Buying advice - RBK23 vs RBK33 vs RBK50 vs RBK53

[reuvenweiser]

Hi! I'm looking into buying an Orbi system to help get better Wifi coverage in my house. The house is approximately 310 square meters (3300 square feet) spread over three floors, mostly concrete. Modem/router is on the third floor, on one side of the house, and I have an ethernet cable running from there down to the other side of the first floor, so that can potentially be used for an ethernet backhaul. (Unfortunately, there isn't really a great spot on the second floor between the two where I could put a satellite; might need to shift that one to yet a third side of the house.)

I have a lot of connected devices (computers, phones, tablets, thermostats, speakers, smoke detectors, and more). I also have a few devices that require a wired connection (2 Hue hubs; 1 Abode hub; ideally my work computer).

My current internet speed through my ISP is 100Mbps down / 40 Mbps up, though that could obviously increase at some point, so I'd want to leave my options open.

Any suggestions as to which system would give me the best coverage, with room to grow (in terms of speed), without paying for more than I need?

Thanks,

Reuven Weiser

[plemans]

Do you have ethernet ran to each floor? Concrete is horrible for passing wifi.  You're going to have issues with any system that uses a wireless backhaul and has to go through concrete. If you have at least 1 ethernet jack on each floor so you can use a wired backhaul, you'll have much better performance. it also means the rbk43 would be the equivalent of the rbk53 as their primary difference is the backhaul. 

If you do have that option, I'd go for at least 1 device per floor. Aka one of the rbk*3 systems. 

If you don't have that option, you're going to want the best possible backhaul possible to make use of what limited signal does get through. That'd be the rbk53 because it has the widest backhaul in a 4x4 configuration. 

Just my opinion of the matter.

Potentially you can use powerline or moca adapters for the backhaul as well but if you have ethernet, thats ideal. 

[reuvenweiser]

Thanks, @plemans . As you were replying, I was updating my original post to describe the topology in a bit more detail. As I mention there, I do have ethernet from the third floor (where the modem/router is) to the first (inside a room with particularly thick, load-bearing walls). I think I once tried running to the second, but was unable to (the pipes for running cable weren't big enough). 

Given that the walls are also concrete, is the most important consideration which floor the connections are on? Would I want to space the connections throughout each floor (e.g., one on the north side of Floor 1, one on the south side of Floor 2, etc.)? Or would the connections then be too far apart from each other?

[plemans]

Ouch. Walls and floor are concrete. Thats not good for wifi. I'm sorry in advanced.

https://eyesaas.com/wifi-signal-loss/

Concrete is challenging and you've got in everywhere. 

You're probably going to want to do a combination of things. And its going to take a lot of trial and error. I can't tell you the best layout because its literally going to be whatever you can make work. Benefit to using using something like orbi or another mesh network is keeping your same ssid with multiple AP's. And you're going to want to hardwire as many high bandwidth devices as possible.

Was the house wired with coax in each room? If so, moca adapters work well.

You can also utilize powerline devices. 

Again, I can't tell you what'll work best. Utilize your ethernet drop and I'd take a stab at sneaking that 2nd line into the middle floor. The floors tend to be thicker concrete than walls (not always) so that will (can) help.