Signal Loss on the other side of the house.. options?

[terminator]

I got a 86u running merlin. Works great but I got the TV on the other side of the house using WiFi and there is great signal loss where the YouTube TV, Sling TV, lags quite the bit. TV is the only device on 5Ghz band. There are 10-15 other devices on the 2.4Ghz band and none of them are streaming video. I have 100 mbps up/down fiber connection and various tests show that I am getting around that which is good.

I can't really run a cable. What are my options? I know merlin does not support mesh and that is fine. A cheaper/smaller device in the middle to run as a repeater? Will it issue its own ipaddress or can it act as just a wireless access point?

 

[JDB]

Move the TV to 2.4Ghz as it has much better range


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[elorimer]

You might better describe for us your internal architecture, and then rethink it:

1. The speed of the fiber connection isn't relevant; we're looking at the internal LAN part.

2. Even if you can't run an ethernet cable to the TV, you might be able to move your router to a more central location, or up a floor.

3. If your TV is wired somehow, you might move the router to it, or there might be a splitter somewhere in the middle that you can tap off of. I have cable, not fiber, and I have legacy coax to places I don't use at all.

4. You might try a powerline connection instead of a repeater.

5. The repeater will be half speed. If you have an older wireless router you might repurpose it as a repeater to try it out.

Long ago I worked a single cat5e cable from one end of the house to the other and it was the best thing I ever did. One end is the router, one end is an access point.

 

[Klueless]

Move the TV to 2.4Ghz as it has much better range

Absolutely agree. If you want "test" the theory take a high end laptop, connect @ 5, then 2.4 from various locations and run your speed tests. What you're likely to see is 5 GHz outperforming 2.4 when you're close to the router and 2.4 outperforming 5GHz when you're by the TV.

The repeater will be half speed.

If 2.4 doesn't cut it then a repeater might work just fine. They have a bad rap because the single band ones from the days of b/g/n did indeed "half" the speed. But, now-a-days, the problem goes away with dual band repeaters. Check out the Netgear 6150 with "fast lane" for example. You can usually find them for about $70 and it should handle your TV problem nicely.

 

[gschlact]

I got a 86u running merlin. Works great but I got the TV on the other side of the house using WiFi and there is great signal loss where the YouTube TV, Sling TV, lags quite the bit. TV is the only device on 5Ghz band. There are 10-15 other devices on the 2.4Ghz band and none of them are streaming video. I have 100 mbps up/down fiber connection and various tests show that I am getting around that which is good.

I can't really run a cable. What are my options? I know merlin does not support mesh and that is fine. A cheaper/smaller device in the middle to run as a repeater? Will it issue its own ipaddress or can it act as just a wireless access point?

Did you measure signal strength on each band?
On Merlin, you can increase the wireless power.

 

[terminator]

Thank you.

> I changed to 2.4 Ghz to see what happens. Seems to be slightly better but still 1-2 freezes in the last hour. I had this as the only device on 5Ghz in hopes that it will not get too much interference.

> I understand that the speed of the fiber connection is irrelevant but I wanted to provide as much information as I thought would help because then someone would say "it could be because your internet connection is slow".

> From ONT (fiber) outside, the ethernet cables comes to one end of the house and the TV is on the other end of the house (same floor). Sure, I could move the setup but it is work that I am trying to avoid.

> I haven't done speed tests with numbers but my macbook pro streaming video at the same location or the other end of the house one floor up does not have any issues. I am assuming the Shield TV connected to the TV needs an extra strong connection.

> I read that there isn't a way to adjust/increase the Tx speed any more.

> I see there are other mesh devices available. I am happy with merlin and 86u setup so looking for a way to just compliment that with an additional small device as repeater if that would help.

 

[MarcusVR]

I own a RT-AC88U, but Merlin doesn't supports Mesh. So I bought a TP-Link RE650 repeater, and it's awesome! Now I can stream Netflix in 4k at my home theater, where the poor quality of the connection neither allowed to watch it in HD before. It's a solution I may recommend to you, once I have more than 20 devices acessing internet simultaneously.

 

[MarcusVR]

Thank you.

> I changed to 2.4 Ghz to see what happens. Seems to be slightly better but still 1-2 freezes in the last hour. I had this as the only device on 5Ghz in hopes that it will not get too much interference.

> I understand that the speed of the fiber connection is irrelevant but I wanted to provide as much information as I thought would help because then someone would say "it could be because your internet connection is slow".

> From ONT (fiber) outside, the ethernet cables comes to one end of the house and the TV is on the other end of the house (same floor). Sure, I could move the setup but it is work that I am trying to avoid.

> I haven't done speed tests with numbers but my macbook pro streaming video at the same location or the other end of the house one floor up does not have any issues. I am assuming the Shield TV connected to the TV needs an extra strong connection.

> I read that there isn't a way to adjust/increase the Tx speed any more.

> I see there are other mesh devices available. I am happy with merlin and 86u setup so looking for a way to just compliment that with an additional small device as repeater if that would help.

Terminator, I don't know if you solved your problem, but Merlin is now supporting Mesh - althought it is experimental yet, there are narratives saying it works well -, so I'm buying a RT-AC68u to use as mesh node!