Do I really need a Mesh Setup?

[_Jonathan]

I am considering upgrading my network slightly.  Everything I have read so far suggests I need to either purchase a mesh setup or even better a unify setup with multiple AP's.  I would consider myself to be more or less an incompetent enthusiast, meaning I enjoy technology a lot have spent money on it but don't spend nearly enough time on it to become what most enthusiasts would call proficient. 

 

I live in a 4400sqft, 2 story home, with a 3 car attached garage, built in the last 20 years, with a decent size front and back yard.  All my pc's, tv's and non-moving devices are wired (cat 5e). My wireless needs are served by a single, I repeat SINGLE Netgear R7000p wireless router located in a cabinet not completely in the center of my first floor.  I have approximately 30-40 IOT devices predominantly on 2.4ghz and a handful of phones and laptops etc. that use my 5ghz SSID.  Aside from a few corners of my house having not amazing wifi (although still useable) the only areas I have real trouble with are in my front yard and parts of my back yard.  My internet is a 900mb connection and all my networking switches and nic's are gigabit (i have no interest in upgrading beyond gigabit speeds for the foreseeable future).

 

I have read that using a mesh might be somewhat silly in my case as I would be using wired backhaul and not using the mesh's full wireless capabilities.  I have also read that using a single router if possible is potentially better in that I won't have to worry about devices switching manually to another AP or mesh node or struggling making that switch automatically.  I also have read that even reasonably equipped wifi 6 routers can have a range of close to 100ft in any direction.  If that is true than a 4400sqft reasonably squarish house with a footprint of 50ftx50ft should easily be covered by this single router setup and still provide enough speed for all my silly IOT devices and even enough for my phones and other things to use the web and watch Youtube or whatnot out in the yard? There is someone near me selling a ASUS ROG Rapture GTAX11000 new in a box for $225.00.  I am assuming that is a pretty big/noticeable upgrade to my current R7000p which is years old but maybe I'm wrong on that and I don't want to buy something for $225 that I can't return if that's the case.  Can someone who knows a lot more about this than me set me straight?  It seems a bit of a stretch that I need to basically gut my current setup and spend over $1000 on a full blown unify setup just so my laptops can get slightly better performance over an already what most would call a not cutting edge 900mb network.  

 

Thanks for reading and giving your feedback.

[johnt]

I would leave it alone if it’s working for you, to be honest. If you were able to make a single router work in that large of a house then that is pretty incredible. You are right, it will cost you at least a $1,000 to upgrade to a Unifi system. It does give you better control over everything, but it takes a lot of tinkering. And nobody is forward about this, but the multiple antennas on the cheaper router units can provide coverage than most of Unifi’s AP models that are meant to be ceiling mounted. So you inherently need more if that’s the product line you go with. I had to go with that because the wall and outdoor models were not available when I started.

 

It really gets into how much coverage you want for 5 or 6 GHz bands. Unifi switches APs very fluidly as long as you have decent coverage. You would see an improvement in the 5 GHz band for sure, but the 6 GHz almost requires an AP per 1,000 sq ft in my humble opinion. Even then that might not be enough. I was using two APs for 6 GHz in my 2,000 sq ft house, one on each floor, but I could not get a lick of signal in my garage on that band. Switching to 5 GHz helped tremendously. I put an outdoor AP at the tip of my garage and now I have access in my entire court in the front yard. I haven’t noticed a huge difference between 5 and 6 GHz for every day use. I don’t think it is worth the investment unless your router stops working.

[Omon_Ra]

22 hours ago, _Jonathan said:

I have read that using a mesh might be somewhat silly in my case as I would be using wired backhaul and not using the mesh's full wireless capabilities. 

That's either a false statement or a slight misunderstanding on your part. Typically a 'mesh' wireless network does refer to multiple access points using wifi to connect to each other and create a unified network, which is leaps and bounds ahead of the older wireless extenders that never worked for shit. BUT, that mesh still is using some portion of your wireless bandwidth to make that 'backhaul' connection. Depending on the distance from the main router to the other mesh units (nodes), that main 'pipe' could be faster/slower than just running off of a single beefy router. Think of each unit broadcasting wireless as creating a spherical 'bubble' of wireless. You want your mesh AP's venn-diagraming their bubbles to extend coverage, not at the very edge of the bubble. In your case, it seems like the primary router will be centralized, but potential slowdowns in network speed are more likely when you have a node making two hops (ie: client device > mesh AP > mesh AP > router) before getting back to the router. You're actually losing some of the wireless capabilities of the overall network with a wireless mesh network versus a wired backhaul.

 

If you have ethernet (Cat5e will sufficient, you'd probably be okay even if the house has only Cat5 ethernet) existing in the home, I'd definitely use a hardwired connection to the 'mesh' AP's/nodes if you can. There's a ton of options these days, and nearly all can be easily expanded with additional nodes if the need comes down the line. I'm not the biggest fan of Amazon (they own eero), but the eero mesh systems are very easy to use/setup, quite reliable in my experience, and easily handle hardwired backhaul or a true wireless mesh network. What I like about them specifically for setup is there isn't a 'dedicated' router device, so if you get a 3 pack, it doesn't matter which one you hook up as the primary router, it sorts itself out and then it knows any additional eeros will be tied to that router as AP nodes. Each device has 2 ethernet ports, neither are specific in/out, the eero figures it out. And if one is setup as a true wireless mesh point, those two ethernets can be used to hardwire devices near that node.

 

I had one of those Netgear R7000's years ago, and it struggled in areas of my 1 story ~2300 sq-ft house, so it's pretty impressive it's covering all of your house more or less fine. The eero 6 3 pack is $200 with free returns on Amazon right now, but I'm pretty sure getting the ASUS router would be a sufficient upgrade if you want to stick with a single router. Maybe see if the seller will take $200 cash and worst case, you can probably resell it for the same price and then get an eero system if it's not working for you.

 

Edit: I just noticed the Asus router is part of their 'AIMesh' series. I have a pair of Asus RT-AX88U's setup with a wired backhaul that replaced my R7000. It's a little more 'techy' to setup than an eero system (I never used the app though, just the web GUI) but the initial setup guide is easy to walk through if you're just setting up your SSID's and passwords. The AIMesh stuff works pretty well from my experience; handoff between main router and the node (hardwired connection) has no issues that I've seen, and I have way better coverage in the house and out in my yard now too. So if you go with that Asus for sale, you could add another AIMesh compatible device to expand coverage if needed later.

 

[_Jonathan]

Thanks guys,

I just offered 190 for the ASUS.  Hopefully that person is agreeable and if so I'll give that a shot since it will be the cheapest and most familiar option for what I have currently.  I am thinking perhaps the reason I have had such good signal is that I don't have a lot of interference from neighbors and my house doesn't have a lot of brick and stone and other dense materials. Either way I'm not complaining about it.  If I do get the AX11000 and use that as my main router if I did want to keep the R7000P in the picture could i put that out in my garage and just change it to AP mode or would it not be a good idea since Netgear and ASUS are not the same company or device type?  If it is doable do i just make that R7000P the same 2.4ghz and 5 ghz ssid's and passwords and the main router and allow the devices to self select or is that not how it works and that process has to be done manually since the R7000P would not be listed as the same network name as the Asus?  Thanks again.