Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

[audi321]

.:ian:. said:

audi321 said:

dmsims said:

audi321 said:

Thanks, sorry to be thick, how do I know if I'm on 'VDSL'? I have a separate white box on the wall,

Pic of the box please

The yellow cable goes to my Zyxel box

That's FTTP, full fibre, rather than VDSL.
You can replace the zyxel router with any ethernet router.
You just need to check they use pppoe or plain dhcp, and not something weird for authentication.

Given that Kcom use Eero now for fibre I concur

https://www.kcom.com/home/eero/#:~:text=KCOM%20ful...

Thanks for the replies guys, I didn't appreciate that I was fortunate enough to have something so good........everyone in my area is green with envy at the choice the rest of the country has available (we have almost zero alternatives to Kcom).

I'll buy a Draytech router then as they always seem to be the recommended ones on here.

[thebraketester]

RizzoTheRat said:

Yeah I hadn't seen the Express when looking at Unify kit before, because it's listed under gateways not under APs, and it makes Unfi a lot cheaper than I had initially thought.

The main question on the CGU though is do I have to have one, or could Express' run just as access points connected to my ISP's router? Is the idea that if I was just using Express' one of them would be acting as the gateway and need to sit between my ISP router and the switch?

Which broadband so you have? Do you have a separate modem and router or all in one?

[RizzoTheRat]

thebraketester said:

Which broadband so you have? Do you have a separate modem and router or all in one?

400Mbps, but about to be upgraded to 700, cable, with an all in one modem router. At the moment I have 3 Deco's in access point mode leaving the routing to the ISP's box, but have turned off the WIFI on thier box. I can't switch it to passthrough myself and would have to get the provider (Ziggo) to do that, so don't want to switch it over unless I'm sure I've got a decent setup.

I think the modem/router is a Sagecom, and can only have one login at a time so I've never bothered linking it in to Home assistant, a different router that HA can then use for device tracking would be useful too.
the HA addin says "You will need a local user created in your UniFi OS Console to log in with. Ubiquiti SSO Cloud Users will not work.", presumably a Cloud Gateway Ultra, despite the name, would be running the console locally?

[Captain_Morgan]

RizzoTheRat said:

400Mbps, but about to be upgraded to 700, cable, with an all in one modem router. At the moment I have 3 Deco's in access point mode leaving the routing to the ISP's box, but have turned off the WIFI on thier box. I can't switch it to passthrough myself and would have to get the provider (Ziggo) to do that, so don't want to switch it over unless I'm sure I've got a decent setup.

I think the modem/router is a Sagecom, and can only have one login at a time so I've never bothered linking it in to Home assistant, a different router that HA can then use for device tracking would be useful too.
the HA addin says "You will need a local user created in your UniFi OS Console to log in with. Ubiquiti SSO Cloud Users will not work.", presumably a Cloud Gateway Ultra, despite the name, would be running the console locally?

It is, the “ Ubiquiti SSO Cloud Users” are a remote cloud management console, the CGU runs a local management console.

As for the UE running as a AP & controller connected back to your existing router, you need to try a unifi forum unless anyone here has tested it.

[Gary C]

.:ian:. said:

RizzoTheRat said:

thebraketester said:

I’ve you’ve got a wired backhaul then why the need for a mesh system?

Would devices switch between multiple access points as well as with a mesh system?

Depends if you can see more than 1 node at a time. Devices tend to stick to one ap unless they really lose the connection. If you have 2.4gh and 5ghz (and 6ghz if you are swanky) the may switch to 2.4 on the same ap, instead of 5 and lose a lot of bandwidth.

The mesh should steer devices on to better nodes, but ymmv.

Yep

A good mesh that actively steers the client device to the best reception is a game changer and hardwiring all the AP's means you dont have to buy devices with a separate backhaul channel which means you can go with some of the cheaper devices.
For example, I have been using the BT mini disks for years now and they are perfect for my laptop and I can move about the house without any glitch whatsoever.

They are long in the tooth now and when I replace the laptop (which is the real bottleneck) I might replace them, but if you can hardwire your AP's, do it.

[RizzoTheRat]

Big thanks to troc for lending me a couple of his old Unifi Wifi 5 access points to have a play with and look at positioning and signal strength around the house. This lot turned up the other day so I have an exciting weekend planned



UDR7
U6 Pro
U6 Mesh
Lite 8 POE switch

Believe it or not this is after I tidied the utilities cupboard



Tempted to get a wall mount for the UDR and mount it up above the patch panel

[Gary C]

Desktop patch panels are ideal for home cupboard installation.

[RizzoTheRat]

Annoyingly after spending far too long yesterday failing to get my Ring doorbell to connect to the wifi, I discovered the 2.4GHz on the UDR7 doesn't work properly. Devices will connect to it, but with line of sight to my phone wifiman couldn't even get enough data to perform a speed test. The same 2.4GHz only wifi SSID worked fine on the other 2 AP's. I found a few posts online reporting a similar thing, and after a chat with thier online help I've sent them my support file and they're looking in to it.

The temporary workaround it to stick troc's old Flex HD next to it and run the 2.4GHz from that instead, which works perfectly, so I'm glad I was organised enough to give it back to him on Saturday .

If they can't fix the issue the longer term workaround is swap the UDR and and my U6 Mesh round, meaning it'll be ISP modem in the utilities cupboard- 20m ethernet to the lounge - Router - 20 m ethernet back to the switch in the cupboard. Not ideal but it would mean the router is in view so an excuse to buy one of these stands for it

[Bonefish Blues]

A question about the supply network if I may? Gigaclear has stopped digging, it's been commissioned and it's saying that their fibre's now available to order. As ever, a special price for 18 months, and then it goes up to just under £50.

We'll definitely be signing up, but my question is will others suppliers be able to piggyback on Gigaclear's network at some point, or will we effectively be stuck with Gigaclear forever, at whatever cost?

ETA
Answered my Q - yes, a few 'partners', but no price competition that I can see.

Edited by Bonefish Blues on Monday 28th April 11:25

[Bonefish Blues]

Gigaclear has done its thing and we have North of 900mb up and down. Feels like we're finally part of the First World

[gangzoom]

With WiFi7 now all the rage the price of the already cheap Tenda WiFi6 units are too hard to ignore.

£150 for 5 Tenda MX12 (WiFi6) nodes, setup seems to be pretty simple and signal boost of the nodes themselves seem to be better than the MW12/6s I current have. Will donate the MW12/6s to my in-laws once I setup the MX12s properly this weekend, for multiple devices pulling high bandwidth at the sometime WiFi6 should be a stepup from AC, main limitation now seems to be 70Mbps fake fibre (only to cabinet) we have.

[Downward]

Good afternoon.
Potential house move and they don’t have Virgin media so i’ll be starting cold with Full Fibre BB it seems.
What’s the best provider router wise for a decent wifi signal ?
The router is in the dining room in the new house so I will use a switch for hive and hue wired in but the PS5 and TV for UHD Sky will be from wifi.

I did have Eero 5’s years back but the newer VM super hub 6 did a good job so I got rid of the old tech.

[gangzoom]

Less than 24hrs into having the WiFi6 network setup versus previous WiFi5 and I'm amazed how much snappier browsing, streaming is on the WiFi6 network. No difference in measured speeds but there is a real noticeable difference in response times and general network stability when moving around the house.

I wasn't sure if the upgrade to WiFi6 from 5 was worth it, but anyone thinking of the trying WiFi6 at home I would 100% recommend it, especially now that WiFi7 is out which has really pushed the price of WiFi6 systems down to more reasonable price points.

[RizzoTheRat]

I'm surprised wifi7 kit is having that much impact on the price of wifi 6 yet. I don't think I actually have any wifi 7 devices in my house other than my new router. I guess a lot of people just have to have the newest shiniest kit.

[badgerade]

gangzoom said:

With WiFi7 now all the rage the price of the already cheap Tenda WiFi6 units are too hard to ignore.

£150 for 5 Tenda MX12 (WiFi6) nodes

Do you have a link? Have had 3 MW6's and 2 MW3s (to fool the sky q boxes into thinking they are wired) since Covid times and it feels like time for an upgrade.

[gangzoom]

^The Tenda stuff was never expensive in the first place but there are now loads of the WiFi6 stuff on eBay etc as I presume people are upgrading to WiFi7. £150 for 5 pre-owned nodes.....really cannot complain. The nodes are so cheap I'm comfortable putting on the shed so getting full WiFi6 reception even in the garden .

[gangzoom]

badgerade said:

Do you have a link? Have had 3 MW6's and 2 MW3s (to fool the sky q boxes into thinking they are wired) since Covid times and it feels like time for an upgrade.

I've gone for MX12s, and will work with MX15s if I ever wanted to add more nodes. Just go onto eBay or what ever other used sites, loads of choices. I ordered pack of 3 and than 2 from a different vendor, some of the sellers don't provide a power supply but the MW6 supplies work with MX12s so you can grab a cheap node.

[LordGrover]

Anyone here have any experience of Fritz!Box products?
My new full fibre came with Fritz!Box 7530 AX - first impressions are great.
Need to extend the wifi though, and they offer repeaters which should do the job, but know nothing about them. Can anyone recommend or comment?

[KobayashiMaru86]

Gone to FTTP last week but they reused the Home Hub which is coming up to 5yrs old and doesn't seem much faster. The test to the hub says it is over the 500mb I'm supposed to get but Wifi is barely 100mb when I'm in the same room. I either replace the router for a better one or go for a full mesh setup. TP-Link seem OK and am using them for Powerline currently which works fine. Was recommended one of the Archer models for the router or go Deco XE75 for the mesh.

[Ed.Neumann]

LordGrover said:

Anyone here have any experience of Fritz!Box products?
My new full fibre came with Fritz!Box 7530 AX - first impressions are great.
Need to extend the wifi though, and they offer repeaters which should do the job, but know nothing about them. Can anyone recommend or comment?

I have been using the Fritz 7530 and 7530ax routers for a few years now.

Extremely stable, uptime in months, just checked my fibre speed and getting 914Mbps down and 108 up.




The older ones I have just used as mesh repeaters.

I keep thinking I think I might invest in some proper fast mesh repeaters, but my Qnap is on attached to the router, all my downloads go directly to that anyway, so apart some sending large files between machines, which I hardly ever do, I don't really see the point.