WiFi mesh

[tredadda]

So I did a search on here and couldn't find anything. I am due to have fiber internet installed in my house within the next month or two. It's with MetroNet and this will finally rid me of the duopoly of Xfinity/Century Link. I will have a 2GB plan, and was looking into a WiFi mesh for my home that works well with those speeds.

I am in a ~2100 sf home that is a ranch, but has a full finished basement. My modem is down there along with my wireless router, and I wanted to invest in a WiFi mesh system to ensure that I maximize the speed along with having a steady signal throughout my home.

Now MetroNet is offering for free the eero Pro 6E, but I am always leery of "free" things. As such I would rather have my own. Plus I may be a tin foil hat guy on this, but I typically trust nothing from Google, Microsoft, or Amazon (who owns eero). Just looking for something that makes sense for an affordable price. I have been looking around and I can't seem to find a consensus on what is best. I am not looking to go cheap on this, while at the same time not looking at Netgear Orbi expensive either.

[htismaqe]

I wouldn't go with Eero myself (it's now owed by Amazon) - I wouldn't ever go with wifi provided by your service provider. If it breaks, you're gonna have to get them to fix it and they have shitty response times and even shittier in-home service, for the most part. Plus, I wouldn't want anybody that's not me poking around in my private LAN.

As for mesh itself, it works fine but I would recommend if you want maximum performance, go with a central router and wireless access points that are actually fed with ethernet cables (if you have the ability to run cables or already have cables, that is). Wired backhaul to your AP's will perform better in the long run.

[htismaqe]

By the way, if you still want to do mesh, Asus' mesh networking is built into the router OS, so you could get a nice router (I have the AX8800) and then get a cheaper dual-band router to use as your AP.

[Zebedee DuBois]

I have an eero Pro 6 and have been happy with it.

I'm in an older 2 story home with a basement. - ~2400 sq.ft. Brick exterior, lathe and plaster throughout. I have 2 eero extenders - so either the base or an extender on each floor. I have good signal to all the house and most of the yard, although the driveway area is little weak, most likely to the amount of brick and plaster between the devices - but that is outside and not used very much. I got geeky and walked around the whole property with my laptop and mapped the signal-sometimes I have too much time on my hands.

I like that it updates its firmware automatically.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

I wouldn't go with Eero myself (it's now owed by Amazon) - I wouldn't ever go with wifi provided by your service provider. If it breaks, you're gonna have to get them to fix it and they have shitty response times and even shittier in-home service, for the most part. Plus, I wouldn't want anybody that's not me poking around in my private LAN.

As for mesh itself, it works fine but I would recommend if you want maximum performance, go with a central router and wireless access points that are actually fed with ethernet cables (if you have the ability to run cables or already have cables, that is). Wired backhaul to your AP's will perform better in the long run.

For a 2100sq/ft home, I would agree with the bolded above.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Zebedee DuBois

I have an eero Pro 6 and have been happy with it.

I'm in an older 2 story home with a basement. - ~2400 sq.ft. Brick exterior, lathe and plaster throughout. I have 2 eero extenders - so either the base or an extender on each floor. I have good signal to all the house and most of the yard, although the driveway area is little weak, most likely to the amount of brick and plaster between the devices - but that is outside and not used very much. I got geeky and walked around the whole property with my laptop and mapped the signal-sometimes I have too much time on my hands.

I like that it updates its firmware automatically.

Does it check for FW automatically, or does it actually update without any manual intervention at all?

Because allowing your router to update itself is a good way to potentially get a bad FW release and hose up your network. I usually don't install FW upgrades instantly unless they fix an immediate bug. Otherwise, I wait until they've been tested for a few weeks in the wild before I apply them.

[Zebedee DuBois]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Does it check for FW automatically, or does it actually update without any manual intervention at all?

Because allowing your router to update itself is a good way to potentially get a bad FW release and hose up your network. I usually don't install FW upgrades instantly unless they fix an immediate bug. Otherwise, I wait until they've been tested for a few weeks in the wild before I apply them.

I'm in the shallow end of the technological-prowess pool, so anything I say should not carry any authority. I am guessing by FW you mean Firewall?...and I do not know about that.

I DO know that you can toggle on/off the auto-update feature in Settings.

As an end-user, I can say that it provides the service I want and I have had zero problems with the eero and Ive been using it for about 2 years.

[BigBeauford]

I have an Eero main and extender. Works beautifully and has for 2 years in my 2800 square foot home.

[tredadda]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

I wouldn't go with Eero myself (it's now owed by Amazon) - I wouldn't ever go with wifi provided by your service provider. If it breaks, you're gonna have to get them to fix it and they have shitty response times and even shittier in-home service, for the most part. Plus, I wouldn't want anybody that's not me poking around in my private LAN.

As for mesh itself, it works fine but I would recommend if you want maximum performance, go with a central router and wireless access points that are actually fed with ethernet cables (if you have the ability to run cables or already have cables, that is). Wired backhaul to your AP's will perform better in the long run.

Thanks for sharing that. As my only ethernet feed that I can find is in the basement I don't see how I would run another cable without it looking messy or tearing up walls to run it upstairs. No lie, that does seem like the best option, but not practical for me.

[tredadda]

Originally Posted by Zebedee DuBois

I'm in the shallow end of the technological-prowess pool, so anything I say should not carry any authority. I am guessing by FW you mean Firewall?...and I do not know about that.

I DO know that you can toggle on/off the auto-update feature in Settings.

As an end-user, I can say that it provides the service I want and I have had zero problems with the eero and Ive been using it for about 2 years.

Firmware.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Zebedee DuBois

I'm in the shallow end of the technological-prowess pool, so anything I say should not carry any authority. I am guessing by FW you mean Firewall?...and I do not know about that.

I DO know that you can toggle on/off the auto-update feature in Settings.

As an end-user, I can say that it provides the service I want and I have had zero problems with the eero and Ive been using it for about 2 years.

Sorry, context. FW could indeed be "firewall" but in this case, we're talking about FirmWare (your router's operating system).

My recommendation is to shut off auto-update and/or enable notification of new FW availability. That way you know when they release new FW but you can then apply it whenever you want.

For me, I could never use auto-update anyway. It would cause the router to go into a reboot sequence, which could happen at any time, including when I'm trying to work.

I usually only make changes to my network on Saturday or Sunday afternoons.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by tredadda

Thanks for sharing that. As my only ethernet feed that I can find is in the basement I don't see how I would run another cable without it looking messy or tearing up walls to run it upstairs. No lie, that does seem like the best option, but not practical for me.

For sure, if it isn't practical, mesh is a more than acceptable solution. It's not the best, but it does't mean it's "bad".

[tredadda]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

For sure, if it isn't practical, mesh is a more than acceptable solution. It's not the best, but it does't mean it's "bad".

Thank you. Gonna check out that Asus AX8800.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by tredadda

Thank you. Gonna check out that Asus AX8800.

The AX8800 is a few years old now. You might be able to get something newer at a better price. I haven't shopped for home wireless gear in a while so there's a lot of new stuff out there - WIFI standards are continuously evolving.

If you do get an Asus router/AP, PM me. There's a fork of the official Asus FW that's maintained by a member of SmallNetBuilder forums. I've "known" him for years and have used his firmware about 9 now. Rock solid, steady stream of updates, and he fixes a lot of bugs and outdated packages that still ship with the Asus official FW.

[htismaqe]

And FTR, I can't remember that last time I used "stock" firmware. All of the major providers (Netgear, Linksys, etc.) suffer from FW problems of some kind. One, they tend to only support a new router for the time it's at retail. Some of them only support the FW for a YEAR and then you stop getting updates, even if there's a critical bug or vulnerability found. Two, even if they do give you extended FW support, the updates are often so sparse that they don't actually help you - bugs and vulns can exist for months before they patch them. Which leads me to #3 - almost all of these residential routers use a modified Linux kernel, which means they have software packages that need to be maintained. Often times, the OEM will only update packages that are used in their custom GUI/OS. Netgear was especially bad. There was a vulnerability in a secondary package that they didn't fix for THREE years after it was found. It's not uncommon to find software libraries on a residential router that haven't been updated to the latest version in YEARS.