For SiS: multiple semi pro or commercial access points in a wired mesh setup

Hi, try from Google or from Ubiquiti. Both allow wireless mesh or wired Ethernet mesh...or mixture there of,  but follow their instructions.. there are some specifics with a Google on where to insert the primary mesh access point when downstream acesss points are Ethernet connected.

I have BT Wholehome. I usually hate bt but have to see these have been faultless. However they only have one ethernet on the back of each, so are not switches as well.

Sloop John B posted:

Simon or anyone else who can help. My googling does not appear to be coming up with a wired mesh rather wireless ones. Any chance of a link or name of some candidates?

.sjb

 

Not being very capable in this area I found some of the instruction manuals very daunting. I managed to buy a wireless access point made by “amped wireless”. These products are truly plug and play....connect to Ethernet, turn power on and it configured itself. It’s been brilliant.

However, you have to buy from Amazon.com and import, you then need a different wall power supply that matches the voltage of the product. Costs about £70 all in with import duty, but well worth it for this idiot. Not sure if there are downsides to plug n play, but it’s worked for 4 years now.

Hi Gary  those BT Whokehome seem a good alternative as well, and good write up... yes the higher end devices don’t seem to have switches built in as I guess that is asking for trouble... also some of the Ubiquiti can be powered via PoE ... which means only potentially  a single wire to the access point... no bulky mains or powersupply lead required. Not clear whether the BT Wholehome support PoE or not?

Hi Simon, no they do not. Also they cannot be wall mounted which is a shame.

One day I will invest in the ubiquiti, but I need three switches as well so it gets quite expensive!

Hi Gary, curious as to why you would need the switches if using Ubiquiti and not the BT devices?

I would say you may need one switch to feed them with PoE unless you want to use 3 separate PoE injectors which is messy and takes up a lot of sockets, I will be doing this myself when the budget allows to add to the one I have now plus replace my Netgear router with one of theirs. Also if you want to use them to bridge ethernet only devices the APs only have one through port, but you would not necessarily need one of the ubiqiti ones for that unless you want to manage them all using the same app.

I have the main switch, this feeds via 4 cables in aggregate to the shed switch.

Then in the sitting room I have another switch fed back to the main switch with 2 lines in aggregate.

I could get away with two 16 and 1 24, and would not need poe, actually the ubiquiti non poe 24 porter is like half the price.

Hi Gary... ok if it’s a case of needing a switch with PoE and your current devices don’t support PoE or are at full PoE power  budget you can use injectors... in fact if my memory serves me correctly you get an injector with many of the Ubiquiti products to power them anyway. One word of caution some of the non pro Ubiquiti products are not compliant with 802.3af so  if using a non Ubiquiti PoE switch to avoid injectors you need an inline  protocol/voltage converter... which Ubiquiti also sell. The Ubiquiti switches support 802.3af as well as Ubiquiti’s proprietary PoE so no converter is required at all if using those switches.

I power my AP-AC Lite access points using a Cisco 3560 PoE switch with inline 802.3af converters... works well