Mesh system recommendation

[Only_CORE]

Hey,

since my last unresolved topic I decided to ditch the several different routers and APs I currently use (Tp-Link Archer C6 (probably defective HW), Tp-Link VR300, Tp-Link Wireless N Router) and buy a whole mesh system.

I was searching Amazon.de (I live in Czechia and the prices seem higher here) and it looks like the have pretty good deals on TP-Link Deco X50 (set of 3 for 224€)  (The XE75 is double the price) and Asus ZenWifi XD4, also set of 3 for 246€ or a set of 2 for 132€ (That would make it 264€ for 4 units). Not sure if I need 4th one of the same since I need only 3 to cover the house and 4th one could be an outdoor unit.

Also right now my internet connection comes from a terminator (Zyxel VMG4005-B50A) which bonds two DSL connections together and I would need the new router to support PPPoE with WLAN ID and Tag - It didn't work for me otherwise.(Pictures are from my min router (Archer C6) which sits right after the terminator)

Which ones would you recommend? The X50 looks good but I'm not sure about TP-Link anymore since my last dealings with my setup. Do they have a compatible additional outdoor unit which I could add. Plus I would love to have a camera on the house and their Tapo looks usable. Or are there any better deals right now?

Thanks a lot!

[heimdali]

I've seen interesting access points from Aruba on German ebay for about EUR 60, check them out.  For a router, I can only recommend OPNsense --- you need suitable hardware to run it on, or a VM with network cards passed through (not recommended).

 

[Only_CORE]

7 minutes ago, heimdali said:

I've seen interesting access points from Aruba on German ebay for about EUR 60, check them out.  For a router, I can only recommend OPNsense --- you need suitable hardware to run it on, or a VM with network cards passed through (not recommended).

 

Running my own router is somethink I thought about, but I don't need another thing to troubleshoot. I want something that works out of the box.

[Zipdox]

The most affordable and flexible solution is to buy generic routers that are well supported by OpenWRT, and set up a mesh network yourself.

 

Look through the table of ideal hardware and see what's available to you and for what price. I suggest not buying anything too old, especially not for your main router. For the other nodes you can use APs instead of router hardware. Of course you can also get used hardware and flash it with OpenWRT. Myself I use a Netgear R7800 as my main router and 3 WAC104 access points. For meshing them use this guide.

[heimdali]

27 minutes ago, Only_CORE said:

Running my own router is somethink I thought about, but I don't need another thing to troubleshoot. I want something that works out of the box.

Then I don't know ...  I guess you've seen how well that works with the hardware you already have.  Do you expect the firewall rules and vlans etc. to magically configure themselves?

 

[Only_CORE]

38 minutes ago, heimdali said:

Then I don't know ...  I guess you've seen how well that works with the hardware you already have.  Do you expect the firewall rules and vlans etc. to magically configure themselves?

 

What else is there to configure than the pppoe connection I shown in the picture? Yes, I have to forward docker on my Linux server but that should be it.

[heimdali]

2 hours ago, Only_CORE said:

What else is there to configure than the pppoe connection I shown in the picture? Yes, I have to forward docker on my Linux server but that should be it.

That depends on your network and the devices connected to it.  One of the first things is a name server, then maybe you want DHCP, then vlans, like a management vlan for the access points and switches, a guest vlan etc., vpn connections and whatever else you have.  Not every device needs internet and not every device needs to communicate with all others.  Every network is different and networks don't configure themselves.

 

[Only_CORE]

14 hours ago, heimdali said:

That depends on your network and the devices connected to it.  One of the first things is a name server, then maybe you want DHCP, then vlans, like a management vlan for the access points and switches, a guest vlan etc., vpn connections and whatever else you have.  Not every device needs internet and not every device needs to communicate with all others.  Every network is different and networks don't configure themselves.

 

Well, what about the systems I mentioned in my original post?

[heimdali]

28 minutes ago, Only_CORE said:

Well, what about the systems I mentioned in my original post?

You mean the ones you ditched?

 

As to TPlink, their non-managable switches are good, especially the cheap 8-port ones are amazingly resilient and reliable --- but who wants a switch that's not managable.  Their bluetooth adapter also works fine.  From anything they make that requires any sort of configuration, I'd stay away.  They quite haven't figured that out yet and their software might not work as well as one would expect.  Firmware updates can suddenly disappear from their website when a product is EOL.  I have a managable switch from them and it logs you out after 60 seconds while you're trying to configure it --- needless to say, that totally sucks --- and their support refused to fix the problem and the firmware disappeared shortly after.  They did answer my emails, so at least that's good, but it was a total waste of money.

 

I don't buy Asus because I had a mainboard from them that had a crappy fan on the chipset that made a lot of noise that drives you crazy and it wasn't replacable and I'm still pissed about it.  Unless that changed, they also deny any support for Linux, so they can go do something to themselves.  Zyxel used to make good modems a long time ago, and the last thing I've seen from them was a toy router which wasn't too bad but very questionable build quality, and IIRC the software had become unconfigurable because I had it switched it to bridge mode and after a short while it didn't work right anymore and was replaced by a DSL modem.

 

Aruba does have compatible outdoor access points, though I doubt you'd want to pay the price.  For outdoors, you can always get a MSM422 (or an indoor one from Aruba) as long as it doesn't get wet.  The range is limited anyway by what the clients can manage to send, so the idea of more transmission power for outdoors doesn't exactly work out.