A lot of the consumer "mesh" products I find are pretty janky after review
or use. Not tried Eero, but I did try Samsung mesh AP's for a bit, and
found them mostly inept. I considered the google units, but didn't want
them uploading everything I do back to google.
The term "mesh" tends to imply remote units are NOT wired, and I need both
ideally. Dealing with a number of wired AP's usually requires some level
of "controller" to orchestrate them, but consumer stuff just doesn't seem
to get how this "should" work...
I got the Samsungs a few years ago for the "SmartThings" hub with zwave
integrated, but their wireless was terrible, and only the root AP did
zwave, which I thought would be more distributed across my house.
Apparently whoever developed samsung's wireless had no idea how wireless
works, and would put my 2.4ghz network running most often on channel 5, all
4 of them, which if you know anything about wireless, you just don't do
that. You always use channel 1, 6, or 11, really only channels you should
ever use in 2.4ghz. Not sure how common this is among "consumer"
products. I crap-canned these after about a year as wireless was terrible
at 2.4ghz and even 5ghz was pretty wack as they seemed to think using the
same channel was a great idea. Hopefully that person at samsung got fired.
Prior to that, I ran a number of wired Cisco AP's (4-5) around my house
using a Cisco wireless controller appliance for them, which I installed a
lot of across enterprises. Any enterprise solution you can configure to
use the right channels, and introduce some channel avoidance between them
for proper wireless channel distribution. In the 2.4ghz range, with only 3
usable channels (all of which are used by all your neighbors), you're
mostly screwed, but at least at 5ghz should be ok if they adjust/avoid used
channels, and you get some features like band steering to "influence"
devices to move from 2.4 to 5ghz if they behave right. Consumer stuff just
doesn't seem to do these features sadly, but good thing you can usually buy
old enterprise kit cheap on ebay.
I now run a single Arista enterprise AP that does a well enough job of
covering my house for my purposes. I also have some Fortinet AP's wired in
with my Fortigate firewall as a controller I test with that work both wired
and wireless, but use a different SSID for those. I mostly use the Arista
for my primary SSID as it's an 802.1ax AP, but the Fortinets work in full
mesh (non-wired) using 5ghz for backhaul or as individually wired ap's
orchestrated via my Fortigate ala my prior Cisco's, and Arista via the
"cloud".
I have heard good things about Ubiquiti, but no experience thus far. I
almost bought into some, but figured I'd screw with the Fortinet and Arista
kit as I work with both lots, and found it best staying with enterprise kit
I can granularly control understanding how wireless "should" work. I'd be
curious to know how well Ubiuquiti deals with dynamic channel selection,
band-steering, and other "enterprise" features consumer crap sorely misses
on.
-mb
On Wed, Oct 14, 2020 at 12:09 PM Mark Phillips via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
> I need to upgrade my home wifi network with a high speed mesh network
> (primarily for better phone coverage in my house - I make a lot of video
> calls to the UK). I have Cox Gigablast on my wired network. The issue I am
> running into is that the "base" unit of the eero units and other vendors'
> boxes have to connect to either (1) the cable model or (2) the router and
> not the switch. My modem, router, and switch are all in a cabinet above my
> desk in the office, so (1) I don't need wifi in the office and (2) I don't
> relish the thought of having a wifi transmitter sitting 3 feet from my head
> 12 hours a day. I want to connect the wifi boxes to my wired network in a
> couple of different rooms away from the office. Eero (and other vendors)
> says the "base" unit has to act as a gateway (my router does that now), so
> it cannot be after the switch. Any suggestions on how I can get a high
> speed mesh network in my house and not take a daily showert in 2+ GHz
> radiation? I also want to use the wired network as the backhaul channel.
>
> Please don't start a discussion on the health effects of wifi radiation.
> Just assume I am so unscientific and superstitious that I believe in wifi
> gremlins and I don't want them invading my head.;)
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mark
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