OT: whole home wifi mesh recommendations

[Andy Poggio]

I have a two-storey, 2400 sq. ft. house with an attic and a crawl space; the walls are sheetrock.  To get good WiFi speeds throughout the house, I have to use 4 wireless access points that are connected by cat-5 cable to an Ethernet switch in the garage.  If installing today, I would use cat-6 cable instead of cat-5; but cat-5 will handle one gigabit speed.

It was a huge nuisance to run the cable into the rooms where it was needed.  I spent more time than I liked in both the attic and the very tiny crawlspace.  I also had to use a wall interior to run cable from the attic to the garage ceiling.  All long cable runs are terminated in wall plates in the relevant rooms; no long cable runs are visible except in the garage — I’m happy with this result.

If I had to do it again, I would do the same way again.  Cat-5/6 is just better than WiFi.  In general, if it doesn’t move, wire it to the network.  So, server, printers, AV equipment, Amazon Echos, etc. are wired; Macbooks, iPads, and iPhones are WiFi.  WiFi is best when the WiFi access point and the device are in the same room, even if the walls are only made of sheetrock.  WiFi in adjacent rooms is pretty good; further than that WiFi connections get slow/unreliable.

—andy


> On Sep 6, 2022, at 12:32 PM, Tom Yarmas <tom at yarmas.com> wrote:
> 
> Just went through this with a new home my daughter is renting. Very old home and I thought putting the wifi in the second floor might be the best option. Turns out the old plaster walls were too much for even the 2.4Ghz signals. Moving the access point to a central location on 1st floor allowed for much better coverage in the home. Seems the floor is easier to penetrate than plaster walls ?
> 
>  I also found that the 5Ghz band was almost useless as it just would not travel very far in the old home.
> 
> I am not sold on the mesh scheme as yet. If you have tried moving the access point to see what location is optimal and just have a few spots that need help, I would try a wifi extender. Something like this TP Link device (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010S6SG3S?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details) is reasonably priced and can help without having to change out all of your existing equipment for mesh.
> 
> Good luck.
> 
> -tom
> 
> 
>> On Sep 6, 2022, at 1:54 PM, Dee Dee Sommers <deesquared at mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Friends,
>> 
>> Our new home has a few dead spots paired with fairly weak DSL internet service (and virtually zero cellular signal). I am trying to maximize what we have. I am interested in your experiences and/or recommendations for mesh wifi coverage. My home is about 2300 sf 2 stories. We also have a very large detached garage that if I can get some signal to, that would be even better!
>> 
>> Thank you for your time,
>> Dee Dee in N FL
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