Help with AP Placement - House Layout Pictures Provided

[lardo5150]

Here is my home. It is 3300sqft 2 story.
This is a new home build (it was a spec), so there is already network cable ran in some spots.
I just verified, and went up into the attack and verified I have access to about 95% of the house.

Here are pictures.
Where you see blue lines, is where my current two routers are (one downstairs, and one upstairs).
I have marked X's in RED where I can run cable to and am thinking of placing my APs.
I am 95% settled on the TPLink Omada. I believe from their setup instructions, I can mount the EAP245 on the ceiling or wall.

in the Hallway, on the right side is my wife's office. There is no network cable there. She is all wifi.
On the left of the hallway, that wall with pictures, is our garage. I have already ran a network cable out to the ceiling there just in case.

Upstairs, on the left is my media room that has my other router and the pre-existing network cables. In the game room on the right where the TV is, that is where the girls' Nintendo Switch is, where we CONSTANTLY have wifi issues.

You can see where I placed RED Xs, I can run wire there and was thinking of placing an EAP245 there.
I was going to do 1 downstairs, 1 upstairs, and one possibly in the garage.
I want wifi obviously all through the house, but outside as well. I have three Nest Cameras around the house.
Two in front, one in back.

In the living room there where the TV, my current router is behind the TV. I was thinking of either placing the TPLink in the exact same spot mounted on the wall, or on the "ceiling" of that little indention where the TV sits, or up by the smoke detector on the top of the ceiling (I can run wire there, but will need to borrow some super duper latter to actually hang it if it goes there).

For the hallway, if need to, we can put one in the ceiling or on the wall above the pictures.

Upstairs, either behind the TV or on the ceiling

And of course I can put one in the garage.

I thought three should do it.

What do you guys think?

 

[lardo5150]

 

[lardo5150]

The spot in the living room, now that I stare at it, I am not sure I could get up there without renting some scaffolding or something.
What about above the tv, on the "ceiling" of that indention?

Maybe 1 above the TV, one above the hallway, and one upstairs? If I have any issues outside I could add the outdoor AP?

 

[Trip]

The pics are helpful; a blueprint would also be helpful to get a sense of horizontal spacing, but from what I can see the general idea is pretty good.

A general guide of one AP per 1,000 square feet is a pretty good reference point to start from, presuming you can space them well enough to equalize coverage. For the living room, you may not need to mount the AP all the way up on that high ceiling; I would try it on the little "ceiling" above the TV, then another on the ceiling of your wife's office and a third on the ceiling above the TV upstairs.

Also, you want signal at the mid-points between APs to be in the -60 to -75dB range, for optimal roaming. I would start by surveying with whatever model EAP you're planning on in all spots, before you hard-mount; that way you can adjust physical location for optimal RF behavior if needed. You may also have to play with transmit power to fine-tune coverage and/or roaming.

If you do end up going Omada, don't forget to run the controller on your own appliance (PC, RPi, VM/Docker), or just buy an OC200; it's necessary for proper 802.11r/k/v fast-transition roaming.

 

[lardo5150]

The pics are helpful; a blueprint would also be helpful to get a sense of horizontal spacing, but from what I can see the general idea is pretty good.

A general guide of one AP per 1,000 square feet is a pretty good reference point to start from, presuming you can space them well enough to equalize coverage. For the living room, you may not need to mount the AP all the way up on that high ceiling; I would try it on the little "ceiling" above the TV, then another on the ceiling of your wife's office and a third on the ceiling above the TV upstairs.

Also, you want signal at the mid-points between APs to be in the -60 to -75dB range, for optimal roaming. I would start by surveying with whatever model EAP you're planning on in all spots, before you hard-mount; that way you can adjust physical location for optimal RF behavior if needed. You may also have to play with transmit power to fine-tune coverage and/or roaming.

If you do end up going Omada, don't forget to run the controller on your own appliance (PC, RPi, VM/Docker), or just buy an OC200; it's necessary for proper 802.11r/k/v fast-transition roaming.

Trip = da man
Yes, I actually just planned on buying their controller. I do have floor plans, let me grab those.
I was hoping you would say the AP was not needed at the VERY top. No clue how I would get up there.

 

[Trip]

The living room AP may actually function better lower to the ground. I would also say if you did manage to get it on that high ceiling, you'd want it a bit closer to the ceiling fan -- ie. less buried in that high "nook", which, from what I can see, would cause more immediate interference of any broadcast/connections aimed down and into the hallway (having to come up through what would effectively be two walls and whatever is in-between to reach the AP; at that point those devices might then contemplate roaming to the wife's office AP).

All in all, though, if getting the living room AP that high up would pretty much require divine intervention, I wouldn't risk it. You probably won't be forgoing that much performance/reach, if any at all.

 

[lardo5150]

I will look into getting/borrowing some type of ladder that can put me up by the ceiling fan (need to change out those bulbs anyways from soft white to daylight)
I will add, the attic space above that ceiling fan, I am not sure if it is accessible. The way they designed the roof, there is structure halfway between the smoke detector and ceiling fan. I can't remember when I was up there yesterday, but I am pretty sure that I could possibly put that AP anywhere from next to the ceiling fan to five feet back, but it would be away from that nook wall in any case. So I can always try that. But I think I MIGHT just start with the nook above the TV first and test.

The red circles are where Ethernet was ran. The blue circle is my main box where all the cables come in. Obviously from my post above, you know where I can and can't run cable.
I for sure can't run cable directly above my wife's office, but I can put the AP in the hallway right next to it.

EDIT: The "DINING" room, was converted into her office.

 

[Trip]

I'd go ceiling of the living room, ceiling of the hallway (centered on the dining room opening) and then on the ceiling above the TV in the upstairs room.

 

[coxhaus]

I think I would lay out long patch cables and test for best placement. You may need 3 APs depends on how much back yard coverage you want and see if can cover what you want with 2 APs.

Your router can be anywhere as long as you have a switch at the patch panel. You can add a second switch at your entertainment center that's what I do. Any room where you need more than 1 Ethernet port just add a small switch.

 

[Tech Focus]

Omada looks like enterprise line of product. Doe it have a virtual coverage heat map function? I don’t think any of AP driven heatmap is super accurate but it may give you some guidance. I used it for my setup. Even though I had almost adequate coverage for my 3800 sqft with 2 APs, I used heat map function for planning my third AP placement and for my case, it was spot on.

 

[lardo5150]

I am not sure, maybe someone with Omada can comment?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[lardo5150]

Looks like it does

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[Trip]

It absolutely does: https://emulator.tp-link.com/oc200/index.html#map
Click on "Coverage" above the map.

 

[Tech Focus]

Cool. Theoretically it should never be as good and client based direct measurement but I personally thought it was helpful for starting point.

 

[lardo5150]

The pics are helpful; a blueprint would also be helpful to get a sense of horizontal spacing, but from what I can see the general idea is pretty good.

A general guide of one AP per 1,000 square feet is a pretty good reference point to start from, presuming you can space them well enough to equalize coverage. For the living room, you may not need to mount the AP all the way up on that high ceiling; I would try it on the little "ceiling" above the TV, then another on the ceiling of your wife's office and a third on the ceiling above the TV upstairs.

Also, you want signal at the mid-points between APs to be in the -60 to -75dB range, for optimal roaming. I would start by surveying with whatever model EAP you're planning on in all spots, before you hard-mount; that way you can adjust physical location for optimal RF behavior if needed. You may also have to play with transmit power to fine-tune coverage and/or roaming.

If you do end up going Omada, don't forget to run the controller on your own appliance (PC, RPi, VM/Docker), or just buy an OC200; it's necessary for proper 802.11r/k/v fast-transition roaming.

Trip, to figure -60db in between APs, just use a WiFi analyzer with my phone to see?
And how does that look, would we want to see both signals at this db while standing in the middle?

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[Trip]

Trip, to figure -60db in between APs, just use a WiFi analyzer with my phone to see?
And how does that look, would we want to see both signals at this db while standing in the middle?

Yes, and if doing two at once you want to run the APs in standalone mode and use unique SSID's per AP, so you can read both signals separately.