Hey! I'm finally fed up with the poor wifi reception in my room and have the money to possibly do something about it at the same time.
My setup looks like this (the wlan access point is theoretical, non-existant at this time):
Internet from the wall in my living room to the modem/wlan-router combo, then via ethernet cable through 2 walls (one of them has some sort of shielding on it, causing the poor reception), then into my switch and then to my laptop and desktop PC.
Can I just plug a wlan access point into the switch and call it a day? Also: if I have to set it up (typing in all sorts of numbers and adresses), will they be saved even if the wlan access point loses power? (I shut down everything when I leave the house)
IF a setup like this is possible, what would your recommendations for a wlan access point in the price range of 30-50€ be?
@BarkingMad is correct, as long as DHCP is disabled on the AP (that is if your using a wireless router as an AP) and connect it to a switch all the clients using the AP will get their IP addresses from the DHCP server (In this case your Modem/Router) and should be routable by your router. Also yes the AP will save the settings even if you power it down and I can attest to the Unifi AP being good, I have the Unifi AP AC Lite and it works great.
oh, sorry the I meant if you bought a normal wireless router you'd have to disable DHCP on that for it work with your existing router, the Unifi AP is just an AP and doesn't have a DHCP server.
Build quality and reliability, the Unifi Access Points are marketed as enterprise grade gear and sold to businesses to setup wireless mesh networks but because of this they are a very solid device even for home use, also this Archer C50 looks very good on paper for the price but reading some of the reviews it has spotty signal range and some said the wireless died within 5 months.
The problem with the wireless router market is that most of the stuff between 30-50€ are usually not very good, they often skimp on the quality where it matters and put in extra unneeded features like usb 2 ports and print/media servers and all that stuff to entice people to buy the products. imo what I want in an AP is solid signal, low latency and decent transfer speed and don't care about all the other features, in this respect the Unifi AP is great because it does one thing and does it very well.
Yes, I have mine so it has separate SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5GHz but you can also set it up so it uses the same SSID and the AP manages what band to use. I have it so legacy devices are on 2.4GHz and modern ones are on 5GHz, this is because wireless congestion is much less on 5GHz and transfer speeds are generally better, I can get around 370mbps on mine using 5GHz but the downside is that range isn't as good and it doesn't penetrate objects as easily as 2.4GHz but I have full coverage within my house so it doesn't matter that much to me. Also I can go around 80 meters down the street on 2.4GHz before I lose signal using this AP so signal strength is pretty good.
Range ain't a problem in my case. The AP would be in the same room, 2m max distance to the devices (5GHz for the laptop w/Intel Wireless AC 3160, 2.4GHz for my phone w/Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n). Right now I get 11.83Mbps DL and 8.32Mbps UL with my phone. With 4G it's ~40Mbps DL / ~6Mbps UL. My data plan is 125Mbps DL / 12.5Mbps UL.
I have got 3 of the AC-LITE variant (the more pricey one) and they work beautifully. You just set it up with the PoE adaptor you get in the kit. You install the Ubiquiti controller software on your computer to set it up with what channel and SSID you'd like and such, pretty straight forward. Only thing is, if you want a guest network running (a second SSID which is firewalled from the rest of your LAN), you need the controller software to run all the time. This can be done with a Raspberry Pi for instance.
2.4GHz 802.11/n is rough, although if your phone is up to it you may get slightly better performance, I just tested an old Intel 802.11/n card from 2011 and it gets around 27-30mbps using my AP.
Also just so you know, the Unifi AP uses a PoE injector so you'll need two Ethernet cables for it as its powered though the cable. One end goes to the switch , the other to the injector, and from the injector to the AP.
The problem is the fault of lack of stable connection. I can't even browse reddit before I go to sleep. Pictures often don't even load and I get "Network Error". When I'm in the living room it works perfectly. Hell, even when I'm 2 stories down in the elevator it works better than in my room.
The blue lines on the diagram are Ethernet from the modem/router to the switch, he wants an AP for phones and such which doesn't have wired capability.
