Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

[Gary C]

Defcon5 said:

My router is in the middle floor of my house. On it, it says it must be kept upright to prevent poor connections- is this nonsense?

If it were true I wouldn’t get any signal on the floor underneath surely?

It’s the standard sky FTTP router, and signal is weak in some parts of the house, would a better router improve this? If so can I get something decent for 100 quid?

I don’t want any separate disks or mesh setup. All the TVs and consoles are Ethernet connected so it’s just phones/tablets that use the Wi-Fi in a meaningful manner

I imagine they suggest it due to beamforming in the X plane.

Beamforming varies the carrier phasing between aerials and I imagine it wants them in the correct XY orientation to push the signal horizontally though walls because they assume most devices are within about 3 meters vertical of the router but spread around over ~10 meters

Did this in my finals at Uni, they wanted us to calculate the 0dB strength contour and then draw it. A laborious calc by hand, but the recently released graphic calculators made it simple, easy pass on that question

[silentbrown]

Defcon5 said:

It’s the standard sky FTTP router, and signal is weak in some parts of the house, would a better router improve this? If so can I get something decent for 100 quid?

I don’t want any separate disks or mesh setup. All the TVs and consoles are Ethernet connected so it’s just phones/tablets that use the Wi-Fi in a meaningful manner

Just changing the router isn't likely to improve things significantly.

Worth checking that your router has the 2.4GHz band as well as 5GHz enabled. You'll get better range with that.

[bodhi]

silentbrown said:

Defcon5 said:

It’s the standard sky FTTP router, and signal is weak in some parts of the house, would a better router improve this? If so can I get something decent for 100 quid?

I don’t want any separate disks or mesh setup. All the TVs and consoles are Ethernet connected so it’s just phones/tablets that use the Wi-Fi in a meaningful manner

Just changing the router isn't likely to improve things significantly.

Worth checking that your router has the 2.4GHz band as well as 5GHz enabled. You'll get better range with that.

Also I know the OP mentioned they didn't want additional disks, but if you call up Sky and say you're struggling with WiFi in a particular area, they'll send you a booster. We did this when struggling with Sky Q reception - it was free, easily hidden and has improved things no end.

[Thats What She Said]

A friend has asked how to extend their wifi network to some out buildings in order to get their wifi cctv and alarm working.

They keep getting visits from those cheeky little travelling folk, who help themselves to quad bikes, motorbikes, anything else they fancy (even when it's chained down).

We're not wifi / network experts so don't know the best way of approaching this, and of course they want to do this in the most economical way.

We've considered an outdoor wifi aerial such as TP-Link CPE710, 5GHz 867Mbps 23dBi Outdoor CPE Antenna

Hardwiring is another option to run from the house to the outbuildings. I guess we'd need some kind of access point in each outbuilding to beam out the wifi.

[megaphone]

Thats What She Said said:

A friend has asked how to extend their wifi network to some out buildings in order to get their wifi cctv and alarm working.

They keep getting visits from those cheeky little travelling folk, who help themselves to quad bikes, motorbikes, anything else they fancy (even when it's chained down).

We're not wifi / network experts so don't know the best way of approaching this, and of course they want to do this in the most economical way.

We've considered an outdoor wifi aerial such as TP-Link CPE710, 5GHz 867Mbps 23dBi Outdoor CPE Antenna

Hardwiring is another option to run from the house to the outbuildings. I guess we'd need some kind of access point in each outbuilding to beam out the wifi.

Best option for this is a 'WiFi Bridge'. You have a transmitter at one end and a receiver at the other, acts like a cable. I use Ubiquiti Airmax kit for this, a couple of Nanobeams, or even Nanostation locos will work. Need to be mounted externally and ideally have direct line of site. You will need a switch and Wifi access point at the far end.

[Bonefish Blues]

Bonefish Blues said:

RizzoTheRat said:

Bonefish Blues said:

Welcome thoughts about the TP P9 model - as a reminder, I'm nearly 3k ft2, with some thick internal walls because of various conversions. I get 72mb at best, with no prospect of more until someone decides to lay full fibre, but that's unlikely. I'm quite happy to go with a relatively cheap solution and chuck 5 or 6 units at it - I put plenty of electrical sockets in when we converted!

I have they P9's and while they do work, powerline connections can be a bit hit and miss, I only get about 20Mbps when they're talking over powerline, whereas if I position them to get a decent wifi connection I get way more. If you can get ethernet cables anywhere useful you can connect nodes via ethernet and they'll work way better I now have all mine on ethernet and get my full 250Mbps in most places.

So I may as well stay wifi in the main then, apart from my one ethernet extension, but just make sure I have units positioned well, and in sufficient numbers?

By way of update, I went with a TP X55 3-unit mesh in the end and am very happy with the result