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#4400618 - 01/17/18 08:56 PM Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house)  
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Bill_Grant Offline
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OK, maybe I am the only guy struggling with this, but I was sick and tired of hearing other Family Members complain about their (lack of) Internet Connection throughout the house.
I had tried multiple Wireless routers, and added in Extenders, and it was a hit or miss, fast/slow/no connection result.
MESH Systesms: There are several out there, from all the Big Names, and they run from $250-$600 to get a system.
Usually, it will be a Router and 2 Satellites. The Idea behind the Mesh is that you place the Router, and the Satelltes will be placed at the edge of the Router Range, and thereby Extend that range.
You get Whole House coverage, and do not have to change "Wifi Names" to do it.
Typically, with Extenders you will have to go from "MySystem" (SSID/Wifi Name) to "MySystem-XX" to get on the Extender. OR it is the same SSID but it halves or quarters the speed.
The MESH System allows you to use one SSID Name "MySystem" and you can walk all over the house and sometimes outside and not drop connection.

Y'all tracking?

So I have a Router in my far end of the house, first floor. My "Dependent" is on the 2nd floor and has a crap load of Wifi enabled devices. Laptop, Tablet, Phone, Printer, etc etc.
So I am getting 200Mps in from street. With Wireless, I am getting about 80 in my room next to Router, and upstairs about 20-30Mps. Far side of house is near dead, Garage is a 0.00Mps area.
Running 2 XBOX Ones, TVs, Phones, Computers, all over the house. And would like to get one of those Internet/Wifi Sprinkler controllers at some point.

So I looked around. I looked at all the Big Name MESH units (Netgear, Dlink, Linksys, Asus, TPLink, etc) and they had almost as much complaints as successes.
I decided (both on Cost and 5 Reviews) to tryout the Zyxel Multy X AC3000 Tri-Band Whole Home WiFi Mesh System from Fry's at $280

https://www.amazon.com/AC3000-Tri-Band-Satellite-Extender-Compatible/dp/B075F7YKJ6

This is a very clean and stylish unit (2), which doesn't look like a FrankenRouter with 15 Antennas.
The Units come with a powercord. That is it!
Now, to land the plane.
About 10 minutes to hook up both units to the Internet, and make them talk to each other. Another 5 to update the Firmware.
DONE!
Mind you, like most of these new MESH units, thanks to Millenials the setup is PHONE APP based. ARGH. But hey, although pretty basic, it works really well.

Now lets talk about results.
I went up to the "Dependent's" room and tested the Laptop Wifi. Was 20. now running 211Mps Down and 20Mps Up Holy Crap!!! I have never seen that before.
Immediately tossed all the upstairs Extenders in a junk drawer.
Went into kitchen, and easily getting 180Mps. Went into garage, the farthest spot away from the Router, and was getting an easy 6Mps Up and Down. (Bring on the Sprinkler controller!)

Netflix: Flawless. (Don't have 4K so can't speak to that)
PC GAMING: I am running a Wireless connection to my gaming PC, and I have been getting < 25ms Ping in Rainbow Six Siege Online Games. No issues.

How do I rate the Zyxel Multi? Freaking Outstanding! NO ONE has beat on my door or texted me that "The Internet is not working!" since I put it in weeks ago.

Highly recommended.

Last edited by Bill_Grant; 01/17/18 09:06 PM. Reason: fixed Subject line

~Bill

In my defense, I was left unsupervised...
Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#4400628 - 01/17/18 10:11 PM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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BlueHeron Offline
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Whole house is wired with Cat5, so I never experimented much with wireless. However, I'm really surprised this is still a problem with all the equipment available these days.

#4400641 - 01/17/18 11:25 PM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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I have a small, 1500 sq. ft. two floors, house, and my router is as close to the middle of the upper floor as possible. I still have issues with some devices. One of my computers is next to the outside wall of the lower floor and it had a miserable wifi connection (via usb wifi) until I extended the usb about 8 feet closer to the middle of the house. I still have occasional issues with various devices so I just ordered one of these units to give it a shot.

Thanks Bill.

Last edited by cichlidfan; 01/17/18 11:26 PM.

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#4400700 - 01/18/18 06:08 AM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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Dart Offline
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Oh, I thought you meant the other mesh system.

One can get really surprising results by making a cube (or, if one has their router on the ground floor, a three sided box) out of fine copper mesh. Just place your wireless router inside the box - it will make extenders and repeaters obsolete!

Last edited by Dart; 01/18/18 06:08 AM.

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#4400708 - 01/18/18 09:21 AM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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Alicatt Offline
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Yes Dart, keep taking the tablets biggrin

Our house is about 2950 sqft (274sq m) with brick dividing walls and concrete floors, the only things that is wood in the house are the timber trim on the ceilings, the doors, and the oak staircase. To get through that lot I use two wifi routers, one in the lounge on the southern wall which is the cable modem/Wifi router, it has one cat5 cable connection which goes to an 8 port switch to which is connected this PC and the HD cable boxes, Netflix box/bluray player etc, and a 25m run to the wifi router at the back of the house, it is a Buffalo Airplay and it has a good take off into the garden and to the garage at the back of the garden about 25 meters away, we get good wifi all over the garden and in the garage.
There is also a separate run for a cat5 cable from the Buffalo router into the garage for the solar panel inverters and controls, the panels which would normally use Bluetooth to send their data but the distance is a bit marginal from the house to the garage and it didn't work reliably, I had run a cat5 in a separate duct when I was laying the mains cable from the garage to the house, as I had guessed that the signal would be marginal, I have toyed with the idea of putting another repeater in the garage to improve the connection in the back end of the garden but haven't done it so far as it is working ok.

I can stream Netflix anywhere in the house or the garden to my tablet or laptop in HD, don't know about 4k as I don't have anything to play back 4k.

It's been a while since I tested the speed but normally I get at least 50Mb/s anywhere in the house.


Chlanna nan con thigibh a so's gheibh sibh feoil
Sons of the hound come here and get flesh
Clan Cameron
#4400713 - 01/18/18 11:39 AM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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- Ice Offline
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Must be nice being able to complain about all of this! biggrin biggrin

Been thinking of getting a wifi extender via powerline adapter for the house but so far, no need frown That's how small most houses are here in the UK!! I do have a powerline adapter so that I can hard-wire my gaming PCs instead of relying on wifi... I do get slightly better numbers on hard-wire smile


- Ice
#4401001 - 01/19/18 11:27 PM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: - Ice]  
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Alicatt Offline
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Originally Posted by - Ice
Must be nice being able to complain about all of this! biggrin biggrin

Been thinking of getting a wifi extender via powerline adapter for the house but so far, no need frown That's how small most houses are here in the UK!! I do have a powerline adapter so that I can hard-wire my gaming PCs instead of relying on wifi... I do get slightly better numbers on hard-wire smile

I hate powerline adapters with a passion, they spew out so much RF interference that they can completely deafen my ham radio, with one powerline connection in the house my radio would register a S9+ for signal strength from the interference.

They are spawn of the devil, as are a lot of "wall wart" power supplies the cheap ones can really spew out some top grade electronic RF jamming!


Chlanna nan con thigibh a so's gheibh sibh feoil
Sons of the hound come here and get flesh
Clan Cameron
#4401005 - 01/20/18 12:09 AM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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Raw Kryptonite Offline
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I tried a powerline adapter and it just didn’t work well in my house.
I got an Archer C5400 router that handles wifi much better than my old Asus with beam forming and most of that crap. Now I get 5GHz better than I did 2.4 on the old one. Even the steam link works well from our bedroom, which was a miserable location before due to the kitchen being between it and the router. Yes, a lot of antennas, but that’s why it works.


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#4401027 - 01/20/18 03:51 AM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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cichlidfan Offline
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The new mesh hardware arrived today. I will post an update once I get it set up.


ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero, i7-6700K, Noctua NH-D14 Cooler, Crucial 32GB DDR4 2133, Samsung 950 Pro NVMe 256GB, Samsung EVO 250GB & 500GB SSD, 2TB Caviar Black, Zotac GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme 8GB, Corsair HX1000i, Phillips BDM4065UC 40" 4k monitor, VX2258 TouchScreen, TIR 5 w/ProClip, TM Warthog, VKB Gladiator Pro, Saitek X56, et. al., MFG Crosswind Pedals #1199, VolairSim Pit, Rift CV1
#4401050 - 01/20/18 02:45 PM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Alicatt]  
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- Ice Offline
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Originally Posted by Alicatt
I hate powerline adapters with a passion, they spew out so much RF interference that they can completely deafen my ham radio, with one powerline connection in the house my radio would register a S9+ for signal strength from the interference.
They are spawn of the devil, as are a lot of "wall wart" power supplies the cheap ones can really spew out some top grade electronic RF jamming!

I'm guessing if I wasn't interested in ham radios, then powerline adapters are fine? smile


- Ice
#4412979 - 03/26/18 09:32 PM Re: Home Mesh System (ie Making Router Work thru whole house) [Re: Bill_Grant]  
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Bill_Grant Offline
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FOLLOW UP: Been about 70 days since I installed the Zyxel MESH router.

ZERO issues. No drops, solid, fast perfomance.
HIGHLY recommeded.


~Bill

In my defense, I was left unsupervised...

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