When I moved into my house, I made sure we ran ethernet to all rooms. It's a 2,400 sq foot home, minus the basement (which is ... 1,200 I believe).
I've had a few different setups through the years between dual routers, router + ap, router + repeater and just a really expensive router. Sadly, to date, I seem to one way or another, have issues.
Currently, I am running an Asus AC5300 and it covers most of the house and parts of the outside relatively well. As of late, I seem to continually have issues adding new devices (4 in the past week), in that they simply won't connect. This issue may unrelated all together, but, I do want/need better WiFi on 1st and 2nd floors. Recently started playing with baby monitors due to newborn, and solid WiFi is a must right now. I have issues getting a solid connection to 5ghz when on 2nd floor and outside. Streaming videos over WiFi is a hit or miss ... sometimes great, other times awful. This is why I largely rely on everything being wired.
Reality is, just ... frustrated with several failed routers through the years. They've all been Asus, perhaps that's my core issue. Or, I'm just stupid and missing something all together.
Anyway, I just started looking into these new mesh networks and they appear to be very appealing on paper. Quite a few competitors and right now appears Orbi is the best option. Yet, being that I do have ethernet run to pretty much every room,is this a dumb investment?Should I be looking at a different option?
I just pulled the trigger on the Netgear RBK50 + RBS50. It won't be here until next week as they're Warehouse Deals, so I have some time to cancel if this isn't the best choice. Being that I have less than 4k square foot, do I really need that third satellite? I figured, better safe than sorry ... or is that just dumb? Will try without the third on setup to determine if needed.
One last note, we are planning to move in a couple years. No idea if it'll be a new home or not and if the later, what options will exist to run lines. Hard to take that into consideration given the unknown, but part of me does say it leans a little towards the Orbi.
I'm no expert but if you already have ethernet to all your rooms, why not use it? I do understand that alot of newer devices only allow connections via wifi. However, if you install a wifi access point (AP) or two (depending on coverage needed) you'll be using your ethernet to transistion to wifi in the "dead zones". Configuring the APs can be a challenge but this type of wireless network has been used in commercial settings (hotels, airport terminals, hospitals, etc.) for years. Ubiquiti and Engenius are two brands that have lots of low/moderate cost solutions.
I'm not against using AP's, as yes, using my existing Ethernet would be most ideal. Just not entirely certain on best options. Ubiquiti's are great and all, but I don't want to ceiling mount, nor do I truly understand how to implement. I'd assume I disable wireless broadcasting on my current router to avoid interuptions in handshakes correct? (Last time I trierd to use an AP with my router and kept them both broadcasting, I just had all kinds of issues).Then implement some form of AP(s) that allow for a single SSID with ease of handshake/handoff?
Obviously the appeal with Orbi, Google, Eero, etc. are to avoid the headache and confusion ... but I'd probably have a better setup If I leveraged my hard lines appropriately.
Thanks, I'll check it out now! I just don't want to mount or rewire anything. The Orbi just seemed ideal, but I do have the wires to support a better setup. Hell, maybe I should just look at Eero or Luma?
I'd think, ideally? Is that the Orbi impliments ethernet backhaul. Found several thread about it here, many asking, but no timeline.
The beauty of Orbi's implementation of the wireless backhaul is for those of us who do not have an ethernet backbone in their houses. In my case I have a 40 year old, 3000 sq foot house constructed of concrete block with a stucco exterior with a 2 x 4 stud/drywall interior. Running ethernet would require time consuming and expensive drywall rework (>$2000). Prior to the Orbi I had a NetGear R7000 which gave me pretty good coverage but there were serious dead zones in my garage and outside on my patio/pool. The Orbi (with 1 satellite) gave me coverage throughout my entire house and well outside all 4 corners of my house. I've not had (knock on wood) any of the major issues noted in this forum since I installed it in Feb 2017.
For NetGear to implement a wired backhaul for Orbi will require more effort than it may be worth for the company. Remember the dedicated frequency wireless backhaul distinguishes them from other "mesh router systems."
Multiple wired APs would be the best approach, from a technical perspective, when you have wires to every room already installed. But, you must configure everything properly.
To setup you generally just need to:
1) Put adjacent APs on non-overlapping channels. This applies to both 2.4 and 5G bands.
2) Use 20 Mhz bandwidth and use only channels 1, 6, or 11 on 2.4G.
3) Use a single SSID.
4) Adjust power levels to reduce overlap between APs. That's usually high on 5G and medium on 2.4G.
You can use Ubiquiti APs without cieling mounting (with some loss of coverage.) I have mine sitting on top of furniture and they work fine for me.
Orbi should be fine also--provided it works for you. But, Orbi gives you almost no configuration options, which is problematic if you encounter interference from neighorbing APs or other sources. You cannot do 1, 2, and 4 above. Orbi aso gives you almost no information to diagnose what's happening.
@st_shaw - thanks. While I want to say I'm OK giving up control and stats, I'm not. The Orbi does leave much to be desired in regards to control and ... it just feels flakey. So many little oddities I've experienced within the web app and my confidence is low in the stability of the platform given the past several hours of frustration.
Still, my Asus AC5300 in itself may be problematic. Hard to rule that out as of now; however ... perhaps I should just look at a whole new system using Ubiquiti instead.
Question for you, or anyone. Does PoE carry over a keystone? In that, If I put a PoE switch in my basement (central termination for everything), will the power run through the patch cables that connect to each room's keystone? So If I plug into any of those ports, will I still get power there?
Yikes, a full Ubi setup is more expensive than originally thought (Gateway, Switch, 2x AP's, Cloud Key) = $600 (several pieces being warehouse deals too).
Yikes, a full Ubi setup is more expensive than originally thought (Gateway, Switch, 2x AP's, Cloud Key) = $600 (several pieces being warehouse deals too).
To answer your earlier question, yes POE will transmit through a keystone. I'm doing that now. You just need to make sure all the pairs are connected in the wire.
Regarding the Ubi setup... Strictly speaking, all you need is the APs. Each AP comes with a POE injector. You can download the controller for free and run it on a PC or laptop. It's only needed during setup (unless you use guest networks with access control.) I strongly recommend the key though. You also don't need the Gateway and can use any router you'd like. I don't use the Gateway and I'm not sure I'd recommend it.
Yikes, a full Ubi setup is more expensive than originally thought (Gateway, Switch, 2x AP's, Cloud Key) = $600 (several pieces being warehouse deals too).
To answer your earlier question, yes POE will transmit through a keystone. I'm doing that now. You just need to make sure all the pairs are connected in the wire.
Regarding the Ubi setup... Strictly speaking, all you need is the APs. Each AP comes with a POE injector. You can download the controller for free and run it on a PC or laptop. It's only needed during setup (unless you use guest networks with access control.) I strongly recommend the key though. You also don't need the Gateway and can use any router you'd like. I don't use the Gateway and I'm not sure I'd recommend it.
@st_shaw I've been exploring Ubiquiti products and was wondering out of curiosity what you're using or what you'd recommended for a router to use with the AP's instead of the security gateway?
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
@st_shaw I've been exploring Ubiquiti products and was wondering out of curiosity what you're using or what you'd recommended for a router to use with the AP's instead of the security gateway?
You can use any router you want with the APs. Without the USG you just won't get some of the graphs and stats that USG provides on the Controller interface.
I've used the FiOS Actiontec, Edgerouter Lite, Edgerouter-X, and Mikrotik routers with the APs.
I don't use the USG myself because it doesn't natively support several features I need--multiple static IPs on the WAN, and IPSEC VPN with customer settings, to name two.
I hesitate to recommend the USG because it seems like a work in process with a long completion timeline. The processor is a bit anemic too, and will only do 50-60 Mbps with QoS. However, if you have a typical home setup with a single WAN IP, it would probably work great.
All the routers I mentioned are frustrating in one way or another. Ubiquiti is soon coming out with a Edgerotuer-4 with a much more powerful processor. I will try that when it's released.
I'm currently using an Edgerouter-X and a Mikrotik RB750gr3. Both are around $60. Both are easy to setup for a basic network but are very difficult to configure simple things like port forwarding without a steep learning curve.
