Having the same wifi network in an area

Networking Networking Software
1

Hey guys, I’m doing a declutter and renovation at the moment. One of things I want to achieve is my home having the same wifi network (eg. my wife and kids in their rooms or kitchen can access home_wifi with the same password anywhere)

I have been reading about this. which is the process of setting up the primary and secondary wifi routers and changing the IP address by increments and turning of DHCP. etc The impression I get is that one has to connect wifi routers 1, 2, 3 and daisy chain them. Can’t I just connect them via the LAN port in each room?

At the same time, I read about access points. How are they different?

Thanks

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A home wifi router is usually an access point, glued to a switch, glued to a Linux based router with 2 network interfaces (LAN going into the switch section, and WAN). Linux based router part of it will come with a statically defined IP address, and will run a DHCP server which will help others hosts automatically get non conflicting IPs.

What you want is, more than one AP, and perhaps more than one switch.

If you use home routers for this. You need to not have more than one DHCP server (disable DHCP), and you need to have non conflicting IPs on the LAN (change IP), and you need to not use the WAN port on one not connecting to the internet.

Connect the two devices using their LAN ports after you’ve set them up.

An access point is there to allow replacing an ethernet cat5/cat6 wire with a radio. It doesn’t do DHCP serving, routing, firewalling and so on.

Usually, an added bonus is that they might be intended for business use, where you might have a few dozen of them per building floor and will get more frequent security updates and for longer. (motivated by businesses being more likely to be repeat customers and or potentially being open to paying for support contracts). They might be POE powered (instead of through a wall wart), which means you can put them on the ceiling next to a smoke detector more easily and get better signal and range because of less furniture clutter. They might have a more utilitarian unobtrusive less alien spider spaceship design (useful if you want to put one in the kitchen), typically come in white/as is the color of most ceilings.

Often times, you end up managing their wifi settings as a group of devices through a single interface, rather than logging into each one individually.

Typically they’ll allow multiple VLANs out of the box, same AP can emit multiple virtual SSIDs e.g. for guest network, for employees (or apartment owners) and for iot stuff.

For typical home/multi access point network setups, I’d consider / recommend either Ubiquiti or TP-Link Omada setups.

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Using the same SSID and password will work however if a device connects to an AP in one room with a good signal and then you go to the other end of the house it won’t automatically connect to the next AP until it loses the signal entirely, and even then there will be an interruption while it reconnects.

So you may want to look in to a system that is designed for that sort of use that can do seamless handover and load balancing between the different APs.

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As @ Dexter_Kane and @ risk said. Aruba, Grandstream and Enginius will get your there with a centralised control system. In each room run one or two CAT6/Cat6A cables back to a patch panel.

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Depending on your budget, a couple of mesh routers may be a simpler (and perhaps better) solution. Prices begin at around $100 per node, and go to several times that. What you get in return is effortless expandability, a single SSID, and central management. While connecting them to a LAN is great, it is not required; only the first node must be connected to your modem.

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So as others have said, the best way to do this is through Wireless Access Points. Depending on the size and layout of your house you may need 1 to N AP’s.

I would recomend looking at these from TP-Link as they are cost effective professional access points.

The advantages of going with professional over consumer is the ability to create a single point of control, and to allow for handoffs from one AP to the next as a person roams through the area.

Access Point strength is a function of distance from the AP and the material the signal needs to travel through. Brick or Stone will block lots of the signal, meaning you depending on where the AP’s are located things like a chimney my create a dark zone or shadow where wifi is weak behind it. Similarly brick or stone walls may prevent wifi from travelling through exterior walls meaning an outdoor AP may be required for patio or yard access to wifi.

I have a large ranch style house and I use 3 indoor AP’s and 1 outdoor AP. I have one at each end of the house, and one in the centre of the the house, then I have my outdoor one on the back of my house where my back yard is. This gives me solid coverage throughout the house and back yard.

I ran CAT 6 cable to each AP and connected them to a POE (power over Ethernet) switch to provide both data and power to each AP. While you can use mesh devices the have to use a portion of your available bandwidth to communicate from device to device which can cause latency or reduced performance.

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