Wireless Network for 2200sqft home + wired for ethernet

[Mike V]

Hi,
Long time lurker here.
Here are some technical info that should help:
Home:
2 Floors
~2200 sqft
Most rooms are wired with ethernet ports
Home's internet is managed by a microPC running Pfsense.

Plan:
Would like to have 1 router up on the 2nd floor loft (towards the front of the house) and 1 router on the 1st floor living room (towards the back of the house)


Looking for:
A router setup that can blanket the entire home and maintain 1 wifi SSID.


Long part:
I'm trying to replace my old ASUS rt n56u router and I heard of these mesh devices that is supposedly the new best way to blanket the home with consistent wifi.
As mentioned, most of the rooms have ethernet so I can hardwire the nodes anywhere. I don't know much about this mesh stuff but would like some advice as to what I should get so I can maintain 1 SSID and be able to blanket the home with no deadzones.

I was told to check out Orbi (although it's not true mesh, it seems pretty impressive) and the Ubiquiti Unifi products. I'm wondering if I hardwire all the nodes, would that defeat the purpose of having a mesh set up? and if i wire them all, does it make any difference to throughput as opposed to having only 1 node being wired?

Thanks!

 

[CaptainSTX]

With Ethernet wiring a mesh system may not be the most cost effective way to set up your network.

1. First you should try to connect any device that doesn't move to the Ethernet cabling. Ethernet is the most trouble free and fastest way to connect. Streaming devices should be your highest priority to connect to your Ethernet backbone. Use inexpensive unmanaged switches at locations where you need multiple connections and only have a single Ethernet jack.

2. Your N56 can be repurposed as an AP.

3. If you can connect your high bandwidth items using Ethernet then an AC1900 router should be more than enough to handle your network.

4. Depending on your homes layout it is possible you will need a third AP particularly if you want to use the 5 Ghz band.

5. While a single SSID for all routers and radios sounds great your results will depend more on the devices and how "sticky" they are to any particular radio.

6. If you decide to go with a mesh system be aware that not all systems support Ethernet backhaul.

 

[Mike V]

Thank you for your response, i guess I was still missing a few more info. I'll try to clarify on anything that was missed in my original post.

1) the wireless network is for all devices that are mobile. Anything else that is non moving will get an ethernet cable.
2) currently the N56 is acting as an AP but the problem is that the wireless quality is becoming more and more spotty. my phone and laptop sometimes show that there's internet but the connection is not stable enough to maintain a connection
4) my home layout is a relatively standard 2 story set up. communal rooms on the first floor and private spaces on the 2nd floor. but i'm hoping to have 1 device that can handle both 2.4ghz & 5ghz band together.

5) can you elaborate more on the thing about devices being "sticky"? is it in reference to how tenacious a device is when it's connected to a particular node? wouldn't something like the Unifi series product handle the handoff more... seamlessly?
6) I haven't found any mesh device that explicitly say they support ethernet backhaul, but i do know the orbi has a dedicated 5ghz band for backhaul. I'm wondering though, does this matter a lot in regards to node to node communication?

 

[thiggins]

Luma, eero, Linksys Velop, Google WiFi all support Ethernet backhaul. Orbi does not.

Info on sticky clients:
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/what-are-sticky-clients-802-11k-v-r-explained.30689/

Review of Ubiquiti UAPs:
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...iti-ac-pro-and-ac-lite-access-points-reviewed

 

[MichaelCG]

A single AP in a two-story 2000sqft house will probably not give great coverage in the 5GHz band unless it is a completely open floor plan with the AP sitting in the center of the house. Even then, on the 2nd floor the coverage on the outskirts will probably be less than ideal.

If you don't mind doing a bit of tinkering, look at the Ubiquiti UAP line. If you want less tinkering and customization options, look at the other Mesh products. You don't "need" a mesh product if you have wired back haul. It may simplify configuration and ease of adding coverage to random places you may not have Ethernet drops handy. The UAP line is generally quite affordable and works quite well assuming you don't mind the bit of the Ubiquiti tinkering to deal with.

 

[tannebil]

There are a couple of other things to think about. One is that if you have multiple APs, it’s convenient to have a single point of management. Also, if all the APs are designed to work together, it’s easier for them to have cooperative features, e.g. interference management, enhanced roaming, load balancing, restricted connection hours for devices or classes of devices like “all the kids”. If you have a set of rando access points, these things are much harder to do.

One of the big problems with wireless backhaul is that trying to balance client signal quality and backhaul signal quality across two frequency bands with vastly different RF characteristics makes positioning the AP critical but I’ve yet to see anything on the consumer space that gives more than rudimentary help. Eero and Plume seem to focus on “good enough” so you place them, hope for the best, a try moving them around to try to improve it. I found it most unsatisfactory. Plume support is able to look at the various signal strengths and give some advice after I sent a floor plan but it’s clearly not a scalable approach to the problem. There’s a reason that a quality commercial WiFi install isn’t cheap.

I used eero for a month or so before passing it on to a friend because i wanted to try Plume. I’ve got seven Plume pods in my house (2600 sf) and have excellent connections (250-350Mbps in perf3) in every room where we use wireless devices. These are all on wired backhaul (5 GB Ethernet, 2 MoCA 2.0 bonded). One nice feature is that if I want to improve the signal in a room w/o a wired connection, $69 gives me a wireless backhaul AP in the room that’s likely to have a good connection to a wired AP (100-150Mbps).

They are not perfect (roaming and moving fixed devices to the optimal AP need more work but I feel like it’s a big improvement from my previous setup (Apple AirPort Extreme + ASUS TM-1900AC).

Ubiquiti has lots of knobs and dials to adjust things but you’ve got to know a lot about WiFi to use them wisely. I actually want fewer settings to tweak and I’m happy to leave optimization to the great Plume cloud in the sky.

 

[Mike V]

I just updated the op with 1 additional info. I am using a micropc running pfsense.
In this case, will it be easier to run 2 regular routers and have them act as APs and leave it at that? will I be able to set them up so they have identical SSID and password and have pfsense manage the client connections?

I just want to make sure that I can give the home a steady connection anywhere.


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[Mike V]

quick bump.

So in this case, should I just get x2 Ubiquiti UniFi AC HD and place one on each floor and be done with it? If I give both internet, will it help keep the connection reliable while having the same SSID?

in regards to wired backhaul, if i want the 2 UniFi AC HD to communicate properly, do I have to route them to talk to each other specifically or can I just connect both to a switch that already has internet access?

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

You connect APs to your LAN. If set to DHCP, they will get proper addresses and all traffic will be on the same network. There is no routing configuration required.

 

[MichaelCG]

If you think you will get 5GHz through all walls, your plan of 2 will work. You need to look at your floor plan more closely and determine if you can get great 5GHz everywhere in the house with just 2 APs. I have no issues with my devices roaming between my 2 UAP-AC-LR at my house using a single SSID. My APs drop my clients to the same VLAN which allows for near seamless roaming around the house.

Disclaimer: I have no experience with the UAP-AC-HD.

Personally, I would not spend the money on the UAP-AC-HD, but would go for 2-3 UAP-AC-LR or UAP-AC-PRO. "Generally" you don't need the HD unless you have a high client density and may be better served using more of the cheaper APs that are placed closer to your clients.

 

[Mike V]

good to know.
is there a reason to not go for the HD?
I can always upload a picture of my home's blueprint for reference.
a general description would be:
Floor 1: open plan. like a big L (garage in top right corner)
Floor 2: closed. 4 bedrooms but planning to place the UAP-AC (whatever model) close to the front of the house where the 3 bedrooms are clustered)
walls are all stud/drywall set up. nothing too dense. my old N56U router is able to penetrate through all the walls at home. the performance is just really shoddy right now (full signal but data not really being transferred)

the home is 2166sqft so it's not too big in general. I was told the LR would be overkill because of the size.

 

[MichaelCG]

I just shy away from the HD due to the price...my personal belief is that it doesn't bring enough to the game for the increased costs. I can get 200-300Mbps off of the much cheaper APs. It is a trade-off in price vs performance and you have to weigh them to figure out which model meets your needs best. There is nothing wrong with the HD if it meets your needs and you have budget.

My house is 2300sqft and I have 2 LRs. If I could do it again, I would have done 3 PROs and 1 Mesh for outside. I keep my power levels low on my two LRs and my coverage out in my back yard isn't quite where I want it.

 

[netwrks]

The AC HD are for high density - 100's of wireless clients. You would see no real benefit. The AC Pro's are a better fit in the home, as the LR's. I have two AC Pro's. They work great for my needs.

 

[Mike V]

ohhh ok. I'm having a hard time figuring out what the differences are for each ac module and the website doesn't really help. I'll take another look at the other ones again.


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[MichaelCG]

AC-LITE -- 2x2 radios, lowest price point
AC-LR -- 3x3 2.4GHz radio, 2x2 5GHz radio, "specialized" antenna that are supposed to be better for mobile/low-power devices
AC-PRO -- 3x3 radios
AC-IW -- don't remember radio specs, but the perk of this is the 2-ports and fits over a standard electrical box

There are other differences when solving specific issues or use cases...but this at least covers the high level basics. Lots of good info over in the Ubiquiti forums as well. There is a nice PDF on their site that gives you a feature comparison of the APs.

 

[Mike V]

AC-LITE -- 2x2 radios, lowest price point
AC-LR -- 3x3 2.4GHz radio, 2x2 5GHz radio, "specialized" antenna that are supposed to be better for mobile/low-power devices
AC-PRO -- 3x3 radios
AC-IW -- don't remember radio specs, but the perk of this is the 2-ports and fits over a standard electrical box

There are other differences when solving specific issues or use cases...but this at least covers the high level basics. Lots of good info over in the Ubiquiti forums as well. There is a nice PDF on their site that gives you a feature comparison of the APs.

fantastic! I didn't even realize there was a pdf to show the difference. I was on their store page and the main product page and it was really sparse in terms of comparison.
I'll dive in this weekend to find that pdf.

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[MichaelCG]

https://dl.ubnt.com/datasheets/unifi/UniFi_AC_APs_DS.pdf

 

[Mike V]

Thank you so much guys!
I ended up getting the ac pro as mentioned. now I just need to hire someone to run the wires to the ceiling for both floors and all will be good.

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