Wifi Setup Advice!

Hi! Im strugling with my wifi setup in my appartment. The main router comes to a closet where I have all the wired stuff, but that closet is closed, with double doors etc… I need to find a system that allows me to have full wifi coverage around the house, that allows me to be on the same network and no bandwidht sacrifice.

Any clues whats the best way to achieve this? What about this wifi systems from google?

Thanks!

I have added these around my house and have great coverage. They can be added to any wifi network converting it over to a mesh network. Solved my issue I had with a Blink Camera that had poor wifi connection.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01L9O07J4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Hi @Paul_James,

That looks nice. But at that price point. It would be better to get this package for Mesh routers:
https://www.amazon.com/Google-Wifi-system-set-replacement/dp/B01MAW2294/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1506105477&sr=1-3&keywords=google+wifi

I have a Netgear R8000 in the corner basement storage room and I get good coverage throughout the entire house (basement + two floors) and about 10 to 20’ outside of it on all sides with 20 - 25 devices connected at any given moment. I would think in a apartment, even closed in a closet, you should get great coverage with a decent single router.

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If your router has the option of selecting 2.4ghz or 5ghz use 2.4ghz. It is slightly slower but travels much further and is far better through walls and floors/windows vs 5ghz.
Also depending on the speeds you get from your isp try changing the band from b/b.g/g/n/ac. If your isp is giving you upto 50mbps then don’t bother going above n. But if you’re getting less than that then try sticking with g.
B on 2.4ghz would give you the best distance but the slowest speeds.

Failing that you could always cascade 2 or 3 routers and have a large roaming network covering the entire apartment with a lan cable going from each one to the next and then disabling dhcp on Router 2&3 and setting a static ip addresss on the 2nd & 3rd Router Outside of the dhcp address range. but that’s a lot more work than just trying changing the frequency.

Good luck.

You could install a Mesh Network solution (Google Wifi, Netgear Orbi, Linksys Velop) but unless your apartment is very big or has manny walls interfering with signal you should be able to cover it with a good router (what are U using right now?)

Just be aware that 2.4Ghz is same signal as ZigBee and that could create some noise for your ZigBee devices potentially

Hi! Thank you all for your replies! I have lan cable throughout the apartment already installed. Having that said is better going with @Baz2473 setup of cascading the modems than with a mesh setup as proposed by @JcMarin ? If so, what hardware should I go with?

Some additional info:
Currently I have a TPLink router, but signal is definitely strength not enough
The apartment size is around 3000 sq feet
ISP Speeds: 160 down 80 up

Is it possible to get the full speed in wifi as I get them while connected by lan cable?

Thanks again!!

Add another router as an access point.

any recomendation? Netgear nighthawk?

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/m.wikihow.com/Cascade-Routers%3Famp=1

Full instruction. :grinning:

I use Asus myself. I have 3 3200’s, 1 is the main and 2 are access points all hard wired. They can be wireless access points as well. I will be honest adding access points and getting everything to talk and play nice together can be a challenge. However, if you setup correctly it works perfectly.

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I’m currently using a virgin media super hub 3 as my main DHCP Router. Then I have a netgear R6300 as my second lan connected Router. Then I have a virgin media super hub 1 as my 3rd lan connected router and also a bt home hub 6 as my 4th lan connected Router and finally another netgear R6300 as my 5th lan connected Router. All 5 are WiFi access points using the same ssid and speed to give a giant super strong WiFi coverage of the entire mansion. Just remember not to allow any of them to overlap using the same WiFi frequency. I’ve found that it doesn’t really matter what routers you use as long as they have all the settings options that you need available then they should all work just as good as each other.

I recently installed Ubiquiti unifi. 3 AP pro, 16 ports switch and a USG. It’s an amazing mesh network and I couldn’t be happier. Only thing is that it’s not plug and play. Took me a while to get OpenVPN server up and running.

After seeing the posts above I must live in a shack for my single R8000 to cover everything without issues…

I consider you are normal. Those guys are nuts :wink:

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I looked at that but I had already spent good money on a Router and didn’t want to replace that. I went with a router that I could connect to a VPN and most routers will not connect directly to a VPN. This option allowed me to keep my existing router and then convert it to a mesh network.

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