Hi all,
I have a house where the router is located in the basement, and there is a big slab of concrete above it, so we don't get good signal on the first and second floor. As a stopgap measure, I've set up a Powerline network with spare equipment that I had laying around. It works, but it has significant drawbacks:
So I want to ditch the Powerline solution, wire a few rooms throughout the house directly to the router, and from there establish a fast and reliable WiFi network for those devices that won't have a wired connection.
At first I thought that I would need mesh networking, e.g. Google Wifi, Netgear Orbi, etc. But after reading a bit about it, it seems like the problem these devices solve is how to cover the entire house with wifi without having to connect each access point with wired ethernet (hence the "mesh"). This is accomplished by using part of the wifi spectrum to establish a "backbone" communications channel between nearby access points, all the way back to the router. They also provide seamless handoff between access point, but this is not the primary reason for getting one of these units. Although I will note that at least some of these devices (e.g. Google Wifi) also work with a wired connection, in which case they provide a faster, lower-latency connection.
It looks like what I need is a system that implements 802.11r so that I can have seamless handoff. So something like Ubiquiti Unifi AP would fit the bill? Looks like it requires a wired connection, so no putting an AP in a part of the house that doesn't have a wired connection yet (unless I revert to using a Powerline adapter...).
Is all of the above correct? In my case, is there a reason to choose the Ubiquiti solution? Or should I just go with Google Wifi, so I can have fast, low-latency connections where I can connect them in a wired fashion, and still have the possibility to have decent connection where I don't have wired Ethernet yet?
Thanks!
I have a house where the router is located in the basement, and there is a big slab of concrete above it, so we don't get good signal on the first and second floor. As a stopgap measure, I've set up a Powerline network with spare equipment that I had laying around. It works, but it has significant drawbacks:
- Throughput is very limited (this is due to the nature of the electrical system of the house: long wires + crossing circuit breakers) - a few MB/s, whereas I'd like to be able to stream 4k content throughout the house; subjectively, it also feels like the powerline network introduces non-negligeable latency, but I haven't measured.
- Devices might latch on to the "wrong" access point (one that is further away, but still reachable), meaning extremely slow speed, bordering unusable
- Handoff when moving about the house is manual and slow (~ 5-10 seconds)
So I want to ditch the Powerline solution, wire a few rooms throughout the house directly to the router, and from there establish a fast and reliable WiFi network for those devices that won't have a wired connection.
At first I thought that I would need mesh networking, e.g. Google Wifi, Netgear Orbi, etc. But after reading a bit about it, it seems like the problem these devices solve is how to cover the entire house with wifi without having to connect each access point with wired ethernet (hence the "mesh"). This is accomplished by using part of the wifi spectrum to establish a "backbone" communications channel between nearby access points, all the way back to the router. They also provide seamless handoff between access point, but this is not the primary reason for getting one of these units. Although I will note that at least some of these devices (e.g. Google Wifi) also work with a wired connection, in which case they provide a faster, lower-latency connection.
It looks like what I need is a system that implements 802.11r so that I can have seamless handoff. So something like Ubiquiti Unifi AP would fit the bill? Looks like it requires a wired connection, so no putting an AP in a part of the house that doesn't have a wired connection yet (unless I revert to using a Powerline adapter...).
Is all of the above correct? In my case, is there a reason to choose the Ubiquiti solution? Or should I just go with Google Wifi, so I can have fast, low-latency connections where I can connect them in a wired fashion, and still have the possibility to have decent connection where I don't have wired Ethernet yet?
Thanks!
