4 ms·

UPDATE: It's fine to plug a cable if you want. I’m so tired of trying to convince friends to get a mesh Wi-Fi network. Guys, it’s 2022: get a Wi-Fi device per

UPDATE: It's fine to plug a cable if you want. I’m so tired of trying to convince friends to get a mesh Wi-Fi network. Guys, it’s 2022: get a Wi-Fi device per room (or one per two rooms) and be happy with your gigabit bulletproof Wi-Fi network. It’s expensive? Yeah. No pain no gain. Why? 2,4Ghz networks are from an era where Wi-Fi networks were rare and thus you had no interference. Today, you are surrounded by (literally) hundreds of networks and your tiny packages need to fight for airtime on those 11 channels. The only viable solution is 5Ghz Wi-Fi (not to be confounded with 5G mobile network). It comes with much more channels and it doesn’t traverse walls so well (it’s a good thing, because your neighbor’s Wi-Fi signal won’t interfere in yours). So you need at most a wall between you device and the wifi router. So, nowadays the solution is: several routers on the house, interconnected via a wireless link (not regular Wi-Fi) in a mesh network. You can get a 1.5gigabit/sec connection between your laptop and the router, with very very low latency and super reliability.

candiddevmike 5y ago
I really hope this is sarcasm. Are you really suggesting an AP in every room? An AP and a router are not the same thing, and neither will give you a very very low latency 1.5 GB wireless connection in my experience.
- motoboi 5y ago
  yeah. one wifi router (or ap if you want) per room (or on per two rooms). In a mesh network. Interconnected via wireless (not regular wifi). this is the way. Or you can plug a cable in your notebook and be happy.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  What's wrong with one AP per room? That's exactly how it should be and indeed gives you bulletproof performance & reliability. Wi-Fi should be your home's "last mile" and everything before that should be wired. The over-gigabit speeds are hyperbole, but in my case I'm regularly seeing ~500Mbps both ways and very consistent latency with no sudden spikes. Most wireless problems are due to there being a single AP that's barely within reach causing tons of retransmissions which makes any real-time application (such as calls) unusable. It doesn't help that Wi-Fi signal strength meters are completely useless (maybe they should measure actual packet loss instead of RSSI which is only part of the picture) so end-users are unable to tell what's actually going on. Having APs always within line of sight of the client device solves all these problems.
  - motoboi 5y ago
    > The over-gigabit speeds are hyperbole Certainly not. At home right now I'm getting 566Mbs, but my personal router is 2x2. At work, I get consistently 1.2gigabit on imac.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Hmm, I’m seeing 500Mbps with my mesh network straight through 2 floors and a bunch of walls (everything is connected through cable to the meshed routers).
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      Speed is not the only factor. In fact, most people thought their Wi-Fi was fine because for non-real-time usages, TCP will conceal occasional dropouts. Your in-browser test might be showing 500Mbps while what's really happening is +500Mbps in between bursts of nothing. Applications such as iperf3 would be able to tell you more (as they can report in much quicker intervals, allowing you to see spikes that would be averaged out) but a quick test is to just ping your gateway and move around in any area you will potentially use your device (even your orientation matters; if your body is blocking the line of the signal it could have a disastrous effect on an already-weak connection) and see if you notice any spikes. If not: congrats, if yes: you have shit Wi-Fi that TCP has been successfully concealing but the illusion will break down when you use a real-time application where retransmissions can't work (because they would be too late).
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        Ah, the good part is probably that the connected machines are not going to move very much, nor is the AP (e.g. the connections between the AP and machines are all cables). I simply don’t have a cable pulled from the top floor (where my fiber enters the house) to the bottom floor where my office is. I’ve played realtime games over it, and haven’t had too much issues, so I guess it’s working well enough for my use case. It’s possible the actual speed is higher though, and the occasional bursts of nothing are still there (the link to my home is 2Gbit).
- toast0 5y ago
  > An AP and a router are not the same thing They certainly aren't, but most routers can run in AP mode and cost way less than a dedicated AP. One AP per room is pretty overkill, if you do that, you definitely want to turn the transmit power down to help clients roam.
randomfinn 5y ago
> You can get a 1.5gigabit/sec connection between your laptop and the router, with very very low latency and super reliability. Would you mind sharing what equipment you use? While I now have wired connectivity to my access points, I have friends who don't have that option and would greatly benefit from better wifi. I would love to help them.
paxys 5y ago
I doubt there is any router on the market today that operates on 2.4 Ghz by default. Some don't even have it as an option. So everyone with a Wi-Fi network in their house is already using the 5 Ghz band. And while range is a problem (in a lot of cases it isn't, considering modern city apartments are tiny and walls are made of cardboard), having multiple access points doesn't really fix it unless you have them scattered literally every few meters in your house. Heck I'm pretty sure I won't get a 1.5 Gbit/sec connection even if I put my router on the same table as my laptop.
- randomfinn 5y ago
  I have an AP in pretty much every room on 5 GHz with low transmit power. I like it a lot - good speeds, not a lot of interference from the other APs, and clients mostly roam nicely as only the nearest AP is strong enough.
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  There's routers on the market today that are 2.4ghz only. I've got quite a number of them. They are cheap and since we've got few neighbors, 2.4 is pretty much wide open.
throwawayboise 5y ago
Yeah no. I have WiFi in my home in a grudging concession to others in the family. I hate all wireless tech. It's flakey and annoying. I've never had a wireless keyboard, mouse, or headphones that were reliable either. If they weren't dropping the connection, the battery was dying.
assttoasstmgr 5y ago
Mesh WiFi is digital cancer. It is the ultimate in selfish asshole technology. Let me explain. Elsewhere in the thread others have touched on WiFi channels being a shared medium so I'll skip over that. My neighbor has mesh WiFi. Correction - my neighbor THREE HOUSES OVER has mesh WiFi. How do I know this? Because his multiple access points show up in a scan with ridiculous output power, at nearly the same power as the AP in my own house. WiFi packet captures show these things are enormously chatty, constantly occupying the channels with management traffic to perform their mesh thing. You want to live out in the country with no one around you for half a mile? Have at it. You live in a dense neighborhood with many APs where channel selection is limited? Fuck anyone and everyone that uses mesh WiFi in this situation. Literally everyone around you suffers so you can have your "very very low latency and super reliability". It's like lighting up a cigar in a crowded train car with no regard for anyone around you.
- motoboi 5y ago
  I'm not sure what you are talking about. If your neighbour's ap appears at your house, at 5Ghz, means that either you are very close or his house if basically transparent to 5Ghz (lots of windows maybe?). There is no such limited channel selection in 5Ghz. In 2.4 sure, but 5ghz surely not, with over a hundred channels and poor material penetration. Meshed 5Ghz is neighbour friendly, not the other way around. Is a saner way of doing wireless network in crowded environments. Some equipaments even use proprietary protocols and licensed radiobands for the trunk traffic, thus alleviating even more the 5Ghz range.
  - assttoasstmgr 5y ago
    > but 5ghz surely not, with over a hundred channels On which planet do you reside in which this is remotely true? Many devices (clients and APs alike) do not properly implement DFS. Which leaves the number of usable channels around a dozen or so. And that's in 20 MHz mode. In his quest for more speed, my neighbor runs his network in 40 MHz or 80 MHz mode (can't remember which) which cuts the amount of usable channels in half / quarters. So the rest of the neighborhood deals with interference while he binges 4K Netflix with his Y-fronts around his ankles on the toilet.

candiddevmike 5y ago

I really hope this is sarcasm. Are you really suggesting an AP in every room? An AP and a router are not the same thing, and neither will give you a very very low latency 1.5 GB wireless connection in my experience.

motoboi 5y ago
yeah. one wifi router (or ap if you want) per room (or on per two rooms). In a mesh network. Interconnected via wireless (not regular wifi). this is the way. Or you can plug a cable in your notebook and be happy.
Nextgrid 5y ago
What's wrong with one AP per room? That's exactly how it should be and indeed gives you bulletproof performance & reliability. Wi-Fi should be your home's "last mile" and everything before that should be wired. The over-gigabit speeds are hyperbole, but in my case I'm regularly seeing ~500Mbps both ways and very consistent latency with no sudden spikes. Most wireless problems are due to there being a single AP that's barely within reach causing tons of retransmissions which makes any real-time application (such as calls) unusable. It doesn't help that Wi-Fi signal strength meters are completely useless (maybe they should measure actual packet loss instead of RSSI which is only part of the picture) so end-users are unable to tell what's actually going on. Having APs always within line of sight of the client device solves all these problems.
- motoboi 5y ago
  > The over-gigabit speeds are hyperbole Certainly not. At home right now I'm getting 566Mbs, but my personal router is 2x2. At work, I get consistently 1.2gigabit on imac.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Hmm, I’m seeing 500Mbps with my mesh network straight through 2 floors and a bunch of walls (everything is connected through cable to the meshed routers).
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Speed is not the only factor. In fact, most people thought their Wi-Fi was fine because for non-real-time usages, TCP will conceal occasional dropouts. Your in-browser test might be showing 500Mbps while what's really happening is +500Mbps in between bursts of nothing. Applications such as iperf3 would be able to tell you more (as they can report in much quicker intervals, allowing you to see spikes that would be averaged out) but a quick test is to just ping your gateway and move around in any area you will potentially use your device (even your orientation matters; if your body is blocking the line of the signal it could have a disastrous effect on an already-weak connection) and see if you notice any spikes. If not: congrats, if yes: you have shit Wi-Fi that TCP has been successfully concealing but the illusion will break down when you use a real-time application where retransmissions can't work (because they would be too late).
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Ah, the good part is probably that the connected machines are not going to move very much, nor is the AP (e.g. the connections between the AP and machines are all cables). I simply don’t have a cable pulled from the top floor (where my fiber enters the house) to the bottom floor where my office is. I’ve played realtime games over it, and haven’t had too much issues, so I guess it’s working well enough for my use case. It’s possible the actual speed is higher though, and the occasional bursts of nothing are still there (the link to my home is 2Gbit).
toast0 5y ago
> An AP and a router are not the same thing They certainly aren't, but most routers can run in AP mode and cost way less than a dedicated AP. One AP per room is pretty overkill, if you do that, you definitely want to turn the transmit power down to help clients roam.

randomfinn 5y ago

> You can get a 1.5gigabit/sec connection between your laptop and the router, with very very low latency and super reliability. Would you mind sharing what equipment you use? While I now have wired connectivity to my access points, I have friends who don't have that option and would greatly benefit from better wifi. I would love to help them.

paxys 5y ago

I doubt there is any router on the market today that operates on 2.4 Ghz by default. Some don't even have it as an option. So everyone with a Wi-Fi network in their house is already using the 5 Ghz band. And while range is a problem (in a lot of cases it isn't, considering modern city apartments are tiny and walls are made of cardboard), having multiple access points doesn't really fix it unless you have them scattered literally every few meters in your house. Heck I'm pretty sure I won't get a 1.5 Gbit/sec connection even if I put my router on the same table as my laptop.

randomfinn 5y ago
I have an AP in pretty much every room on 5 GHz with low transmit power. I like it a lot - good speeds, not a lot of interference from the other APs, and clients mostly roam nicely as only the nearest AP is strong enough.
BenjiWiebe 5y ago
There's routers on the market today that are 2.4ghz only. I've got quite a number of them. They are cheap and since we've got few neighbors, 2.4 is pretty much wide open.

throwawayboise 5y ago

Yeah no. I have WiFi in my home in a grudging concession to others in the family. I hate all wireless tech. It's flakey and annoying. I've never had a wireless keyboard, mouse, or headphones that were reliable either. If they weren't dropping the connection, the battery was dying.

assttoasstmgr 5y ago

Mesh WiFi is digital cancer. It is the ultimate in selfish asshole technology. Let me explain. Elsewhere in the thread others have touched on WiFi channels being a shared medium so I'll skip over that. My neighbor has mesh WiFi. Correction - my neighbor THREE HOUSES OVER has mesh WiFi. How do I know this? Because his multiple access points show up in a scan with ridiculous output power, at nearly the same power as the AP in my own house. WiFi packet captures show these things are enormously chatty, constantly occupying the channels with management traffic to perform their mesh thing. You want to live out in the country with no one around you for half a mile? Have at it. You live in a dense neighborhood with many APs where channel selection is limited? Fuck anyone and everyone that uses mesh WiFi in this situation. Literally everyone around you suffers so you can have your "very very low latency and super reliability". It's like lighting up a cigar in a crowded train car with no regard for anyone around you.

motoboi 5y ago
I'm not sure what you are talking about. If your neighbour's ap appears at your house, at 5Ghz, means that either you are very close or his house if basically transparent to 5Ghz (lots of windows maybe?). There is no such limited channel selection in 5Ghz. In 2.4 sure, but 5ghz surely not, with over a hundred channels and poor material penetration. Meshed 5Ghz is neighbour friendly, not the other way around. Is a saner way of doing wireless network in crowded environments. Some equipaments even use proprietary protocols and licensed radiobands for the trunk traffic, thus alleviating even more the 5Ghz range.
- assttoasstmgr 5y ago
  > but 5ghz surely not, with over a hundred channels On which planet do you reside in which this is remotely true? Many devices (clients and APs alike) do not properly implement DFS. Which leaves the number of usable channels around a dozen or so. And that's in 20 MHz mode. In his quest for more speed, my neighbor runs his network in 40 MHz or 80 MHz mode (can't remember which) which cuts the amount of usable channels in half / quarters. So the rest of the neighborhood deals with interference while he binges 4K Netflix with his Y-fronts around his ankles on the toilet.