Mesh Wi-Fi System

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Accrete
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Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by Accrete »

Do you have a mesh WiFi system setup in your place?
What Is a Mesh Wi-Fi System?

Designed to blanket your home with wireless coverage, Wi-Fi systems are a hybrid of sorts, made up of several networking components. There's a main router that connects directly to your modem, and a series of satellite modules, or nodes, that you place throughout your house. They are all part of a single wireless network, and share the same SSID and password. Unlike range extenders, which communicate with the router via the 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio bands, most Wi-Fi system satellites use mesh technology to talk to the router and to each other.
The Best Wi-Fi Mesh Network Systems for 2020 (PC Magazine)
5 Jun 2020

I noticed that the tablet network icon only shows about 50% strength in the livingroom which isn't that far from the main router. Haven't tried any wireless devices in the yard yet. Wondering if worth looking into a mesh system???
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Colbyt
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Re: Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by Colbyt »

Maybe. But first try moving the router around a bit. We are a wired and wireless system here. The router is in the basement and my kindle downloads well even when I am upstairs in the bedroom. DW streams music wirelessly out on the deck. I get wifi on my phone in the garage. I've never checked to see how far down the street I go before I lose signal.

I am actually surprised it works as well as it does since the router is directly under a steel beam. It is a dual antenna Linksys I bought for $3 at Goodwill. The prior one was a bit flakey.
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Re: Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by LMD »

If I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure these things "take over" from the main router. I say this, because I've got two installed - one upstairs, and one in the basement. They were installed because both juniors complained. One complained that his wireless computer system upstairs was lagging during online-gaming. I could have told him that would happen. The other one (older junior) complained that the Neflix programming on the basement tv was lagging.

So, to keep peace in the house, I got two of them.

But, if you look at the mobile app, which shows which devices are connected to each extender, I noticed something odd. I figured the way it worked was, the closest device would hook into the nearest extender. That isn't the case though as I find my phone hooks into the one on the second floor, even if I'm in the basement, near the one installed down there. I haven't check this in a while though, and I'm sure there's probably a way to control this sort of thing, but it's above my pay-grade and patience at the moment. ;)

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Re: Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by LMD »

I've now got a third extender installed. It was necessary to connect to the irrigation panel on the outside house wall, and it'll extend the signal out to the b.y. patio. Connectivity was spotty out there last summer.

No one is complaining, so I guess their working as expected. I've got an app on my phone which shows each of the extenders, and which devices they're connected to. I was curious in the beginning, but haven't looked at the app since installing the third one.

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Re: Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by Colbyt »

Since this thread was created I have actually gone from an old router to a mesh system. I'm not sure for our uses that we really need it but it came with the plan.
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Re: Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by LMD »

Update: My irrigation panel/module (located on the outside of the house wall) is warning that it's below freezing outside. :lol:

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Re: Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by Colbyt »

Like you could not look out the window and determine that. :)
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Re: Mesh Wi-Fi System

Post by LMD »

Actually, its so cold here, the panel notifies me when it reboots. Which has happened several times in the past week or so.

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