eero/amplifi mesh like alternative?

[Derrek]

I am looking to get faster speeds throughout my house. Reliability/No hassle is more important than raw performance.

Requirements:

1. Since several of my devices are 3x3 mimo 1300Mbps, I would like the entire network to be capable of at least that.
2. Seemless roaming. No switching SSID's, turning wi-fi on/off.
   
3. Connect some wired devices via some kind of wireless bridge.
4. Support 170Mbps internet connection everywhere.
   
5. 15-30 active devices of varying traffic levels at any given time. Time Machine Backups and other things are running regularly.
6. I work from home in technology, and need the network to stay rock solid stable at all times.

What I am currently using: Airport Extreme 802.11ac (current model) connected to an SB6190 surfboard.

Current Problems: My house is compact and the airport covers it almost entirely but not at consistent speeds. On top of that the airport extreme is failing in odd ways. (not going into it, but I have recently abandoned Apple Fan Boy status and will not be purchasing many/any Apple products going forward).

Why not the eero 3-pack? Mostly requirement 1 above. It bugs me to have many clients that are faster than my network. Otherwise I would have purchased and tried eero already.

Enter Amplifi: I have an Amplifi HD on pre-order. My concern is the mesh points have no ethernet ports. So I still need one or two 3x3 1300Mbps wireless bridges to connect some remote wired devices (maybe tp-link c9?). It's also 6-8 weeks away minimum. I would love to solve this now, not in 2 months.

What have I tried? The linksys ac5400 ea9500 router. I had stability issues with it on day one. I eventually got things working (4 hours with linksys support), but it offered essentially nothing over my Airport Extreme. Not even much range, if any. And speed tests seemed to be less stable than the Airport. Returned it. If it weren't so expensive, I probably would have just kept it and moved on. But that price should have given me something tangible over my airport.

What else have I considered?

1. Powerline network for the wired devices (+ switch), and a router + repeater or second AP (via powerline). This seems to have roaming issues as the two networks are not really the same.
2. Router with repeater/extender - Most repeaters seem to split bandwidth. In this case I would be better off with eero overall. Either that or the same roaming issues from above apply.
   
3. Amplifi with one or more client bridge capable routers? (C9's maybe? are they client bridge mode friendly?)

Note: I like the idea of the tri-band routers. One theory I have is that my airport extreme is occasionally overloaded creating my problems. But I can't prove that. If it is true, I'm not sure any single network (even a mesh) will fix the problems (assuming the apple router isn't just broken in some way).

Sorry for the long post, I've been working on this for the last few weeks and I just feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. The airport extreme has been acting up for months. I finally resolved some problems (ipv6 on comcast was causing some issues), but I still have random issues.

If anyone has suggestions, comments, alternative solutions, theories, I would love to hear them!

Thanks!

 

[dunkin]

You have a cable modem. Do you have cable wired in your rooms? Try MoCA 2.0 adapters


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[Derrek]

You have cable modem. Do you have cable wired in your rooms? Try MoCA 2.0 adapters


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I just replaced the comcast supplied 3939B cable modem with the surfboard SB6190 (not sure if moca can happen, I saw the option on the 3939B). It is comcast business class and they wired it directly into my office. It is not throughout the house unfortunately. That is a neat idea though. We have been talking about switching our TV to xfinity. The biggest blocker is they don't let us mix business and residential packages. So DirectTV ends up being much cheaper.

There is coax cable in other locations in the house (due to a previous owners dish network). I might be able to tie it all together with Moca. I'll look into that. My guess is it would be just as easy to run some cat7 as a new network. I just don't want to deal with running cables.

Good suggestion!

--Derrek

 

[thiggins]

If you really want fast and reliable wireless, you want multiple APs connected via a wired backbone, preferably Ethernet. Take the hit and run the cable. CAT5e is just fine (CAT7?!?!?).

 

[Derrek]

If you really want fast and reliable wireless, you want multiple APs connected via a wired backbone, preferably Ethernet. Take the hit and run the cable. CAT5e is just fine (CAT7?!?!?).

I ran wiring as an intern many many many years ago (hence why I don't want to do it. I think I developed an allergy to it . I wouldn't use cat 5e today myself. Cat 6, possibly. The reason is it's not entirely out of the question for me to have 10Gigabit equipment in my home (I don't currently). I've had to test that level of equipment in the past. And yes, cat 6 and cat 7 are entirely overkill for any normal sane person's network. I just don't always fit that category.

On the multiple APs connected via a wired backbone suggestion: Other than having to do the wiring, what about the roaming issue? Will multiple home APs support seamless roaming from one AP to the other? I don't want my devices stuck on the AP that's farther away.

I'm also considering a few unifi APs from ubiquiti. And doing a pro configuration. I just don't really want the work. I know these should support roaming. I just don't know if any easier home products do. (beyond eero, luma, amplifi).

Thanks!

--Derrek

 

[Derrek]

I just learned something about Amplifi. I assumed it was more like eero with two radios per AP (Amplifi calls them mesh points). But the mesh points are single radio repeaters. So, your best case rate is roughly half your signal strength when connected to a mesh point (like any other repeater on the market).

They also aren't capable of chaining (again due to single radio). So all mesh points need to be in range of the base station.

It looks like I'm down to eero without 3x3 or wired AP's (potentially without seamless roaming). Fun.

--Derrek

 

[thiggins]

Sounds like you want a high performance reliable WLAN, but don't want to do the work, i.e. cabling, required to get it.

There are no easy solutions, particularly for the throughput and reliability you are targeting.

"Seamless" roaming is very dependent on the client. Some roam readily, others not so much. There are many, many threads here that discuss the pros and cons; success stories and failures.

The Ubiquiti Amplifi system is a bundle of router and plain ol' wireless extenders. There is no mesh technology involved. But the "mesh points" have simultaneous dual-band radios. So they could use one band for backhaul and the other for client connect.
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/ubiquiti-launches-multi-ap-consumer-wi-fi-system.32446/

Eero is also simultaneous dual-band, but one radio serves up both 2.4 and 5 GHz high band (Ch 149 - 163). The other is dedicated to 5 GHz low band (Ch 36 - 48).
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/32962-eero-home-wi-fi-system-reviewed

As of March, eero had not implemented band-steering or load balancing among eero units. 802.11k or v are not supported but 802.11r is (fast reassociation).

 

[Derrek]

Sounds like you want a high performance reliable WLAN, but don't want to do the work, i.e. cabling, required to get it.

There are no easy solutions, particularly for the throughput and reliability you are targeting.

"Seamless" roaming is very dependent on the client. Some roam readily, others not so much. There are many, many threads here that discuss the pros and cons; success stories and failures.

The Ubiquiti Amplifi system is a bundle of router and plain ol' wireless extenders. There is no mesh technology involved. But the "mesh points" have simultaneous dual-band radios. So they could use one band for backhaul and the other for client connect.
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/ubiquiti-launches-multi-ap-consumer-wi-fi-system.32446/

Eero is also simultaneous dual-band, but one radio serves up both 2.4 and 5 GHz high band (Ch 149 - 163). The other is dedicated to 5 GHz low band (Ch 36 - 48).
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/32962-eero-home-wi-fi-system-reviewed

As of March, eero had not implemented band-steering or load balancing among eero units. 802.11k or v are not supported but 802.11r is (fast reassociation).

So lets say I accept that I need to run some wires. What 3x3 APs support 802.11r and k. (v seems unnecessary for home use but I'll take it if it is available). Supposedly all the devices that would roam on my network support all 3 of those protocols. (All my apple devices do. do they actually work? I don't know). All remaining stationary devices would hopefully be smart enough to select the strongest signal. (Like the Nintendo Wii)

Any recommendations for a group of APs that supports those protocols?

 

[thiggins]

Any recommendations for a group of APs that supports those protocols?

Sorry, I have no specific recommendations since we don't test a lot of APs. You'll need to dig into vendor specs to find out.

Apple devices reportedly roam pretty well.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202628

 

[Derrek]

Sorry, I have no specific recommendations since we don't test a lot of APs. You'll need to dig into vendor specs to find out.

Apple devices reportedly roam pretty well.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202628

That link is where I got the 802.11k/r/v info.

They could be routers in AP only mode. Would you know of any wireless routers that support the protocols for a single SSID?

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

Not offhand. This information is very hard to come by. I've pinged Linksys to see if any of their APs support 11k or r. Will post back when I hear.

 

[Derrek]

Not offhand. This information is very hard to come by. I've pinged Linksys to see if any of their APs support 11k or r. Will post back when I hear.

Thanks!

 

[whsbuss]

Check the UniFi AC line. They are strictly APs that require a network-connected DHCP router. http://www.ubnt.com check the AC Pro

 

[Derrek]

I'm on vacation in Mexico so I may be slow to respond.

These may be a good option if I can fully wire all points. i believe they can even be configured as a mesh. I have not determined if they have dual radios with one dedicated to the backhaul (like eero). But if i wire, these are probably what I will use. I do like the configuability they come with.

 

[RogerSC]

MoCA has nothing to do with the modem, it's set up just like powerline networking, only MoCA 2.0 is faster and more reliable than any powerline networking that you'll find. You have a MoCA adapter at your router that puts ethernet signals onto the cable TV coax in your walls, and then wherever you want to use your network you need another adapter to get what's on the TV coax cables back to ethernet again. It's really convenient if you want fast ethernet speeds and are wired for cable TV, but don't want to (or can't) run ethernet cable. The adapters aren't cheap, though, Actiontec has a couple of MoCA 2.0 adapters for about $130-$150 (they're on sale at the moment) at Amazon depending on which models you want to use.

For me, it would be two adapters, since all I really want to do is put an AP at about the middle of my house. Haven't personally decided myself what I'm going to do at this point. I have used MoCA 1.1 quite a bit, and it has worked well for me. It is limited to about 100Mbps though, where MoCA 2.0 doesn't have that limit.

 

[Darcy]

Read a couple of positive reviews for Amplifi. I believe they start shipping in August.


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