I just moved into a larger house. I was using some older Netgear routers with custom firmware to form a mesh network over WiFi but I want to upgrade since that equipment is 5+ years old now.
I saw some recommendations for the TP-Link Deco M5 but I want to use PoE for clean single line installation. I also looked at Unique APs but they are pricy and it seems excessive.
Anyone know a middle ground? Something comparable to the TP-Link M5 with PoE?
Edit: A friend suggested TP-Link Omada PoE access points. At $70 each on Amazon with no need for any special router or control module they may work but being only cloud configured is a concern. I’ll check to see if there’s open firmware available.
MikroTiks WAPs are good-enough category. Setup is mostly painless (I had a serious case of RTFM when I did it), you are going to need some device (or router/switch from mikrotik) to work as the controler.
Maybe consider the Ubiquiti In wall APs. They aren’t mesh but they are POE APs and they’re pretty cheap considering. Not only that but they offer an additional 2 ethernet ports to wherever you install them so you could strategically place them where you want a wired connection for something like a TV, Computer, Etc.
If you’re into the custom firmware route, openwrt supports some level of meshing (802.11r) and the next major release should have even more support (802.11v and k I think).
You can check on the openwrt website for compatible hardware. I ended up using the unifi AP-ac pro access points, but there is alot of compatible hardware. Just find hardware that supports 802.11r, v, and k.
As @ChuckH said OpenWRT supports 802.11r and since you want to use POE anyway it’s sufficient without 802.11s (which works with OpenWRT as well I might add). I for one use those really cheap MIPS based Xiaomi MI Router 4Gigabit which I got for 25€ with OpenWRT and 802.11r connected via Ethernet and they work absolutely great. Of course they’re not the fastest but they work absolutely flawlessly.
If you want a central management for your routers you could also deploy OpenWISP. It even supports real mesh (not just r) I believe.
Huh? Mesh relies on a wireless backbone to operate. The Mesh routers transmit the network on a wireless backbone and provide signal to your devices on another radio.
Separate APs are not separate networks. They can all be configured as broadcasting the same network and your devices auto negotiate the best signal.
Yet another reason you may consider the in wall units I mentioned. They act as a dual port ethernet wall outlet and an AP
If I use the older style extenders they create new networks with _EXT appended. They are separate and don’t hand off between devices like a mesh network. Since I work from home and occasionally like to use my laptop and remote into my workstation I’ve noticed the connection can drop or be unstable using my existing extenders.
I’m wiring my house with cat 6 anyways, it seems like upgrading my 5+ year old wireless network is reasonable scope creep.
Just under 3000 sqft, but I have a large masonry chimney running through the middle and concrete floors so wifi is blocked creating a lot of dead zones. If I put my wifi router in my office then I get no coverage in living room, kitchen or master bedroom. I put an extension in my living room but still no coverage in the master bedroom. I don’t want a 3rd network, I don’t even want two, so the only way to cover the whole house with one network and have devices just handoff between access points is with mesh.
are you in the US (are you? concrete floors and masonry chimney sounds, timing of your replies is like a hint that you’re not)?
Ubiquiti Unifi APs come with a Unifi controller that you can use to configure all your accesspoints in one place, and the controller also tracks metrics like bytes and retransmits per client. Hardware is good quality (relatively), but not amazing, more expensive than most but cheaper than most custom radio enterprise stuff. NanoHD or FlexHD is what I’d use they’re around 150-200 a pop, but really fast.
only if you’re in the us, you may be able to get “new”/unused but end of life ruckus R6xx from eBay almost cheaper than ubiquiti. Their beam forming is awesome, and you can download “unleashed” versions of firmware from their website to use them without enterprise controllers and support subscriptions. They’re around 100-150 a pop if you’re in the US, if you’re not then with shipping and customs might as well get Ubiquiti.
Mikrotik has hap ac2 and cap ac ; for 50-75 a pop; their wifi is slower than Ubiquiti Unifi but they’re cheaper. The software is full featured, but e.g. if you want client metrics on retransmits you’re on your own. The capsman centralized management exists, using it optional, and IMHO it’s pretty horrible how it looks and feels.
other openwrt poe - there’s passive injectors and extractors you can use to bring poe to the devices that don’t support it. Does not look elegant on the ceiling, but if you have a hollow ceiling or a connector box, and not straight up concrete it might be doable. Same thing with walls. Openwrt works fine and there’s devices with poe that it can work on. Depending on exact hardware it can be as fast or faster than crappy OEM software, but most devices will work more slowly than with OEM. Ubiquiti Unifi is way faster in that respect (I’m considering dropping around a €1000 to get myself some FlexHD APs and send about €600 worth of openwrt hardware to the skip). Actual hardware for openwrt needs a lot of research, and how well it works changes over time. e.g. R7800 is pretty good, Linksys wrt… great except wifi. Anything Qualcomm ipq based is generally ok, but you’d need to lookup the specifics.
If you haven’t figured out yet, you can have multiple accesspoints with the same ssid/crypto settings and your client device will jump from one accesspoint to another “seemlessly”. This is an exaggeration, e.g. you might skip a few packets if you’re in the middle of a call when your device changes APs (e.g. half a word to a word), so folks came up with 802.11r and 802.11v and 802.11k to speed this up more - basically these features change how many roundtrips are required for authentication - typically you’d be hopping networks within 20ms and would probably only drop a few packets … less than half a word in a conference call.
Not dropping any packets requires either using TCP (almost never done for audio/video/conference calling) or an enterprise controller that can handle buffering UDP for you as your phone/laptop/tablet moves accesspoints - there’s nothing like that for home use. With TCP, you get a freeze and some lag. You can setup OpenVPN over tcp at home between your phone and your wired network to get the same with UDP - but IMHO that’s just too much hassle.
I am moving to that shit now, R710 is in the mail, I liked my Ubquiti AC Pro but had issues with 1 of my two (current one is working fine) so decided to pull the trigger and try something else. Honestly Id prob just go with like two UAP AC LR over the higher end ones since its a home environment.
Given my bad experience of Unifi, I’m very close to boxing it all up and sending it back, and going with TPLink Omada. Basically the same idea as Unifi, but cheaper. Even their APs look pretty much the same…
Do tell. For one I’m not happy with unifi APs lacking 802.1x support over Ethernet, at least it checks the https certs when pulling configs which is more than I can say for Mikrotik stuff that’ll usually accept any kind of self signed cert in most use cases.
I’m kind of not impressed with eap245. It’s upposedly same class as unifi ac pro for €90/95. instead of unifi ac pro €135.
They’re both basically more nicely repackaged 2015 era Archer c7 -switch +poe. The ac pro had a much nicer/more stable range throughout my house - but it’s peak performance (same room with a 15" MacBook pro) was pretty low in both cases - which is why I’m looking at nanohd / flex hd
@Whizdumb you clearly have little experience with Mesh Wi-Fi. Seeing your comment forced me to sign up in this forum to tell you, you are wrong. Most Mesh WIFIs can use Wired LAN to mesh, which is even more stable.