Home Networking (Mesh or Router)

[beteng1]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm having some WiFi connectivity issues at home where the WiFi connection would sometimes just drop during the day and we believe that the Modem/Router (ISP provided) is the one thats causing it drop. 

 

A couple of months ago, we were using Netgear Nighthawk X6 R800.  Unfortunately, one night we had power outage and surge that took out the R8000 and we've been living with the crappy modem/router provided by our ISP.  

 

With the work from home mandate from our employers, 3 of us are working from home.  The heavy users is mainly me and my dad who goes in conference calls (Teams/Zoom) daily.  When work hours are done, we're either streaming movies or playing video games at home.  There are approximately 50 devices connected to our network and majority of it are on WiFi.  The only devices that are wired are:

- My gaming computer (top floor)

- Work laptop, by the gaming computer

- Printer

- Sibling's laptop (top floor)

- NAS (bottom floor)

- Apple TV (sometimes I use this cable for the Switch)

- PS4

 

Questions or things we've tried at home

- We've explored using the Google Nest WiFi months ago but at the time, we only got to test using just one device and we didn't get the extra nodes due to budget.  We ended up returning that one as we found that the WiFi speeds in the second floor was slower than the ISP's Moden/Router.  In addition, I was not too sold on it as I could not even hide the SSID (surprising) and I could not reserve IPs.

- We're currently using a repeater located on the 2nd floor close to the main door.  We have a Nest Camera and Nest Hello DoorBell that would sometimes drop connection.  My dad has purchased a repeater so that we can get the 2 smart devices to connect to our network.

- I'm thinking that with the number of smart devices we have at home, having a mesh WiFi might be better for our use case.

- I've not tried and not aware of friends and family friends that are using a mesh wifi network to get some feedback.  I've got a coworker who is using the Google WiFi for years now and he's advising me against it due to the lack of 'control' functionality compared to other mesh WiFi.  He's advised I look into Netgear Orbi or Eero.

- I find that WiFi 6 is not mainstream at this time and I'll be paying a premium if i were to get this and 'future proof'.  I do have a concern that some of the Smart Devices that we have at home (ie TP Link) might not work with the latest and greatest if I were to go down this route.

 

Would you be able to recommend either a router or mesh wifi systems?  If I'm to go with a router, I'll most likely place it in the ground floor where its closest to the center of the house.  In terms of budget, I probably would not go over $800 CAD unless there's something that 'ticks all the boxes'.

 

Thanks,

Vincent

 

Apologies on the lame drawing/sketch.  I'm just using MS Paint. 

Legend:
Blue Square Box = Computer, NAS & Printer
Green Square Box = Wireless Smart Home Device
Yellow Line = Wired Ethernet Connection
Yellow Dot = Router/Modem
Red Square = Gigabit Switch
Brown Diamond = Wired Ethernet from one floor to another

 

Devices per Floor:
Top Floor (10)
5 Smart Devices (Google Home, Smart TV Smart Lights)
2 Desktop (1 not in use but hard wired)
3 Laptops (2 wired and 1 wireless)

Ground Floor (16)
3 Nest Camera
6 Smart Switches/Devices
1 Router/Modem from ISP
1 Laptop (Wireless)
1 Nest Thermostat
1 Google Home
1 Smart TV
1 Chromecast

 

Basement (7)
1 Apple TV (Wired)
1 Google Home
1 Smart TV
2 Gaming Consoles (1 wired)
1 NAS (wired)
1 Chromecast

 

Personal Mobile Devices:

4 iPads
5 Cell Phones (1 extra phone for testing)
 

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by beteng1
Forgot to add the legend on the image.