I currently have a mesh (wired) google wifi setup but want to switch so something… not google. Preferably wifi 6 but I don’t need anything insane.
Cheap is good but I also want to be able to basically ignore it for the next 10 years.
Just purchased the Orbi setup and the performance improvement over my gen one Google mesh was shocking. I expected an improvement but my Xbox went from ~40 mbs to 240 mbs for straight game download. I did keep my old Google mesh up and running also and only use it for phones/tablets.
NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-Band… https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Z3FGSDH?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
oof on the expensive side but might have to do it. Were you able to install open wrt on it?
Yeah they were pricey, I should have mentioned that. I did not attempt that install. Wanted to just get it up and running first without any of my usual shenanigans.
I was able to get some Linksys E8450 routers for cheap (~$40 each) on eBay a couple years ago, but they are more expensive atm (but $70 each, which is cheaper than a lot of other options). They require a bit of work to get OpenWRT installed, but it’s not bad once the work is done (I have received nearly 400 Mb/s when I am close to the wireless connection sometimes, which is what my internet is capped at). I have used them as a mesh with one as a main gateway and the rest as access points with additional Ethernet ports. They do have the OKD issue fixed now, too, and they’re also Wi-Fi 6. I’m looking into getting a Banana Pi BPI-R3 or R4, though I am not sure how well they are with mesh specifically, but have seen a few forum threads of people having some issues with mesh on these specific routers. I hope to switch to fast roaming (wired backhaul) eventually.
“mesh” is a buzzword that doesn’t make much sense (to me at least) if we are talking about wired and routers… what do you mean by it? can you describe your setup?
edit:
Let me clarify :)
Unless I’m mistaken, mesh means that one a bunch of devices, usually wireless access points, connected with each other (in a mesh) with possibly low-quality connections that automatically switch traffic for each other.
If you have ethernet running from the router to the APs, you always want to use that and so you don’t want a mesh at all.
Mesh in this case means one wifi network visible to wireless devices with multiple nodes broadcasting it. In my case both nodes are connected via ethernet.
If all nodes are connected through ethernet to each other (or at least one common node) you could go for OpenWRT’s ‘Dumb AP’ setup as well
Edit: Already mentioned here; https://feditown.com/comment/1980836
in my understanding that won’t handle roaming between APs as good as a mesh setup. OpenWRT has a special wifi setup for that
“Mesh routers” just refers to having multiple wireless APs generally with auto roaming capability
To most people, it also implies wireless backhaul.
Yeah mesh to me means you talk to one AP wirelessly and that AP talks to another AP also wirelessly to eventually get to a wired connection to the internet. Of course that can also be wireless (SpaceLink, Verizon, etc) but out to the internet. I much prefer each AP has its own ethernet backhaul because both latency and throughput are significantly better. Of course it’s not as convenient since you have to have wired connections at each AP location.
Not OP but usually mash means that there is one SSID shared across multiple routers and access points
You can easily do that manually. The “mesh” part is either awareness of other routers for using 802.11k or awareness with wireless backhaul.
If you don’t need 802.11k or easy wireless backhaul, you don’t need mesh routers.
Yeah, this is how I understand it too. From the end user’s point of view, there’s just one wifi network throughout the building or property. It doesn’t matter if there’s a cable running between the access points, that’s all invisible to the user.
I use Asus routers running the merlin (soft) fork of their Asuswrt firmware. There are a couple of binary closed source blobs, but the rest is open.
If you’re not looking to segregate your network or any other “advanced” network feature, you can’t really get better value that Tplink Deco.Edit: I misunderstood what the op was asking for. This answer is not valid for that.
Thanks! openwrt works on these?
I apologize. I misunderstood that you were looking for a mesh system that would work with an existing openwrt router. Seems what you’re looking for is a mesh system that can be flashed with openwrt.
For that I can only suggest that you look at the supported hardware table and see if you can find what you need.
Editing my previous comment for my mistake.
It was still a good suggestion thanks. Something with openwrt is preferred but anything that’s not google is an improvement.
There are two models I’ve used for this over the years, the Linksys EA8300 and the WRT 1900AC. Here’s how I did it both times (though I only got around to writing up my notes the second time.
I’m a huge fan of Uniquiti APs, and run their Unifi controller on a Raspberry Pi. Sadly, their code is proprietary - but it basically just works.
I just started migrating my network from PFSense, a bunch of tplink switches and Aruba InstantOn APs to unifi. I’m almost done (just missing a couple of APs more and 1 more switch), and I honestly am extremely happy with the decision. The Unifi APs are not as powerful as the Arubas, but the improvements to the performance of my network more than makes up for that.
