
Best Wifi Mesh Network Kits - caseyf7
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-mesh-networking-kits
======
vxxzy
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.

~~~
nodesocket
What models did you deploy? UniFi UAP-AC-PRO? Don't you also need to buy a
power over ethernet switch to use UniFi?

~~~
sumoboy
The unifi ac pro's work awesome, consumer routers are kind of mickey mouse
after these are deployed. Mounted them in a ceiling like a smoke alarm
connected via ethernet, on the other end is an included poe injector unit or
just use can use a switched hub with poe ports like ubiquiti edgerouter. The
only thing I don't like is the management tool requiring java for the browser
but it's pretty simple to figure out. Overall it's cheaper than these other
mesh products.

If you need a router functionality, get there edgerouter but I'll tell you
this, it's super powerful but not something easy to figure unless you have a
deeper understanding of network protocols. Great stuff.

~~~
hollander
> The only thing I don't like is the management tool requiring java for the
> browser but it's pretty simple to figure out.

You don't need Java to work in the browser. The management tool runs on a
Tomcat webserver. That requires Java. I don't know if you need to install Java
to get that working, or if Java is included in the tool itself. But you don't
need the Java plugin in your browser for the tool to work. To test this,
disable or remove the plugin and see if the management tool keeps working!

------
nodesocket
No mention or review of Google WiFi [1]? Anybody try it?

[https://store.google.com/product/google_wifi](https://store.google.com/product/google_wifi)

~~~
mtgx
Google Wi-Fi seems to be using 802.11s "mesh networking" protocol, but I think
that's still mainly targeted at in-home/in-building mesh networking. The mesh
networking era we'll all expecting could be enabled by the upcoming 802.11ah,
which works in the 900Mhz spectrum, and should offer higher ranges.

Although I think the target is only 2x of 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi N right now, which
seems a little disappointing to me. I was expecting something along of 1KM
range (I don't think Wi-Fi N actually reaches 500m in the real world).

It may be because the Wi-Fi Alliance is trying to make this an "IoT"-enabling
technology as well, rather than allow us to connect to each other's
smartphones and notebooks at good speeds and longer ranges.

Anandtech says there's quite a big push for 802.11ah from Wi-Fi silicon
vendors.

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/9915/wifi-halow-longrange-
lowp...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9915/wifi-halow-longrange-lowpower-
wifi-for-internetofthings-devices)

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/8253/thread-group-moots-new-
ip...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/8253/thread-group-moots-new-ip-wireless-
networking-protocol-for-iot)

~~~
wmf
This article is about _in-home_ mesh Wi-Fi, not long-range outdoor meshes.

------
myrandomcomment
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 ;)

For my less technical friends I highly recommend them Eero system.

------
LeoPanthera
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.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePlug)

~~~
dangoor
I've gathered from previous discussions of these devices that homeplug
performance is not always good. I've never tested it though.

~~~
andymurd
A former employer tested out a number of residential Ethernet over power
devices.

The results were mixed - they either work really well, or really badly. It
seems that the home's wiring and appliances have an overwhelming effect on
their efficacy. So, the recommendation is try before you buy if at all
possible.

~~~
sbuttgereit
We have a multi-story townhome and tried powerline. When it worked it was very
good; "when", unfortunately, was not nearly as often as we needed it to be.

We recently just got a Netgear Orbi and are pretty well satisfied. Turns out
the base router/AP is better overall than the other single unit devices we've
been using until now and the satellite does seem to make a significant
difference in the far top floor room which had problems with both WiFi &
Powerline. Lucky for that, too.... our next step was to run cable in the
walls.

~~~
davidron
I've had an Orbi for some time now. What sold me was that it doesn't actually
create a mesh network. Instead, it sets up a 1.7 gigabit wireless backhaul
connection completely separate from the frequencies used by the client devices
you connect. This avoids all of the interference (noisy clients disrupting the
access points) and latency (hopping from one access point to another) pitfalls
you often encounter when using a traditional mesh network or wireless
extender.

The Orbi is basically the wireless equivalent of running wires through the
walls.

~~~
hueving
Well it's still a mesh in the sense that the wireless APs are connected to
each other wirelessly.

You can have a mesh network without wireless clients at all if you wanted. For
example, you can connect two locations together via a mesh of access points by
each end plugging into the ethernet port of an AP, then the mesh provides
multi-task redundancy.

------
exhilaration
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.

~~~
LeoPanthera
The "DIY" solution is mentioned in the article. Buy a bunch of standard WAPs
(the Ubiquiti UniFi range is popular) and wire them together with ethernet.

~~~
jforman
The Ubiquiti APs (e.g., the AC-PRO) can uplink to each other wirelessly, but
only through one hop.

~~~
brians
Also, you're giving up half your antenna-seconds for that. I tried it and was
not happy—the hardwired performance is generally great, though.

------
JustSomeNobody
> 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.

I am getting so tired of this. Why are engineers working for companies that
build stuff like this? This is consumer hostile.

~~~
chilie
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but what would most users need to be able
to use the network for if the internet is down?

The only use case I can think of is transferring files around? Do you think
that's so common amongst most users?

~~~
izacus
Watching a movie or listening to music stored on your NAS. Turning your
"smart" light off and on. Using your remote (since even those are cloud
connected now).

You know, everyday stuff, for which modern IoT equivalents somehow need
internet connectivity to work.

~~~
jptman
But the app is required for configuration, not for actually using your wifi,
right? Perhaps I'm wrong.. The overlap for needing to configure your network
and the internet connection being down is probably very small, although not
non-existant.

~~~
mmebane
> The overlap for needing to configure your network and the internet
> connection being down is probably very small, although not non-existant.

It seems to me like "troubleshooting why the internet connection is down" is
probably a capability you would want to have, no?

------
known
[http://www.open-mesh.com/products.html/](http://www.open-
mesh.com/products.html/) are also good

~~~
24gttghh
Was about to share this as well. They are 802.3af PoE compatible now too. Not
terribly expensive compared to those listed in the article, especially when
installing 70+ in a hotel.

------
hashin
Have anyone tried building a Mesh using ESP8266 and custom hardware for signal
enhancement?

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?

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.

~~~
wtallis
With only 96KB of data RAM, I don't see how the ESP8266 could be suitable for
store-and-forward relaying of aggregated WiFi frames in a moderately busy
channel environment where the device isn't guaranteed the immediate
opportunity to retransmit what was just received. I don't think RF power would
matter, because the computational resources just don't seem sufficient for the
mesh to support more than one omnidirectional data stream passing through each
node.

~~~
makomk
Yeah. I believe Espressif may be considering 802.11s mesh support for the
newer and better-specced ESP32, but I expect that's probably going to be
intended for low-bandwidth applications if it happen.

~~~
Nanite
indeed, ESP8266 & ESP32 would work well for Mesh IoT applications.

------
Yizahi
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.

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.

------
pricechild
> 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.

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?

------
lectrice
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.

------
ausjke
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.

For me I'm using AP + a few extenders these days and they worked just fine and
are much cheaper.

------
bugmen0t
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)

------
Domenic_S
I'm connected to a non-HD Amplifi right now over 802.11ac. Dunno what they're
smoking over there.

Says so right on the product page:
[https://store.amplifi.com/amplifi/amplifi-119.html](https://store.amplifi.com/amplifi/amplifi-119.html)

~~~
baggachipz
The non-HD _base station_ does ac; the mesh extension points do not.

------
sunjain
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.

~~~
Terretta
Note that out of the box, Airport does two step wireless network extension,
super easily.

It supports "extend your network" as hub spoke leaf model, with both wired-to-
wireless bases (hubs) and wireless-to-wireless extenders / relays (spokes),
and devices (leaves) will connect to strongest spokes or hubs as you roam.

You can have multiple wired-to-wired and wired-to-wireless bases on the same
network each with its own wireless-to-wireless extenders or relays. This has
worked and been solid (no reboots needed) for years.

Use the full size tower for hubs and airport expresses for spokes.

------
WhitneyLand
Wireless routers can't really do gigabit speeds? That doesn't sound right.

Also he says a separate high bandwidth signal coordinates the units, would
that limit range? Why not a lower bandwidth signal?

~~~
honkhonkpants
Geez, complain much? It's a miracle it works at all.

~~~
imtringued
It doesn't. At least not for me.

------
asdf333
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.

------
electic
What about [http://plumewifi.com](http://plumewifi.com). Anyone have this?

~~~
itsdrewmiller
"For our first round of testing mesh networking kits, our sole criterion was
simple: Does it exist? In the future we may need to rule out mesh networking
kits by speed, specs, or price, but for this go-round we tested all of the
consumer mesh networking kits that were available at the time (not announced,
not in crowdfunding, not preproduction). That group included the Eero, Luma,
and Netgear Orbi offerings, as well as both the HD and standard versions of
the AmpliFi kit. Google Wi-Fi, Amped Ally, and Plume will have to wait for
next time."

~~~
Terretta
Note that out of the box, Airport does two step wireless network extension:
wired-to-wireless base and wireless-to-wireless extenders / relays. You can
have multiple wired-to-wired and wired-to-wireless bases on the same network
each with its own wireless-to-wireless extenders or relays. This has worked
and been solid (no reboots needed) for years.

------
woogiewonka
Does Wirecutter ever feature a non affiliate product? If not, they are not to
be trusted.

~~~
interurban
I think the affiliate model is far better than having ads everywhere on the
site. The incentives are far clearer this way. By consistently making good
recommendations, they will build a loyal audience, driving further affiliate
sales.

Their product is their reputation for good reviews. Destroying that is clearly
against their interests.

~~~
wheelerwj
> By consistently making good recommendations, they will build a loyal
> audience, driving further affiliate sales.

I mean, that's exactly how bias works. In fact, this is exactly what amazon is
cracking down on right now, incentivized reviews.

If your revenue model is based on ads, you grow revenue by growing readership
which is grown by writing quality content. However if you're revenue model is
based on affiliate income, you increase revenue by selling more stuff.

~~~
Implicated
> In fact, this is exactly what amazon is cracking down on right now,
> incentivized reviews.

Well... not exactly...

They're cracking down on incentivized reviews on amazon.com product pages.
Those onsite reviews being a far stretch away from offsite recommendation blog
posts that feature affiliate links, which aren't included in any of their
product rating/review metrics.

