Home Mesh System

[ozydave]

Morning,

 

A friend with a fairly large house needs mesh system due to dead spots of WiFi coverage. Never looked at a mesh system before for home use.

 

He has a Draytek router, so been looking at the Draytek mesh system.

Anyone used this before? Is it easy to setup? Does the mesh router replace the current router?

 

Are there better options?

 

For any mesh system do they connect to the current wifi router?

 

thanks for your thoughts

[Jcx500]

For the price, i would go unifi, i know of people who use it at home and it works great

[r0cketbev]

I have 2 Unifi AP-AC-Pros in a bungalow works a treat.

[hardtailstar]

My house is a three bedroom house and I have three Google wifi APs.

They plug into the Virgin router and work well.

Never had any issues with it and I have had them since first launched.

 

Before you do anything with a mesh I would check the provider and the settings on the current router.

With Google wifi my Virgin router has to be in modem mode, It does not work if the Virgin router is working normally.

[Paul_Cluett]

About the Unifi APs:

 

I have 2 and set the channels by scanning using an android app. But a few days later I usually find that my neighbours have also changed channels!

 

Is there any way to get the APs to scan and change channels automatically?

[LeMarchand]

About the Unifi APs:

 

I have 2 and set the channels by scanning using an android app. But a few days later I usually find that my neighbours have also changed channels!

 

Is there any way to get the APs to scan and change channels automatically?

 

You can set them to "Auto" in the controller.

 

Edit: Sorry, realised your using the app. Not familiar with it, but imagine there's a similar setting. If not, you could set up the controller on a machine and the points will do their thing even if the machine is off.

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by LeMarchand

[Paul_Cluett]

I have tried that - but it only scans when it restarts. I could put a timer switch on the POE but that seems pretty harsh.

 

I don't know if the Cloud controller can initiate timed scans though...

[jmak]

I have the BT "whole house" mesh system which replaced Unifi APs connected via Devolo HomePlug network over mains electric when a couple of them died.

 

I get great coverage in a very tricky building and when I test network speed it's pretty good, however it does seem to struggle when several devices try and stream video from a single AP (eg YouView box streaming and several people looking at videos on their phone when we're pretending to be sociable by sitting in the same room, but actually everyone's just looking at their phone [emoji17]). We also had issues when three people were trying to take part in Teams/Zoom calls and I could see that the clients were connected to the same AP, but when I made everyone move to different parts of the house to connect to different APs, it was fine.

 

Draytek kit tends to be better than most consumer grade kit, so I'd expect it to be good. When my contract with BT ends in August I'm planning to have run network cable around the house and go back to Unifi...

[bald_pig]

I use Ruckus at home, never had an issue

[elsiegee40]

Sky’s offering does Mesh too via the router, Sky Q box, any Sky Q minis and any boosters you add in

[MatthewL]

I personally would never mesh, just run a cable for each AP back to the router, no issues and full coverage then.

[Norphy]

I personally would never mesh, just run a cable for each AP back to the router, no issues and full coverage then.

 

Not always possible though, especially if you're living in rented accommodation.

[Localtechie]

TP Deco owner here and it's faultless.

 

Get my appalling 25mbps full speed round the house - 2 are wired one to router other with homeplug and the other is mesh.

 

Never gone wrong a set and forget thing. Can get the S4s for £100 for 3 on Amazon a lot and for that price I recommend.

[DanTheLacky]

Recently purchased the Asus zen WiFi AC mesh, pretty happy with it, can't fault it so far.

 

Definately cheaper alternatives out there but depends what the person is after.

[TwistedHelixis]

Is mesh mode where just one AP is plugged into the router and the other Ap's pass through the signal?

 

If so, with unifi Ap Pro what setting puts them into mesh mode?