare afternoon, get a WiFi mapping application, turn off all the nodes except the router node, find a place that gets good connection, place a node there, rinse and repeat with the other nodes. With 8 nodes though be mindful of always having a good path back to router,
If you want to get really fancy pants, you can add floorplans and create a heatmap.
The key thing with a mesh network is to always have a good connection between two nodes all the way to the router.
Place the nodes not where they are good for the end devices but where they get a good connection to another node.
Also floors are generally better at passing radio waves than walls, so think vertical placement rather than horizontal.
If you have a spare afternoon, get a WiFi mapping application, turn off all the nodes except the router node, find a place that gets good connection, place a node there, rinse and repeat with the other nodes. With 8 nodes though be mindful of always having a good path back to router,
If you want to get really fancy pants, you can add floorplans and create a heatmap.
Yeah my WHW03's are approaching 10 years old so they are struggling - but I think its the house more than anything.
In the lounge I get full speed, near enough, as thats where the BT feeds in and the master node is.
But there are limited routes out of the lounge to send a cat 6 out or anything else. There are only 2 sockets in the lounge also - both in very awkward spots.
My second node is in the hall way about 15 feet from the master, but its struggling for a good connection as the lounge walls are c.2-3 feet thick in places.
There is some coax however its very hit and miss as the previous owners ripped most of it out during the last renovation and it only runs to the lounge and living room. Its going to terminate somewhere in the loft which has several layers of insulation so finding it will be "interesting".
I appreciate I sound lazy - but I just know its opening a can of worms going looking for cables up there.
In the lounge I get full speed, near enough, as thats where the BT feeds in and the master node is.
But there are limited routes out of the lounge to send a cat 6 out or anything else. There are only 2 sockets in the lounge also - both in very awkward spots.
My second node is in the hall way about 15 feet from the master, but its struggling for a good connection as the lounge walls are c.2-3 feet thick in places.
There is some coax however its very hit and miss as the previous owners ripped most of it out during the last renovation and it only runs to the lounge and living room. Its going to terminate somewhere in the loft which has several layers of insulation so finding it will be "interesting".
I appreciate I sound lazy - but I just know its opening a can of worms going looking for cables up there.
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