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How to provide good wifi coverage in a newly build house
Hello
I've been spending a good evening digging into what product to buy to improve the wireless connection in my new house.
The house is full of isolation materials and wireless connections are extremely poor. I.e. I have a wireless router in my office and in my kitchen (beside my office) I have extremely limited access. I have moved the router around, and had it originally a floor lower, at this location I had NO connectivity at all.
Each room is connected by wire to a netgear switch (with PoE). My idea was to add some access points to my house to improve the wireless connectivity. This is how my evening started, but I quickly realised that there are too many variations in the products that I lost sight of what I need.
The house has 3 levels:
0: Garage
1: Living, dining, kitchen, office.
2: 3 bedrooms
In the living room, I was thinking to install the WAC124 so I have wired connections for TV, TVBox, etc and can leverage from the wireless signal for the mobile devices.
My goal is to get wireless at each level.
PS: each room is wired to a netgear PoE switch.
Can you please help/advice which product I should go for.
I have no justification why but my preference is to have most of the communications over wire and have as little as possible to be wireless, or maybe I should say as short as possible.
I agree with that.
My justification is that wifi is more likely to suffer from interference and is easier to set up.
The reason for using Orbi is that it is simpler to set up and easier to manage. Apart from that it isn't miles apart from using a wifi router with repeaters added to fill any gaps in the wifi. But if you don't have gaps, a plain router is fine. But you have chosen one of the least capable.
Re: How to provide good wifi coverage in a newly build house
hi Michael
THank you for your answer. I did explore the mesh option, however I don't like the option of a device retransmitting information over the air to another device. Aside from this, the fact our house is extremely well isolated apperently results is very poor communication through the air.
My idea was to put a device that is connected over wire to the switch and that allows wireless devices to connect to it. That is why I had selected the product R6260 / AC1600 Smart WiFi Router Dual Band Gigabit (link), which is the product that your link (https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/) to the wifi product pages also returned. However I also found a product named WAC124, which is not listed in the product page, but reading the characteristics does match my requirements.
What is the difference between the WAC and AC products?
Could it be that AC acts as router/access points and WAC only acts as access point?
Something like that. Looks like the WAC124 is an access point that can also "do router", while the R6260 is the other way round, a router that you can operate as an access point.
The R6260 isn't the most powerful device around. It doesn't even qualify as a Nighthawk router.
I'm afraid that I don't follow most of the rest of your response. The idea that "a device retransmitting information over the air to another device" is dangerous sounds like poor understanding of how wifi security works. If you don't want devices to retransmit information over the air to another device then you need to avoid all use of wifi.
And I have no idea what you mean by "the fact our house is extremely well isolated apparently results is very poor communication through the air". That also sounds like folklore rather than science". Even if you mean "insulated" it is wrong.
Re: How to provide good wifi coverage in a newly build house
hi
I didn't consider the mesh solution "dangerous". It feels to me like a mesh is somethink like extenders. Meaning, mobile device interacts with 1 receiver, then this receiver transmit the information to the next receiver until it hits a receiver that is connected over wire. I have no experience at all in this domain, and as you have conclude, have poor understanding how wifi works. This is also the reason to turn to a community like this.
I have no justification why but my preference is to have most of the communications over wire and have as little as possible to be wireless, or maybe I should say as short as possible.
Sorry for the wrong words, it is indeed insulated and not isolated. The house is lovely, but the wireless connections are poor. I currently have the wifi router in my office space, and when I'm in the next room, I have almost no connectivity. The wall blocks the connection. We only move here 2 weeks ago. In the previous house (similar building technics) I had a far better connection between the router and the mobile device.
I have no justification why but my preference is to have most of the communications over wire and have as little as possible to be wireless, or maybe I should say as short as possible.
I agree with that.
My justification is that wifi is more likely to suffer from interference and is easier to set up.
The reason for using Orbi is that it is simpler to set up and easier to manage. Apart from that it isn't miles apart from using a wifi router with repeaters added to fill any gaps in the wifi. But if you don't have gaps, a plain router is fine. But you have chosen one of the least capable.
Re: How to provide good wifi coverage in a newly build house
Thank you for your help. I understand that the device R6260 will not be a complete and powerfull device, however I'm intending only to use it for browsing internet on my tablets/phones. At least I now have a bit an idea what I'm purchasing.
