More Mesh questions...
Discussion
Ok, I know there's even a topic on this 2 posts down, and I've had a quick look back, but I'd like some hints for my exact situation rather than hijacking another thread - sorry!
Current set-up is PlusNet router in one top corner of our long, stone, house.
Powerline adaptors take the signal from there - one adaptor in the living room with the Firestick wired in for streaming; one the far end of the house wired to this computer. Those adaptors produce reasonable wifi coverage but with some dead spots and often poor hand-off between them.
We also have a garage 20 meters or so across the lawn. I've got a range extender set-up in an upstairs window in the house which just about gets the signal down to the garage, so long as the receiver is in the window there in line of sight. Being an extender, it's a separate network name so (so you have to deliberately connect to it usually)... and I leave it switched off most of the time unless I know I'll need it. (Used to have a powerline in the garage too, but it went flaky (and it seems to be the wiring as all 3 adaptors I have do the same in the garage and work fine in the house)).
As I have some budget available to sort this out, is a mesh system likely to work for us?
I'm guessing possibly 4 nodes apart from the original router - I'd still want to wire the Firestick and this PC in so that's one either end of downstairs, one in the window upstairs to give the garage a chance still, and one in garage permanently on so I have a proper signal that end of the world too.
Current set-up is PlusNet router in one top corner of our long, stone, house.
Powerline adaptors take the signal from there - one adaptor in the living room with the Firestick wired in for streaming; one the far end of the house wired to this computer. Those adaptors produce reasonable wifi coverage but with some dead spots and often poor hand-off between them.
We also have a garage 20 meters or so across the lawn. I've got a range extender set-up in an upstairs window in the house which just about gets the signal down to the garage, so long as the receiver is in the window there in line of sight. Being an extender, it's a separate network name so (so you have to deliberately connect to it usually)... and I leave it switched off most of the time unless I know I'll need it. (Used to have a powerline in the garage too, but it went flaky (and it seems to be the wiring as all 3 adaptors I have do the same in the garage and work fine in the house)).
As I have some budget available to sort this out, is a mesh system likely to work for us?
I'm guessing possibly 4 nodes apart from the original router - I'd still want to wire the Firestick and this PC in so that's one either end of downstairs, one in the window upstairs to give the garage a chance still, and one in garage permanently on so I have a proper signal that end of the world too.
defblade said:
Ok, I know there's even a topic on this 2 posts down, and I've had a quick look back, but I'd like some hints for my exact situation rather than hijacking another thread - sorry!
Current set-up is PlusNet router in one top corner of our long, stone, house.
Powerline adaptors take the signal from there - one adaptor in the living room with the Firestick wired in for streaming; one the far end of the house wired to this computer. Those adaptors produce reasonable wifi coverage but with some dead spots and often poor hand-off between them.
We also have a garage 20 meters or so across the lawn. I've got a range extender set-up in an upstairs window in the house which just about gets the signal down to the garage, so long as the receiver is in the window there in line of sight. Being an extender, it's a separate network name so (so you have to deliberately connect to it usually)... and I leave it switched off most of the time unless I know I'll need it. (Used to have a powerline in the garage too, but it went flaky (and it seems to be the wiring as all 3 adaptors I have do the same in the garage and work fine in the house)).
As I have some budget available to sort this out, is a mesh system likely to work for us?
I'm guessing possibly 4 nodes apart from the original router - I'd still want to wire the Firestick and this PC in so that's one either end of downstairs, one in the window upstairs to give the garage a chance still, and one in garage permanently on so I have a proper signal that end of the world too.
Sounds feasible. Go for a mesh that allows wired backhaul.Current set-up is PlusNet router in one top corner of our long, stone, house.
Powerline adaptors take the signal from there - one adaptor in the living room with the Firestick wired in for streaming; one the far end of the house wired to this computer. Those adaptors produce reasonable wifi coverage but with some dead spots and often poor hand-off between them.
We also have a garage 20 meters or so across the lawn. I've got a range extender set-up in an upstairs window in the house which just about gets the signal down to the garage, so long as the receiver is in the window there in line of sight. Being an extender, it's a separate network name so (so you have to deliberately connect to it usually)... and I leave it switched off most of the time unless I know I'll need it. (Used to have a powerline in the garage too, but it went flaky (and it seems to be the wiring as all 3 adaptors I have do the same in the garage and work fine in the house)).
As I have some budget available to sort this out, is a mesh system likely to work for us?
I'm guessing possibly 4 nodes apart from the original router - I'd still want to wire the Firestick and this PC in so that's one either end of downstairs, one in the window upstairs to give the garage a chance still, and one in garage permanently on so I have a proper signal that end of the world too.
From what you describe I would imagine a good setup would be: Main node wired in living room. Powerline backhaul to another node at far end of house. Stand alone node in a room somewhere in between to provide whole house coverage. Fourth node standalone in the window of the garage to extend network out to there.
You can get cheap ethernet switches (sub 20 quid) that you can use to 'break out' single wired connections from, if you want to plug in both a mesh node and a computer, streaming box etc into a single powerline adapter port.
defblade said:
Can you mix powerline and mesh?
Depends on how you're mixing them.If the mesh units allow for a wired backhaul, you could use the powerline to provide that backhaul.
As for "Poor handoff" on your powerline units, Wifi isn't cellular, so it won't move to the access point with the strongest signal... Which is why mesh networks are the way to go.
So when are we going to have a Wifi/Mesh sticky at the top of this page??
M
defblade said:
Can you mix powerline and mesh?
Our powerline adaptors do wifi as well; the one in the far end of the house this computer's plugged into loses connection and needs a quick off/on every now and then...
Yes - assuming you get a mesh system that supports wired backhaul you just use a powerline adaptor to provide the backhaul (assuming it provides a better connection than letting the node in question communicate to others via Wireless). Typically this would be useful if the house was large/had thick walls and there was a node(s) that had a poor wifi connection to the others. The other way round that is more nodes but then you are having the traffic have to do many wireless hops to get back to your router which might or might not be an issue depending on your use case. If you were cloud gaming or streaming games off your PC via Steamlink/Moonlight you'd want as few wifi hops as possible, for example.Our powerline adaptors do wifi as well; the one in the far end of the house this computer's plugged into loses connection and needs a quick off/on every now and then...
If you get a cheap gigabit hub (last gigabit one I bought was <20 quid) you can share the wired connection from the powerline with four wired devices (like a computer and a mesh node + whatever).
My own setup uses powerline/cable to the hub for the fixed things (Playstation, set top box, Smart TV, Main computer, small home server etc.) and a wifi mesh for all the devices that only have WiFi or are likely to be moved around. The mesh supports wired backhaul but I have no need of it - the house is small enough that three wireless nodes give pretty much perfect coverage/signal all over the house right out into the garden and back yard (and even beyond, which is handy .. by the time I get to my gate my phone has already connected to my wifi).
When you get the mesh, turn off all the other wifi (from your router and the powerline/wifi adaptors) as it will just add to wireless congestion.
Edited by Lucas Ayde on Monday 17th July 11:00
Lucas Ayde said:
My own setup uses powerline/cable to the hub for the fixed things (Playstation, set top box, Smart TV, Main computer, small home server etc.) and a wifi mesh for all the devices that only have WiFi or are likely to be moved around. The mesh supports wired backhaul but I have no need of it - the house is small enough that three wireless nodes give pretty much perfect coverage/signal all over the house right out into the garden and back yard (and even beyond, which is handy .. by the time I get to my gate my phone has already connected to my wifi).
When you get the mesh, turn off all the other wifi (from your router and the powerline/wifi adaptors) as it will just add to wireless congestion.
That bit sounds about perfect; my powerline adaptors have 2 network sockets each anyway, so adding a mesh node to each would be simple.When you get the mesh, turn off all the other wifi (from your router and the powerline/wifi adaptors) as it will just add to wireless congestion.
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