Recommendation for Fibre Modem/Router and Mesh wifi points

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Recommendation for Fibre Modem/Router and Mesh wifi points

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cddt

1548 posts

Uber Geek

#2436284 11-Mar-2020 11:40

Fred99:

The wifi ability of the system seems to be great. The fact that there's no way to connect even the primary node to gigabit ethernet is a serious flaw I should have seen coming - so my stupid on that.

It actually solves about 50% of the issues I wanted to solve. Guest bedroom and garage now get good 100/100 wifi when it was near zero before, which is fine. The 50% it doesn't solve is that in my office (not where the router is) is stuck with kind of sucky wifi bandwidth, so I either fork out the $$$ I should have done for a better mesh system, or deal with spiders and unspeakable hazards, and run some cat 6 from the router position to the office.

So just to clarify (for my own understanding), you're not using wired backhaul between any nodes? Just the wireless backhaul?

geekzen

13 posts

Geek

#2436285 11-Mar-2020 11:42

Google WIFI is free with Orcon last time I checked.

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2436403 11-Mar-2020 16:56

everettpsycho:
Long shot but can you add the kogan units in the tenda app? I'm not sure if you can flash the original tenda firmware but if you can get them to act like mw3s you could stick an mw6 in the to the mix to sort your issues.

Tenda App seems to work fine with the devices, it even worked scanning the QR code. The apps do seem to be identical.

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#2436405 11-Mar-2020 17:01

cddt:

So just to clarify (for my own understanding), you're not using wired backhaul between any nodes? Just the wireless backhaul?

Yes - nothing between nodes. Just ethernet between the primary node and the router.

everettpsycho

614 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2436419 11-Mar-2020 17:57

Fred99:
everettpsycho:
Long shot but can you add the kogan units in the tenda app? I'm not sure if you can flash the original tenda firmware but if you can get them to act like mw3s you could stick an mw6 in the to the mix to sort your issues.

Tenda App seems to work fine with the devices, it even worked scanning the QR code. The apps do seem to be identical.

In that case I wouldn't see why it wouldn't work with an MW5 or MW6 as a primary node giving you gigabit in to system. They go on sale on ali express quite often.

I just use mine in bridge mode though, so my stuff router handles the DHCP and smart stuff and the tenda nodes are purely for wireless. I did it to avoid potentially bottlenecking my network through the tenda as I only have a single canoe to the other rooms.

bp1000

93 posts

Master Geek

#2438624 15-Mar-2020 15:22

Thought I'd give an update on the Spark SmartModem and SmartMesh.

I've found these both very good - we now have excellent coverage over the full house and outdoor zones, and I've not needed to reboot them since we got them. I've got the SmartModem in the downstairs living room. It's cabled from the ONT in the comms cabinet then back to a gigabit switch in the comms cabinet which patches in the upstairs rooms.

The SmartMesh is in my upstairs office patched back to the gigabit switch.

All end-user devices connect on wifi, except for the TV which is cabled from the SmartModem. Apart from our two Brother MFDs, all other devices connect on 5GHz channels

I've got 100Mb Fibre. From my laptop in the upstairs office, I'm getting 100/20 on SpeedTest.

I've noticed a slight glitch with the SmartMesh interface. When you have the SmartModem and the SmartMesh, all the maintenance is done via the SmartModem UI. Following the WLAN->Access Points menu tabs, I see the summary page of both the devices. The SmartMesh has reboot, reset, clickable upgrade options (the SmartModem has these under the Administration Menu tab). When I click the Upgrade option, a password must be entered to continue. I've tried the password for the SmartModem and the default password of both the SmartMesh and SmartModem, but none of these work.

Anyone have any further knowledge?

Thanks!

PJ48

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2438749 15-Mar-2020 18:32

I wonder if you should post this last query in The Spark New Zealand forum - as it is likely to be seen more quickly by the Spark moderators that can answer your question?

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bp1000

93 posts

Master Geek

#2439062 16-Mar-2020 10:58

PJ48:

I wonder if you should post this last query in The Spark New Zealand forum - as it is likely to be seen more quickly by the Spark moderators that can answer your question?

Thanks PJ48. I've now posted about the slight UI glitch in that forum.

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