I'd recommend Ubiquiti's UniFi. I installed three total units (one as base, two satellites). The setup spans 15,000sqft across two stories and split building (connected by breezeway). We get full speed on every corner and crevice. It has a great management interface. The cost was only 199. Well worth it.
No mention or review of Google WiFi [1]? Anybody try it?<p><a href="https://store.google.com/product/google_wifi" rel="nofollow">https://store.google.com/product/google_wifi</a>
I have the UniFi system. 3 story house. One AP each level centered. One AP in the external office (building attached to external garage). I use one UniFi PoE switch in the house and one in the office (2xCat6A between them). FreeNAS mini attached via 2x1G (4x4TB disc, 2x128G SSD as L2ARC & ZIL). UniFi CloudKey and UniFi Security Gateway. I am an engineer ;)<p>For my less technical friends I highly recommend them Eero system.
I'm surprised there's no system that features integrated Homeplug[1], so base stations pass data to each other over your power lines. This seems like an obvious solution.<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlug" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlug</a>
Is there a DIY solution that can do this? With all features in DD-WRT or OpenWRT, I would have thought the community would have already solved this problem for cheap.
> Every other kit we tested relies on a smartphone app and cloud services for configuration, which means if your Internet goes down, your home network—partially or even entirely—goes down with it.<p>I am getting so tired of this. Why are engineers working for companies that build stuff like this? This is consumer hostile.
<a href="http://www.open-mesh.com/products.html/" rel="nofollow">http://www.open-mesh.com/products.html/</a> are also good
Have anyone tried building a Mesh using ESP8266 and custom hardware for signal enhancement?<p>I am working on a similar project and is interested to know if anyone have had success with hardware addons like external antenna to build a reliable solution?<p>The chip capabilities are enough to run any low level to moderate load applications like monitoring, actuating and streaming. It is the hardware that I am doubtful about.
I had tried once building something like this mesh - a router with several wifi range extenders sold separately. In my case it was a setup in the apartment with lots of metal in concrete panels, so wireless reception is awful (50-100% signal loss after a single wall). Well it didn't work at all - REs started and worked ok and I did see high WiFi signal, but throughput was horrible - very low speed and regular pauses when no traffic at all was passing through REs. Settings, RE positioning, channels or bands didn't matter.<p>In the end I just used wired network with access points, more expensive but at least it works. I suggest that all these mesh kits should be bought only when return option is available because they may not work in some cases.
> It’s the only mesh kit we tested that is fully configurable and usable without an Internet connection, and it’s also the only one that provides the full, deep feature set that technical users expect from a high-end router, including plenty of Ethernet ports on both units.<p>I'm amazed... "and usable" implies some of these kits will go down if you lose your internet connection. Not just that they won't be configurable?
Built a wisp-mesh product a few years ago for a client, in the past mesh-wifi was really just for enterprise and city-wide projects, and never got widely deployed anywhere. Surprisingly it is getting into homes these days, assuming the covering area is large.<p>For me I'm using AP + a few extenders these days and they worked just fine and are much cheaper.
AirTies Air 4920. Google Wifi does much of the same, but the original is better (and 3x3 as opposed to Google's 2x2). Small access points that don't take up much space, very good client steering and band steering so you're always hooked up to the best AP without thinking about it.
I'm connected to a non-HD Amplifi right now over 802.11ac. Dunno what they're smoking over there.<p>Says so right on the product page: <a href="https://store.amplifi.com/amplifi/amplifi-119.html" rel="nofollow">https://store.amplifi.com/amplifi/amplifi-119.html</a>
Most wifi hardware supports being both AP and client at the same time. This way, I've extended my wifi signal for just 20 bucks
(Bought a netgear ex2700 and flashed openwrt. I made it join my existing wifi and create an AP with a distinct SSID on the same interface and channel)
In terms of ease of setup, I don't think any of these can beat Eero. And in spite of Netgear marketing dollars behind, Orbi, I hope EERO maintains the lead in this space, as they were the first one to push for mesh networking in consumer Wifi space.
Wireless routers can't really do gigabit speeds? That doesn't sound right.<p>Also he says a separate high bandwidth signal coordinates the units, would that limit range? Why not a lower bandwidth signal?
do these things handle moving from one zone to another while something like facetime is running? this has always been an issue i haven't been able to solve.