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Forum Discussion
Nighthawk AC1900 EX7000 or Orbi in lath and plaster house
I have a pretty typical scenero,a 1400 sq ft house, built in 1936, so lath and plaster walls throughout. Most of the living space is on 1 floor, but there is a room in the garage where we'd like to g...
Anyone?
Orbi is a true peer-to-peer mesh where the satellites will daisy chain depending on what the strongest signal they can get is. Nighthawk is an add-on mesh component and is designed to prefer connecting directly to the router if it is within broadcast range even if another signal is stronger. If you are only adding a single extender this won't come into play. Nighthawk has more advanced user features than the Orbi. You may find a feature you want is not available on Orbi. If you want to create a One WiFi Name mesh network with a Nighthawk extender, make sure you are getting one that states mesh extender and not just range extender.
Thanks Apil1,
Just looking for an affordable way to get the whole house on one network, from living room to back of house, including garage (about 60 ft.). Will the Mesh extender do that? Do either the Mesh extender of Orbi still allow the Comcast Gateway router to work where it's the closest (best signal), or do they "take over" and become the router instead, and if so, do they work well enough through plater walls? I want to connect either drvice in the back bedroom and want to be sure I will still get strong WiFi in the front of the house (since the Comcast router can't cover that entire area due to the plaster walls).
Both mesh extender and Orbi can work off a single WiFi name to extend the range of the signal further than the base reaches by itself. Mesh extender needs to select One WiFi Name mode or else it is in standard extender mode where it creates new wireless network ID instead.
Mesh extender will add onto any standard wireless router to extend the signal from the router.
Orbi would be a complete system replacement. If your ISP requires their router to support any of their services, you would have to change their router into bridge mode in order to connect the Orbi base. The Orbi base would take over as the router and WiFi, but the satellites work with the base to create the mesh network.
With either mesh system, it's up to the client to decide which radio it wants to connect to and whether it properly roams between radios as the signal strength changes. Newer devices are more likely to support roaming than older ones. At minimum it will fill in deadspots with the extender or satellite placed between the device and the router for the device to connect to.