Home mesh wifi

Bought the Deco X20 (2 pack) on Friday. The main unit is the living room (front of the house) while the second unit is about three quarters towards the back of the house. So far everything is running just fine but I will most likely run a network cable between the two at some point for best throughput.
 
deweyzeph said:
My experience with the Decos (and all other mesh systems) is that they work best when hardwired together. If you don't hardwire them they don't work any better than a crappy wifi extender.
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What rubbish.....They nothing like extenders....
 
I.am.Sam said:
hi all

i dont want to start another thread

house is probably around 120sqm

i have a outhouse as well for a family member

what would be the best router or set up to get fibre from the lounge (front of house) to the seperate entrance ?
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Dude, rather spend the money on indoor plumbing for your family!
 
I.am.Sam said:
anyone ?
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Both extend your wifi coverage and that's where the similarity ends.

Extenders connect to your router's wifi, and then rebroadcast the signal by creating their own network. You have to connect to the extender manually.

A mesh uses multiple nodes to extend your coverage as a unified network. One node will seamlessly hand your device over to the next as you move around your house.

If one node fails, the mesh connects you to the next closest node.

You can increase the size of your network by adding nodes.

Hardwiring is connecting the nodes via ethernet cable for a wired backhaul. You get the most out of a mesh that way. Super handy if you can, not critical if you can't... There are triband mesh systems that have a dedicated wireless backhaul.
 
greg0205 said:
Both extend your wifi coverage and that's where the similarity ends.

Extenders connect to your router's wifi, and then rebroadcast the signal by creating their own network. You have to connect to the extender manually.

A mesh uses multiple nodes to extend your coverage as a unified network. One node will seamlessly hand your device over to the next as you move around your house.

If one node fails, the mesh connects you to the next closest node.

You can increase the size of your network by adding nodes.

Hardwiring is connecting the nodes via ethernet cable for a wired backhaul. You get the most out of a mesh that way. Super handy if you can, not critical if you can't... There are triband mesh systems that have a dedicated wireless backhaul.
Click to expand...

Only the more expensive mesh systems have a dedicated third radio for wireless backhaul. The cheaper ones use one of the 2 dual-band radios for backhaul, effectively halfing the throughput of whatever band is used for the backhaul.

Wireless backhaul suffers from the same problem you're trying to fix, that is, anything that is blocking your main wifi signal is also going to block your wireless backhaul rendering the whole thing pointless.

Mesh systems are great, but if you don't use wired backhaul you might as well not even bother.
 
I.am.Sam said:
i saw the price of lan cables though is it better to run it using a lan cable ?

and also noob here with the terminology

i assume mesh systems are basically wifi extenders

what is hardwiring ?
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i saw the price of lan cables though is it better to run it using a lan cable ? ->running LAN cables eliminates the "noise" that WiFi suffers from - The further away from the Wifi source you are, the more the signal drops, especially 5Ghz.

i assume mesh systems are basically wifi extenders -> somewhat true but with important differences. A Mesh system is a unified network where you have different nodes (Wifi units) set up, similar to extenders, but the Mesh system is MUCH easier to configure and usually has a single SSID (one WiFi network) that extends across all of the nodes. As you walk through different areas of the network, the nodes will seamlessly handover the WiFi network between the different nodes to ensure you don't drop signal...the SSID also has 2.4ghz and 5ghz active, depending how close/far you are from the node. In a nutshell, it is definitely better for the average Joe Soap to have a Mesh system vs a bunch of range extenders and access points.

what is hardwiring ? -> hardwiring means you run a LAN cable between the different nodes/access points in a network. With the MESH system, it's not really needed unless your property is huge and your signal drops too quickly between the nodes. The Mesh system is perfect for double-story houses as you can have the main access point downstairs and have a single node upstairs that boosts the WiFi from downstairs - you can then "hardwire" any nodes to each other using a LAN cable to keep the network speed between the nodes relatively constant.
 
deweyzeph said:
Only the more expensive mesh systems have a dedicated third radio for wireless backhaul. The cheaper ones use one of the 2 dual-band radios for backhaul, effectively halfing the throughput of whatever band is used for the backhaul.

Wireless backhaul suffers from the same problem you're trying to fix, that is, anything that is blocking your main wifi signal is also going to block your wireless backhaul rendering the whole thing pointless.

Mesh systems are great, but if you don't use wired backhaul you might as well not even bother.
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Like I said, you get the most out of your mesh that way.

Still gonna argue that a wireless mesh is light years better than plugging in an extender 'tho.
 
deweyzeph said:
Only the more expensive mesh systems have a dedicated third radio for wireless backhaul. The cheaper ones use one of the 2 dual-band radios for backhaul, effectively halfing the throughput of whatever band is used for the backhaul.

Wireless backhaul suffers from the same problem you're trying to fix, that is, anything that is blocking your main wifi signal is also going to block your wireless backhaul rendering the whole thing pointless.

Mesh systems are great, but if you don't use wired backhaul you might as well not even bother.
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With 5ghz running at speeds close to 1gbps, 50% of that is still more than ample for most domestic use cases. As an example, I have 25mbps fibre. My mesh backhaul of over 100mbps on 5ghz is beyond sufficient
 
perfect so can any mesh system be hardwired and say i add one node at the front

one at the back and one at the seperate entrance

i can still use a lan cable to connect all 3 to the main router and wont have issues throughtout the house and yard
 
I.am.Sam said:
perfect so can any mesh system be hardwired and say i add one node at the front

one at the back and one at the seperate entrance

i can still use a lan cable to connect all 3 to the main router and wont have issues throughtout the house and yard
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Yeah, they'll all have WAM/LAN ports.

Also, here you go...

Ethernet Backhaul for Deco: Setup, Benefits and Troubleshooting | TP-Link

Learn how Deco Ethernet backhaul works, how to set up wired backhaul, which switches are compatible, and how to fix common issues.
www.tp-link.com www.tp-link.com
 
I.am.Sam said:
perfect so can any mesh system be hardwired and say i add one node at the front

one at the back and one at the seperate entrance

i can still use a lan cable to connect all 3 to the main router and wont have issues throughtout the house and yard
Click to expand...
I would just hardwire the nodes inside the main house, then let the one in the outside cottage connect wirelessly to the network. I'm not a fan of running cable outside.

Depending on your house layout, you don't need to connect them all to the router. You can connect one to the router, then the second to the first etc...
 
ok I just did my first Tenda Mesh 3 pack install and woah. Pretty sweet, I'm an old techy old days of running a cable from one AP to the next was my sort of proper repeater setup but man I can only imagine the setup/tech for the TPlinks on mesh. Really impressed
 
RiaX said:
I bought the deco M5 system. I havent hard wired it yet but the system seems to be connected at all times. However my TV (samsung series 8) keeps dropping the connection on DSTV now and Youtube, thought its quite stable on Netflix.

I set it up with the app when I have the issues the Decos dont flash red they stay green and my PC which is hardwired to the router doesnt lose its connection at all.

Any advice on what I should do ? try and keep it simple I'm not that tech savy with networking and Wifi.

Think its my TV ?

FYI I connected the TV to one of the decos with a cable (not the main deco though).
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and me :( ?
 
RiaX said:
and me :( ?
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Green is good.

Flashing red is still connecting.

Connecting your teevee via cable or wifi shouldn't really make much of a difference and if you're streaming Netflix just fine, I suspect your DSTV/YouTube issue isn't with your connection.

Line speed?
 
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