I wouldn’t exactly call them ‘routers’. You hook one of them by Ethernet to your current modem/router, then turn off wifi on your modem. Then distribute the rest of them evenly around your house, with only a power source required for the rest (they all do have an outbound Ethernet port if you for some reason want to hook something to it).
The app for setup is very easy to use, and shows a ton of interesting data. One cool feature is the ability to prioritize throughput to a device.
It absolutely murdered the wifi extender I was using (they switch channels automatically to avoid interference), and the nice thing about them is, unlike the extender the wifi is all on the same SSID.
I got the 3 pack, but when I turn one off, I still get pretty good coverage throughout the house (3-bedroom 1 floor). Obviously it would depend on the size and construction of the house, as well as the placement.
I think it helps to mount them high up, so the signal between the routers isn’t blocked by furniture. It doesn’t come with wall mount brackets, but there are 3rd party brackets available.
There do seem to be extenders that claim to be able to use the same SSID. I haven’t tried those myself. I suspect you get more reliable operation from an actual mesh system.
Better ones (IMHO) don’t force you to change the SSID and allow you to clone the existing one so that your devices can roam around and join the strongest signal rather than change to a different network altogether. It depends on the brand / model. I’ve seen newer Netgear units insist on repeating to a different SSID and antique Linksys units allowing the SSID to be the same and vice versa. If you can get a hold of the product’s manual online before buying it might indicate one way or the other.
For the lazy/no-hassle man with a little bit of coin, mesh network can’t be beat imo. Even if you fished ethernet into your room, it’s not going to plug into many of today’s wireless devices.
FYI a WiFi extender will halve your local WiFi network speed. Your speed to your ISP is unaffected…only the internal speed in your house.
So let’s say you have a 100mbps ISP connection and 300mbps WiFi speed in your house. Halved you are at 150mbps which is more than your ISP so downloads and whatnot proceed at the best speed available.
If you do a lot of home networking though and are moving your 300GB movie from your office to network storage in your house you will see the speed decrease when using a WiFi extender since it will move files at 150mbps instead of 300.
North American power typically comes into the home as three wires. One is neutral and the other two “hot legs” are 120v higher than neutral and out of phase by 180 degrees.
The upside is that where you need 120v you connect one hot leg and one neutral and where you need 240v (Oven / Range / Dryer / Water heater / Central AC) you connect the appliance between the two hot legs.
So all your everyday 120v outlets are going to be either hot1-neutral or hot2-neutral. For powerline networking you need two outlets on hot1 or two outlets that are on hot2.
The other negative about powerline extenders is that they can be very sensitive to having certain equipment on the same branch circuit or leg. I use a pair and get 150 Mbs, but ONLY if they are plugged into the outlet across the room from my UPS. It’s the same branch circuit, but they can’t share a duplex receptacle for some reason. I even tried a 6’ extension cord to get some separation between the UPS and the unit, but it still wouldn’t work.
Very true. My home network is a mix of wired Ethernet, wireless, including bridged wireless, and one pair of powerline adapters. The powerline adapters aren’t effective across the legs of the power panel but work fine on the same side, even on different circuits, which is fortunately where I need them. But I’ve noticed that sometimes (not always) the bandwidth light goes from green (acceptable full speed) to amber (major slowdown) whenever the oven turns on! Even worse is when I have a particular wall wart plugged in to the same circuit. This particular wall wart is a PFC type power supply that powers a Linksys AP that I use occasionally, and apparently cheap PFC power supplies are notorious for generating line noise – this one certainly does. The powerline adapters are pretty much unusable when that piece of shit is plugged in.
I have a TP-Link AC2600 and it works great and setup was pretty simple. We got a fiber-optic line that comes in on the other side of the house from where our cable modem was setup before. So, we installed this on the other side of the house. It works great. If you plug into the ether-net output, it’s about just as fast as being connected directly to the fiber-optic cable. I typically get about 350 mbs download.
Thanks. When you installed this device and set it up, did it create a new wireless network (SSID)? Or were you able to make it part of your existing wireless network?
When you set it up, if you name the network the same, it works “seamlessly” with the wireless router. I’m not sure how it works, but it seems seamless. I know if you name it something different it will show up as a different network.
