Upgrade of present Wifi to a mesh system

Posted by: Lazypaddler on 09 April 2018

I would be grateful for comment, suggestions , and any experience in connecting an Uniti 2 to a wifi mesh system

I wish to change my wifi to overcome slow speed and drop-outs that occur with the wifi in the house
I have a Virgin router (with the wifi turned off) with an ethernet connection to an Apple Time Capsule - which is the wifi hub for the house.
Then an ethernet connection from the Time Capsule to a Uniti 2 and a second ethernet connection from the Time Capsule to an iMac.
(The Virgin router, the iMac, The Uniti 2 and the Time Capsule are all in the same room so were easy to wire together)
There are 2 Airport Express units in the house to help spread the wifi
The system works well - the iMac is rapid, and the Units 2 sounds superb (if the input is good !!!)
However, the wifi in the rest of the house is patchy and slow with quite a lot of drop out (long house, thick walls, steel in the walls etc)
I was wondering if a mesh system -eg. Lynksys Velop would overcome the wifi issues but maintain the present performance for the Uniti 2 and imac
Also - I wonder how to maintain the wired connection to the iMac and Uniti 2 - eg. do I run an ethernet cable from the Lynksys unit to the time capsule and keep the Uniti 2 and iMac plugged into the time capsule - or will the chain of Virigin router to Velop to Time Capsule to Uniti 2 loose too much signal.

Or is there another way of attacking this ?

Any suggestions ?

Posted on: 09 April 2018 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Hi, having a good quality Wifi is key to successful streaming and control by Wifi. Mesh systems are good although I would not recommend for streaming. I would however recommend setting up a Wifi as an Extendended SSID .. that is over lapping access points where the access points cooperate with each other via a wired switched network.. that way load balancing, band steering and other optimisations can occur between access points.. and your Wifi performance will reach that of a quality commercial setup and be very effective and will most likely allow you stream hidef via Wifi whilst others in your house are using your Wifi as well to stream video etc... and you will then no doubt wonder how you got by in a basic consumer Wifi setup with a single isolated access point. From what I have seen with the Apple access points their ESSID capabilities are very limited and not really controllable and somewhat long in the tooth now ... so I wouldnt recommend these devices for a new quality ESSID setup.

I recommend Ubiquiti access points.. they are cost effective and not too daunting for the consumer / home network user to setup. Try and have two or three that overlap where your streamer is and ensure you use Ethernet to connect them up via a switch to your home network...

It should work very well, and it’s what I use here. I also understand Naim have used these devices in some setups.

Simon

Posted on: 09 April 2018 by garyi

I have BT whole home. I am not a fan of BT but have to say these devices are superb. However, mine are all connected with ethernet, where I think any of these will come unstuck is if they are wifi connected to each other.

I did try ubiquiti devices before, I had some issues, but accept they are well regarded. However the bt thingies are much cheaper.

The ethernet connection I think is key in my opinion.

Posted on: 09 April 2018 by Simon-in-Suffolk

As Gary says the Ethernet connection between the participating access points is key along with I suggest load balancing, fair play management and band steering are the key features for participating access points so as to provide optimum throughput in diverse conditions and with multiple users. There are lower level protocols used here as well for yet additional performance advancements , but these depend on the ability of the clients to varying degrees such as the streamer to support them such as 802.11r

Posted on: 09 April 2018 by Duncan Mann

Like Garyi, I have had some experience with BT Whole Home Wifi, and concur it provides really solid and surprisingly inexpensive coverage. The BT Whole Home Wifi discs can communicate with each other and the router/switch via Wifi, but as Garyi has suggested, running ethernet cables for the backhaul to the router/switch will provide much greater stability when the load on the network is higher - this is how I configured them, and they've been faultless since installation about 9 months ago.

Netgear (Orbi) and Linksys (Velop) offer more bells and whistles (more ethernet ports, greater configuration flexibilities) for a commensurately higher price, and the Orbi uses a dedicated Wifi backhaul channel (useful if running ethernet cables is a major hassle). I suggest you look at reviews on the big river website to form your own opinion as to how much money you want to invest to crack this problem?

Posted on: 10 April 2018 by Lazypaddler

Thank you all for the feedback

I am hoping to avoid having to run ethernet cables in the house but sounds like I may have to rethink (oh no not MORE Decorating)
I agree that the Apple kit looks dated now - they seem to have stopped, having got to "state of the art" in the past ( does that coincide with the loss of Steve Jobs?)

Also - - I will check the reviews on big river

Posted on: 10 April 2018 by james n

Running Ethernet cable(s) outside the house is an option too - I have 30m of Cat 5e still going strong after 8 years which provides a hardwired link between the router / switch in my study to the Hi-Fi in the lounge.

Posted on: 10 April 2018 by ChrisSU

Lazypaddler posted:
I am hoping to avoid having to run ethernet cables in the house but sounds like I may have to rethink (oh no not MORE Decorating)

Just do it! It costs very little compared to the alternative 'workaround' solutions people use. The disruption is a bit of a PITA, but you'll be glad when it's finished, and you have a reliable network.