Wi-Fi Solution for Large Home

jiberz on 17/08/2019 - 11:55

I am looking to upgrade my parents network solution and after some advice. Their home is quite large and has a solid concrete floor on the second floor and some brickwalls. As a result their cheap wifi solution of a couple of AV200 powerline kits and and two cheap tp-link APs is not ideal. My house was easy, as it is all ethernet and one AP. But theirs is more complicated. So here is what I was thinking:

Option 1:
Replace crappy tp-link wifi router with edge router X. Connect one long range AP upstairs directly to the router. Use the existing AV200 powerline to get another long range AP downstairs and try and set up some kind of roaming. UBQ guides show multiple ways and I am not sure about the best way. The downside of this is that there are 4 powerline points in total and due to the age of the house, they require some what regular resets.

Option 2:
Replace everything with an AV/Mesh combo like tp-link deco. I feel the APS need to be linked by ethernet or powerline because of the many solid walls. I am just not a fan of consumer networking products.

Option 3:
OZB suggestion.

There are too many solid walls to new ethernet I think.

Computing Modem Router

Comments

  • jackinyourbox on 17/08/2019 - 12:29

    Keep buying usb xiaomi repeaters and uggjng them in until everything works. I've got 3 usb ones active it it works all around even outside

  • R1ngSt1nger on 17/08/2019 - 14:37
    +1

    Go with option 1, but instead of using the powerline kits, get a cabler to run an ethernet cable from the top floor (or wherever the router is) to the ceiling of the lower floor and ceiling mount a second UBNT AC-LR (so, one on ceiling of top floor, one on ceiling of lower floor)

    • jiberz on 17/08/2019 - 15:43

      It is solid concrete floor. I think doing anything after the original build would be very difficult. I did want to run a POE AP to the ceiling but unable to find a point where I could run the cable.

      • thatonethere on 17/08/2019 - 16:13
        +1

        Probably worth getting a cabler in and have the as built plans on hand. They have to do this all the time and a hardwired Ethernet link from top to bottom could save you many frustrating visits to retweak a tacky solution.

        • jiberz on 18/08/2019 - 06:38

          I might ask them to give a price for this. Previously they didn't want to spend the money but yesterday he said the new NBN box is very far from where he wants the incoming to the house to be. So he would have to get a guy to run some conduit outside the house to where he wants it to come in. Running stuff inside is a nightmare, concrete and double brick everywhere. But if the guy is already going to come for something else no harm in getting a price for that.

      • altomic on 17/08/2019 - 18:59

        masonry bit

  • vince088 on 18/08/2019 - 01:12
    +2

    wifi mesh sytem is your answer.

    something cheap to get into this system? Tendo Nova Mw3 on sale you can get a 3 node system for $90-100
    you can add up to 6 nodes so $200 and you will have good wifi anywhere on both level of your house.
    Each node will have 2 ethernet ports for your devices that uses ethernet connection too

    wifi repeaters and extenders give you a 50% speed penalty straight away as its repeating your signal.

    • jiberz on 20/08/2019 - 07:48

      The problem I see with nodes is the uplink. The house is double brick and concrete on second floor. So I am concerned the nodes will have weak reception between each other.

  • OZB Al on 18/08/2019 - 23:05

    AP LR is long range for meshing. Your phone will hold a signal from a LR AP but not be able to reply because your phones antenna is not long range. You configure the LR to drop devices that are too far away, but mesh with other LRs at long range.

  • Rockets84 on 21/08/2019 - 12:31

    Plumbers used to have a saying - "Do it proper, do it with copper." It's the same with networking. Running Cat 6 cables will to a central location will be the best thing you can do. Then installing a couple of WAP's. I'd use UAP-nanoHD's. It's going to be more expensive but it will be better in the long run. Wi-Fi is NOT a replacement for a physical ethernet LAN connection, it's a complimentary technology.

    My parents have a large 2 two storey house at the front but it's more like a 3 storey house because they are on a long narrow block that's got a pretty decent slope so the back half of the ground floor goes up a number of stairs so it's then a split level home. The house has 3 distinct areas. All brick, steel & concrete and the banisters are steel too just to make it an even more challenging RF environment. I tried to use a two WAP mesh to get Wi-Fi upstairs and downstairs it was patchy in the main areas where they wanted coverage. Luckily they had "smart" telephone wiring installed when the house was built around 10 years ago which used Cat 5 cables but terminated on RJ12 telephone points in the rooms. I was able to replaced three of the RJ12's in the rooms with RJ45's, relocated the modem to the box under the stairs where all the cables terminated and put three WAP's in good spots around the house. They have excellent Wi-Fi now.

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