Mesh router vs router11/9/2023 ![]() You are designing something that is extremely complex for something that most people never actually need. The cell companies have change the billing that is now cheaper to just put micro cells in the building and let them run the phones rather than mess around with wifi. We only were running VoIP on cell phones to avoid paying huge monthly costs for phone minutes. Most other applications the 1-2 second glitch as it changed did not matter. It worked ok but the only application that really needed this ability was VoIP phones. Years ago I set wifi systems based on expensive cisco technology in a corporate environment. ![]() I could see pause the movie walk to a different room and restart it but to actually be walking around ? Maybe I am just getting too old.do you actually walk around your house and watch netflix. That would end up costing less than 2 more routers and would work a lot better for handoff, though you'd probably want to confirm if the distances involved in your home are a good fit for their setup. (Most of these are available at $100.) Then to distribute the wifi signal throughout the house cheaply, you could check out a kit from these guys where fast roaming is native without any chipset/protocol delay. If you're upgrading your router anyway, you could just swap your R6400 for a respectable 3- or 4-stream MIMO router like a TP-Link C2600 or even an R7000, to get close to 1 watt of transmit power on each band. But that would defeat the purpose since you want to stay within a reasonable budget for a home deployment. ![]() (Zero Handoff is a weak spot for UniFi APs, so you'll be asked, "Why would you even want fast roaming?!" as if it were an unnatural request.) The main takeaway is that looking at CPU, RAM, etc., those extenders all have less under the hood than a standalone router, unless you're looking at Aruba, Meraki, etc. Someone on this forum will almost certainly recommend UniFi, but that's apparently even worse for wifi throughput. Orbi is great for throughput but won't seamlessly hand off devices from one node to the next based on signal strength. But for the meshed range extender kits, keep in mind that throughput will be much lower than a standalone router, and that not all meshes actually support fast roaming (802.11r). Some Asus routers can reach nearly 1 Gbps in backhaul throughput in repeater mode if memory serves (from a SmallNetBuilder review). If you already had a few Asus routers, you could use their new AiMesh hardware to convert your spare routers into meshed extenders. Is there a benefit to a mesh system that I have missed? Could I just buy another router like the one I have (Netgear AC1750 R6400) and configure it as a wireless access point (with hardwired Ethernet connection to my primary router) to create my own mesh network? It's certainly a lot cheaper to add two more routers, at $70 - $100 each, than to purchase a mesh for $330 - $479. ![]() However, I'm going to connect each node to wired Ethernet anyway to boost WiFi performance so connecting a router to the network seems just as easy. Can two or three routers accomplish this as well as a mesh system?Īnother benefit of the mesh is that you just sit a node anywhere and it connects wirelessly to the network. Apparently, this is a strength of mesh systems. My desire is that as I walk around my house, streaming Netflix or radio to my laptop or phone, that the hand-off transition from one node or router to the next is seemless and unnoticeable. I have wired Ethernet ports running to every room in my house so whichever solution I choose, I can run a wired connection to each router or to each mesh node for a backhaul link which I understand will improve WiFi performance. I read that their only real benefit is ease of setup and that the same thing can be accomplished by using two or more routers. I am considering purchasing a WiFi mesh network like Netgear Orbi or Linksys Velop but these are very expensive. WiFi coverage does not extend throughout my house. I use it for both wired and wireless connections to computers, printers, smartphones, OOMA VoIP phone, iPad, TV, media player, Alexa, etc. I have a Netgear AC1750 R6400 wireless router with four gigabit Ethernet ports.
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