Router recommendations for a large house

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michaelmurfy

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#2495822 31-May-2020 17:47

@chaoscreater Like any mesh system, the meshpoints themselves need to be placed in a location where there is still good WiFi coverage for it to use. It is designed to be a basic system that "just works" - what features are you missing here?

50m is quite a big distance for WiFi especially if there are walls etc to degrade the signal.

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chaoscreater

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#2495983 31-May-2020 23:40

The meshpoints are placed at spots where they can receive good signal. Signal is either 4/5 or 5/5 bars. In the app, it's showing around -45 dBm and that's pretty good to me. One of the meshpoint is situated literally in the next room. And yet, I'm just not not getting a good throughput when connected to the meshpoints. I've read some posts about the same issue in the Amplifi forums and apparently the latest firmware isn't that good and people recommended downgrading to 3.1.2.

In terms of missing features/settings, I thought there's be some setting that can force the meshpoint to connect to another meshpoint instead of connect to the router, but there isn't any. You'd just have to hope that when you place a meshpoint in front of another meshpoint, that they will magically daisy chain off each other. Other settings like QoS is missing, or a firmware downgrade option (currently you can only check for upgrade), or a config backup/restore option, etc....

I guess the main problem I have with this mesh system is that it is insanely pricely for the performance it offers. I understand that the coverage and performance can sometimes be misleading and can be exaggerated due to advertising. But considering that it is advertised to have a signal coverage of 20,000 ft (1805 square meters), that should at least hold true to an extent right? Sure, my friend's house is pretty huge, but so far we've just been testing in a small area and it's just not up to par. I think even the Dlink MIR-882 router I have at home performs better than this mesh system....

Sorry, I'm not bashing Ubiquiti or anything like that. It's just that this is my first time using a Ubiquiti product and for something that cost around $600, you'd expect it to perform well...

michaelmurfy

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#2495996 1-Jun-2020 01:32

@chaoscreater In the app it shows what connection speed each mesh node has. In regards to selecting what each mesh node connects to, they're smart and connect to the best signal source. There is no need to manually set this.

In todays day and age also you do not need QoS (in-fact, most decent routers omit this now) as it just slows everything down. Also you do not need to downgrade the firmware either as I can tell you now this will not do a thing. It is always important to be on the latest firmware on any system for security patches. Config backup / restore? The router has this if you navigate to it in a web browser (along with other, more advanced settings).

I've used AmpliFi to cover a 3 story house absolutely no problems with great speeds. No, I don't think they're misleading at all. The router is designed in a way it is supposed to be out in the open and the mesh points are designed to be either side of it in the house. You can also add more mesh points if required (both AmpliFi Instant and AmpliFi HD will work), or even another AmpliFi router (which will mesh in with the system).

Expensive, yes, but honestly this is the highest performing Mesh system out there currently and "just works". Just like everything, prices have been inflated because of COVID as getting things in the country is very difficult, the supplier is showing low stock of this also and there is just simply a networking gear shortage in NZ currently.

Also think carefully of the signal coverage - they don't state signal coverage of at-least 100Mbit. They state "signal coverage" where 1Mbit could be classed as a connection. All router manufactures do this. And this sounds like a very difficult place to cover so I can tell you here and now - your Dlink MIR-882 will not even come close to the coverage and throughput of the AmpliFi. I've done way too many router tests (including with the Dlink MIR-882 which performed very, very poorly) to know this.

I actually feel either you have this set up incorrectly or you're expecting way too much from a mesh solution. Whilst you did state the size of the house it is now sounding bigger than what you made it out to be which makes it hard for anyone on here to recommend a solution. Could you please draw out the house layout along with pinpoint where you've put the equipment? Also document how you tested? Is your device connecting via 5GHz WiFi? How have you got the network set up?

It is also important to note if you want maximum throughput with range to use nothing more than 20MHz on the 2.4GHz band and 40MHz on the 5GHz band. Let the AmpliFi manage channels automatically.

chaoscreater

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#2496082 1-Jun-2020 13:04

Thanks for the reply.

In regards to always having the latest firmware on any system, I disagree on this point. Based on my experiences, sometimes it's better to be on a lower firmware version. For example, not all the latest drivers will perform well. Not all the latest Windows Updates will work well. There have been many cases where Microsoft have had to pull the updates, as they were causing a lot of issues for a lot of people. I think anyone who works in IT and have had to deal with Windows Updates will have encountered this issue at least once. The same is true for firmware updates on e.g. Apple iOS. There were so many times where I've had to downgrade the iOS firmware on my parents' devices, because they were causing battery drain or have issues with wifi, etc. They are bugs experienced by many others and acknowledged by Apple and as soon as you drop back to an older firmware, everything is back to normal.

Yes, I did mention that this is for a big house, but so far I've only been testing it in a small area. I haven't spread them out yet. The router is located in the center of the house, placed pretty high up to provide good coverage. As I mentioned earlier, if you are in the vicinity of the router, the throughput is great. The meshpoints are placed either 1 room away, or a few rooms away. When you connect to the meshpoint (which you can see in the client details in the app), the speed you get isn't as good. I don't expect it to be near the rated speed (100 down 20 up), but I'm only getting like 40 down max.

I have enabled both the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz radios on the meshpoints and tested my devices against both. 2.4Ghz is on 20Mhz and 5Ghz is on 40Mhz. Channels are managed automatically and for 2.4Ghz it's on either 1 or 6 and 5Ghz it's on 36. The house is big enough that there aren't any neighbours's wifi close by that could be causing wifi interference. We only see like 1~2 other SSIDs at about 1 bar of signal strength, so they are far away enough to not cause any interference for sure.

In the Amplifi web GUI, there's a feature that allows you to add the floor plans. I'll need to go back to her house next weekend to run the tests again and provide the results here.

cyril7

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#2496087 1-Jun-2020 13:23

Hi, so I am assuming you are using 5GHz as the mesh backhaul, therefore when your client is near the base router it is most liikely to connect at 5GHz, therefore benifit from 40MHz bandwidth and presumably at least two mimo chains, however one you are on a remote mesh unit, its 5GHz band is busy doing backhaul, your client will only connect to the 2.4GHz which I presume is only 20MHz and probably only single chain, hence as recommended earlier, use wired backhaul based systems if you want the best service.

Cyril

michaelmurfy

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#2496090 1-Jun-2020 13:29

@chaoscreater The AmpliFi adjust power of the mesh nodes and router accordingly so it is important to not base your tests of everything being close together.

chaoscreater

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#2496158 1-Jun-2020 15:12

cyril7:

Hi, so I am assuming you are using 5GHz as the mesh backhaul, therefore when your client is near the base router it is most liikely to connect at 5GHz, therefore benifit from 40MHz bandwidth and presumably at least two mimo chains, however one you are on a remote mesh unit, its 5GHz band is busy doing backhaul, your client will only connect to the 2.4GHz which I presume is only 20MHz and probably only single chain, hence as recommended earlier, use wired backhaul based systems if you want the best service.

Cyril

Hi cyril7,

Yes, I'm using 5Ghz as the mesh backhaul, but have also tried using 2.4Ghz as well and they both gave pretty much the same result....I've also enabled the additional SSIDs for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz on the meshpoints and tried connecting my client devices to both. So basically, the meshpoint setup looks like this:

meshpoint backhaul: 2.4Ghz

Client device connected to 5Ghz SSID on the meshpoint

Client device connected to 2Ghz SSID on the meshpoint

speedtest result is more or less the same

meshpoint backhaul: 5Ghz

Client device connected to 5Ghz SSID on the meshpoint

Client device connected to 2Ghz SSID on the meshpoint

speedtest result is more or less the same as above

It's unfortunate that the meshpoints do not have an ethernet port. I would need to get another router to do an ethernet backhaul.

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chaoscreater

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#2496164 1-Jun-2020 15:21

michaelmurfy:

@chaoscreater The AmpliFi adjust power of the mesh nodes and router accordingly so it is important to not base your tests of everything being close together.

Is it possible to force the power output to be at a specific level all the time? I know with some routers you can specific whether you want the power output to be at 100% or less.

The reason why I'm testing everything closer together is so I can get a feel of how well it performs. Naturally, you'd expect it to give good results when everything is close together. At this point, I can't even spread out the meshpoints to somewhere further, because it's just not giving good results. If the user is only getting like 40Mbps down and they're using their devices just a few rooms away (which in reality isn't actually that far from the main router), then it's just a bad user experience.

Also, one other important info I forgot to mention is that right after upgrading the firmware, the speedtest results I was getting were absolutely terrible. I was getting like 20 Mbps down and this is consistent (tested multiple times). Then I've factory reset the router and the app seem to show a different screen. Initially, when everthing was just out of the box, the screen looks something like this (below is just an example):

AmpliFi | Home Wi-Fi, Perfected

After the firmware got upgraded, the screen showed something like this:

AmpliFi

Then after factory reset the router, the screen went back to the first screenshot.

michaelmurfy

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#2496225 1-Jun-2020 17:00

@chaoscreater Speedtests do not show real world performance. And no, you don't want to adjust the power manually, it'll raise the noise floor and cause interference if each node was at 100% broadcast power. Just position it where each mesh node gets decent coverage and let the system manage itself and use 5GHz backhaul.

Also ensure the router + mesh nodes are not hidden behind things that may obstruct signal.

To extend the mesh out via Ethernet you can use the AmpliFi Instant which is cheaper and it really sounds like you need to do this. The house sounds like it is just simply too big for 2 mesh nodes + a router.

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