Wifi mesh systems

bk

Shefwedfan wrote: »

No other option.....have a Mac, PC packed in so need a new one

If you have an iPhone or iPad too, you could use this app, though it costs €4.50
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/network-speed-tester/id1217419133?mt=12

You install this app on your mac and ideally attach by ethernet the mac to the primary device (the one connected to the router). There is then another free version of this app on the iOS app store that you can install on your iPhone/iPad and you can then run tests with your iPhone from different points in the house back to the mac.

Should give you a rough idea of performance. Not quiet the perfect test, two macs both ethernet connected would give you the best test of backhaul, but it would still give you a decent idea of how it looks.

It is a pity, I use to have a free app that did this, but looks like it has been pulled from the app store now.

Sheep Shagger

towger wrote: »

Seems to be a big backorder on Points. I ordered an extra one on May 5th, nothing yet, I've been onto chat to them twice, each time all they say they are trying to get it out soon.

Just got a dispatch notice by email:)

JamBur

Just want to give a little information on my trials and tribulations. I live in a standard 3 bed semi, built in the late 90s, so nothing unusual. I was suffering regular dropouts and disconnects from my fritzbox router (supplied by digiweb). I put this down to range so I entered the world of mesh.

I got a 3 node velop triband. Range was superb, but I was having weird stuff going on with my smart devices. I could see some smart devices, but as I wandered the house I would randomly lose sight of some. This was particularly annoying with my smart speakers

These were just annoyances until 2 months ago when my wife starting working from home full time. Suddenly I realised that my wifi was losing internet several times a day for 20 to 30 seconds at a time, usually in the middle of a conference call for her.

I got rid of the Velop, and got the new Nest wifi. Simple setup, all good? No, the problems persisted. I finally sat down to really dig into this and found that Digiweb use vlan tagging. The Nest wifi doesn't support vlan tagging, but my Velop (which I sold) did.

A cheap Netgear 5 port managed switch solved all my problems. I'd have saved many hundreds of I'd dug deeper initially.


Tldr; I wasted money

towger

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Just got a dispatch notice by email:)

Same here :-) To be honest it is probably not entirely needed. The performance with just the base unit and one point already is fantastic. Strong signal out to the shed and up the attic. Third point will improve that, but not strictly needed.
Standard 3 bed semi-D.

Sheep Shagger

towger wrote: »

Same here :-) To be honest it is probably not entirely needed. The performance with just the base unit and one point already is fantastic. Strong signal out to the shed and up the attic. Third point will improve that, but not strictly needed.
Standard 3 bed semi-D.

We have 2 so far for a house that is 1879sq ft (3 levels).

Have one device downstairs in lounge and the other in master bedroom on 3rd floor. Meant to get an extra one when we moved in last year but didn't get around to it.

Back garden is the only black spot so hopefully it fixes that. Kids playroom has a google home in the playroom that opens onto garden. Will relocate that as the nest wifi now comes with an assistant built in.

#firstworldproblems

2011

towger wrote: »

Same here :-) To be honest it is probably not entirely needed. The performance with just the base unit and one point already is fantastic. Strong signal out to the shed and up the attic. Third point will improve that, but not strictly needed.
Standard 3 bed semi-D.

I only have mine a week. I have to say I am very impressed. I purchased 2 for a 1450 sq. foot house. Very fast, slick app and great coverage. One upstairs and one downstairs. Having Google Home in the WiFi point is a nice touch too.

The Bishop Basher

2011 wrote: »

I only have mine a week. I have to say I am very impressed. I purchased 2 for a 1450 sq. foot house. Very fast, slick app and great coverage. One upstairs and one downstairs. Having Google Home in the WiFi point is a nice touch too.

I’m blown away by the nest. I didn’t expect it to be so good. Large gain in speeds and patchy coverage is now consistently fast. A great app and Google Assistant was a nice surprise !!

Shefwedfan

JamBur wrote: »

Just want to give a little information on my trials and tribulations. I live in a standard 3 bed semi, built in the late 90s, so nothing unusual. I was suffering regular dropouts and disconnects from my fritzbox router (supplied by digiweb). I put this down to range so I entered the world of mesh.

I got a 3 node velop triband. Range was superb, but I was having weird stuff going on with my smart devices. I could see some smart devices, but as I wandered the house I would randomly lose sight of some. This was particularly annoying with my smart speakers

These were just annoyances until 2 months ago when my wife starting working from home full time. Suddenly I realised that my wifi was losing internet several times a day for 20 to 30 seconds at a time, usually in the middle of a conference call for her.

I got rid of the Velop, and got the new Nest wifi. Simple setup, all good? No, the problems persisted. I finally sat down to really dig into this and found that Digiweb use vlan tagging. The Nest wifi doesn't support vlan tagging, but my Velop (which I sold) did.

A cheap Netgear 5 port managed switch solved all my problems. I'd have saved many hundreds of I'd dug deeper initially.


Tldr; I wasted money

The Nest is dual and the Velop was tri-band. Just wondering are you noticing the drop in performance?

beauf

JamBur wrote: »

...
I got rid of the Velop, and got the new Nest wifi. Simple setup, all good? No, the problems persisted. I finally sat down to really dig into this and found that Digiweb use vlan tagging. The Nest wifi doesn't support vlan tagging, but my Velop (which I sold) did.

A cheap Netgear 5 port managed switch solved all my problems. I'd have saved many hundreds of I'd dug deeper initially.


Tldr; I wasted money

Research is expensive unfortunately

How and why does the switch fix it.

JamBur

Shefwedfan wrote: »

The Nest is dual and the Velop was tri-band. Just wondering are you noticing the drop in performance?

I've a network drive, I see a slight drop in performance when read/writing to it, however nothing catastrophic. I've 3 nodes, great coverage around the house.

nc6000

I've a TP-Link Deco M4 3-pack on the way to me which I plan using with the Eir supplied F2000 router. I think we've been hitting issues with the maximum number of devices and I wouldn't mind improving the coverage about the house and maybe get some in the garden too.

Have I understood correctly that when you get a mesh system the mesh handles all WiFi connections and the F2000 will only be providing one wired connection to the mesh? The WiFi on the old router is disabled but can it still be used for wired connections other than the first mesh unit?

I plan to setup the new mesh and use the existing SSID & password. Is that what other people are doing with theirs?

Shefwedfan

nc6000 wrote: »

I've a TP-Link Deco M4 3-pack on the way to me which I plan using with the Eir supplied F2000 router. I think we've been hitting issues with the maximum number of devices and I wouldn't mind improving the coverage about the house and maybe get some in the garden too.

Have I understood correctly that when you get a mesh system the mesh handles all WiFi connections and the F2000 will only be providing one wired connection to the mesh? The WiFi on the old router is disabled but can it still be used for wired connections other than the first mesh unit?

I plan to setup the new mesh and use the existing SSID & password. Is that what other people are doing with theirs?

Yes, turn off Wifi if possible


Yes, just setup up same SSID and password, everything should auto connect up then

JamBur

beauf wrote: »

Research is expensive unfortunately

How and why does the switch fix it.

I wasn't aware of Digiweb using VLAN tagging when I had the Velop. (Didn't know anything about VLAN tagging tbh). The Nest wifi doesn't support it. So a €28 switch between my modem and primary node takes care of it.

bk

bk wrote: »

If you have an iPhone or iPad too, you could use this app, though it costs €4.50
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/network-speed-tester/id1217419133?mt=12

You install this app on your mac and ideally attach by ethernet the mac to the primary device (the one connected to the router). There is then another free version of this app on the iOS app store that you can install on your iPhone/iPad and you can then run tests with your iPhone from different points in the house back to the mac.

Should give you a rough idea of performance. Not quiet the perfect test, two macs both ethernet connected would give you the best test of backhaul, but it would still give you a decent idea of how it looks.

It is a pity, I use to have a free app that did this, but looks like it has been pulled from the app store now.

I've used this: https://testmy.net/ for testing our home network including an outdoor point to point link we have. Its free and has apps for ipad/iphone etc. Client needs to be on a pc/mac but the receive end can be a mobile device. Can run long tests too, I was doing 24h tests etc and you get graphs of your results etc.

budhabob

The Bishop Basher wrote: »

I’m blown away by the nest. I didn’t expect it to be so good. Large gain in speeds and patchy coverage is now consistently fast. A great app and Google Assistant was a nice surprise !!

Same as that. My cameras used to drop wifi signal regularly and lots of issues in different parts of the house. Consistent performance since setting up.

ratracer

So my Huawei Q2 Pro just arrived today. Pretty good delivery time, only ordered on Wednesday afternoon last week.

Guess I’ll have something to do this evening

Hopefully it’ll sort out my Wi-Fi black spots around the house.

Would moving the primary router ( eir F2000) a few meters from its place at the front door to further down that hall be of benefit?

Kintarō Hattori

JamBur wrote: »

Just want to give a little information on my trials and tribulations. I live in a standard 3 bed semi, built in the late 90s, so nothing unusual. I was suffering regular dropouts and disconnects from my fritzbox router (supplied by digiweb). I put this down to range so I entered the world of mesh.

I got a 3 node velop triband. Range was superb, but I was having weird stuff going on with my smart devices. I could see some smart devices, but as I wandered the house I would randomly lose sight of some. This was particularly annoying with my smart speakers

These were just annoyances until 2 months ago when my wife starting working from home full time. Suddenly I realised that my wifi was losing internet several times a day for 20 to 30 seconds at a time, usually in the middle of a conference call for her.

I got rid of the Velop, and got the new Nest wifi. Simple setup, all good? No, the problems persisted. I finally sat down to really dig into this and found that Digiweb use vlan tagging. The Nest wifi doesn't support vlan tagging, but my Velop (which I sold) did.

A cheap Netgear 5 port managed switch solved all my problems. I'd have saved many hundreds of I'd dug deeper initially.


Tldr; I wasted money

I'm with Digiweb myself and ordered the Huawei WiFi Q2 Pro 3 pack. Do you know off hand if I'm likely to run into the same trouble as yourself? Apologies I'm asking, I'm not quite as technically minded as I'd like to be. I think it doesn't

Do I need to get a switch like yourself?

Clareman

I think I noticed by accided, Mrs. Clareman plugged out 1 of the nodes of my Nest wifi the other day, the whole network just sorted itself out, no alerts, no deadspots just all seemed to work. I'm sure this is a feature of all mesh systems but I thought it was good, no alert or anything that a node was gone down, it just worked.

Shefwedfan

Clareman wrote: »

I think I noticed by accided, Mrs. Clareman plugged out 1 of the nodes of my Nest wifi the other day, the whole network just sorted itself out, no alerts, no deadspots just all seemed to work. I'm sure this is a feature of all mesh systems but I thought it was good, no alert or anything that a node was gone down, it just worked.

All of them do the same, on Linksys the app will send you an alert to say one of the nodes is disconnected, you can turn this option off.

JamBur

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

I'm with Digiweb myself and ordered the Huawei WiFi Q2 Pro 3 pack. Do you know off hand if I'm likely to run into the same trouble as yourself? Apologies I'm asking, I'm not quite as technically minded as I'd like to be. I think it doesn't

Do I need to get a switch like yourself?

A quick google says that the Huawei has configurable VLAN settings. Digiweb uses VLAN id 10 for data. That seems more daunting on the face of it , then it actually is. Set it up normally first and see how it runs.

https://consumer-tkb.huawei.com/weknow/servlet/show/knowAttachmentServlet?knowId=nb-no00759261

ratracer

My Huawei Q2 Pro experience so far:

Connected it into the eir F2000 modem, and set up was simple through the app. Plugged in the other two units in different parts of the house, all synced straight away.

It appears that I have managed to sort out the dead spots that I had, although I would have hoped the speeds might have been better. I have the 150mb/S FTTH package from eir. Speeds around the house on Wi-Fi are around 30-40mbps, although in the room closest to the main router, the Xbox is seeing constant speeds of 140mbps, which it was also getting from the eir router.

For the money ( thanks Shefwedfan) I’m happy to have sorted out the dead spots, and will look to play around with locations of the devices to see if I can improve speeds.

I haven’t ( don’t know how!) turned off the eir wifi, so maybe this is also having an effect in speeds?

degsie

Best to turn off eir wifi to get the best benefit of mesh, too easy to cause possible interference.

sweetie

ratracer wrote: »

My Huawei Q2 Pro experience so far:

Connected it into the eir F2000 modem, and set up was simple through the app. Plugged in the other two units in different parts of the house, all synced straight away.

It appears that I have managed to sort out the dead spots that I had, although I would have hoped the speeds might have been better. I have the 150mb/S FTTH package from eir. Speeds around the house on Wi-Fi are around 30-40mbps, although in the room closest to the main router, the Xbox is seeing constant speeds of 140mbps, which it was also getting from the eir router.

For the money ( thanks Shefwedfan) I’m happy to have sorted out the dead spots, and will look to play around with locations of the devices to see if I can improve speeds.

I haven’t ( don’t know how!) turned off the eir wifi, so maybe this is also having an effect in speeds?

google your eir router and it should tell you how to login, try http://192.168.0.1
password is usually blank or admin I think. should be an option in settings to turn off wifi/radio.

nc6000

The Eir F2000 should be 192.168.1.254 and the Wireless Settings are on the Home Network tab.

Sheep Shagger

New nest point arrived today

Signed up for eir gigabyte yet broadband today too now it's just become available, intro price of €55 a month for 24 months.

Assume nest can deal with that speed?

degsie

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

New nest point arrived today

Signed up for eir gigabyte yet broadband today too now it's just become available, intro price of €55 a month for 24 months.

Assume nest can deal with that speed?

There is no direct correlation between wifi speeds and your providers speed, totally depends on wireless interference and building construction method.

Sheep Shagger

degsie wrote: »

There is no direct correlation between wifi speeds and your providers speed, totally depends on wireless interference and building construction method.

Thanks, works now perfectly with virgin so should be the same with eir gigabyte.

Gooey Looey

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

Thanks, works now perfectly with virgin so should be the same with eir gigabyte.

Don't expect any wireless system to do full gigabit. You need a modern wired device for that.

Sheep Shagger

Gooey Looey wrote: »

Don't expect any wireless system to do full gigabit. You need a modern wired device for that.

How fast do you reckon a wireless connection will get?

Guess we'll soon find out, if it doesn't work out will cancel during the cooling off period.

Gooey Looey

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

How fast do you reckon a wireless connection will get?

Guess we'll soon find out, if it doesn't work out will cancel during the cooling off period.

Nobody knows, it depends on the layout and construction of your house, local interference and it's also down to the hardware in the devices you have. You'll be doing well too see over 500mbit though, but not sure what you'd need that for. There is no point in getting 1 gigabit if you only have wireless devices, get a lower package