Do Mesh units connected by Ethernet exist?

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#3023044 18-Jan-2023 09:09

cyril7:
Hi, yes the Fritz will allow you to do this, to save me explaining see link below

https://en.avm.de/faqs/setting-up-fritzrepeater-in-the-mesh/dok2/903_Integrating-FRITZ-Repeater-into-the-Mesh-via-LAN/

Cyril

Just to confirm, though, this is using the specific Fritz!Repeater, as opposed to another Fritz!Box router repurposed for the role, right? Looks like it’s fairly difficult to buy the repeater, though 2D could well still have it for sale. (Couldn’t see any other retailers selling it, nor any on TM).

I’m still looking at similar options for my sister’s place - router in garage, needing better WiFi reception at the other end of the house, Ethernet in various rooms. While they could get a Fritz!Box router off TM, chances are they won’t be able to get the repeater (they’re with Voyager not 2D).

Are there any other mainstream routers like the Fritz!Box (ie, fairly easy to purchase s/h off TM) for which one can also fairly easily purchase a ‘mesh’ (Ethernet!) repeater? I think the latest Spark router can do this, but I’ve not seen those turn up on TM.

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freitasm

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#3023095 18-Jan-2023 09:27

TP-Link, D-Link, Netgear, Synology all have mesh products.

Synology and FritzBox can use routers as part of the mesh.

The main difference is ease to manage, use of independent wireless for backhaul in some models, etc.

Using a repeater might cause speed degradation in some cases because it uses the same Wi-Fi for traffic and might cause interference too.

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Hatch

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#3023166 18-Jan-2023 11:14

Thanks for all the responses and the semi-interesting mesh-terminology debate.

I feel like I want to upgrade to something with wifi 6 and 2.5gb Lan (for local file transfers).

Have a unused Deco X80-5G with a single 2.5gb port, but ideally want something with 3 2.5gb ports to use the 3 ethernet lines laid throughout the walls, connected to a second wifi 6 mesh unit via 2.5gb lan.

Spyware

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#3023173 18-Jan-2023 11:51

https://www.tp-link.com/au/business-networking/unmanaged-switch/tl-sg105-m2/

Spark Max Fibre using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+, CRS125-24G-1S, Unifi UAP, U6-Pro, UAP-AC-M-Pro, Apple TV 4K (2022), Apple TV 4K (2017), iPad Air 1st gen, iPad Air 4th gen, iPhone 13, SkyNZ3151 (the white box). If it doesn't move then it's data cabled.

tchart

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#3023200 18-Jan-2023 13:41

Some mesh units even have powerline backhaul - eg Huawei Q2 Pro.

It worked pretty well but I've recently replaced mine as I never got a single firmware update in the 2 years I owned them.

jonathan18

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#3023220 18-Jan-2023 14:25

Can someone please confirm whether the second unit (and any additional units) of a mesh set-up can be connected through an unmanaged switch? [Edit: as per the OP, this is via an Ethernet backhaul between units.]

This sketch illustrates the plans for my sister’s place, but just wanted to be sure it’ll work ok - there’s not a direct route between the two mesh units, but I’m assuming data is routed fine between them via the switch?

Many thanks.

Silvrav

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#3023224 18-Jan-2023 14:30

Yip you can, as long as the main deco is connected BEFORE the switch - see more here https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1794/

jonathan18

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#3023228 18-Jan-2023 14:38

Silvrav:
Yip you can, as long as the main deco is connected BEFORE the switch - see more here https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1794/

Brilliant - great to have that confirmed, thanks. Yep, the first unit will be connected directly to the ONT. I was 99% convinced it would work (surely a fairly common situation when they only provide two ports on these things) but wanted to be 100% sure.

Hatch

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#3023278 18-Jan-2023 14:44

jonathan18:
Silvrav:
Yip you can, as long as the main deco is connected BEFORE the switch - see more here https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1794/

Brilliant - great to have that confirmed, thanks. Yep, the first unit will be connected directly to the ONT. I was 99% convinced it would work (surely a fairly common situation when they only provide two ports on these things) but wanted to be 100% sure.

Looks like the same sort of setup I will employ with the deco 5G unit I have. What models will you go with?

jonathan18

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#3023283 18-Jan-2023 14:52

Hatch: Looks like the same sort of setup I will employ with the deco 5G unit I have. What models will you go with?

As it happens, I’ve arranged to buy the pair of Deco M4s that Silvrav offered for sale on page one of this thread (so thanks for this thread - been useful to both find the Decos and confirm they’ll work in this set-up!).

It’s for my sister’s place - they’re currently running an ancient HG659 (costing them $10 a month rental!) with a spare router plugged in to expand wifi (though it was plugged into the WAN port so not sure what it was achieving), so while the M4 is not the latest and greatest in terms of supported WiFi standards etc, it’s still going to be a massive upgrade for them.

Hatch

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#3023286 18-Jan-2023 14:56

jonathan18:
Hatch: Looks like the same sort of setup I will employ with the deco 5G unit I have. What models will you go with?

As it happens, I’ve arranged to buy the pair of Deco M4s that Silvrav offered for sale on page one of this thread (so thanks for this thread - been useful to both find the Decos and confirm they’ll work in this set-up!).

It’s for my sister’s place - they’re currently running an ancient HG659 (costing them $10 a month rental!) with a spare router plugged in to expand wifi (though it was plugged into the WAN port so not sure what it was achieving), so while the M4 is not the latest and greatest in terms of supported WiFi standards etc, it’s still going to be a massive upgrade for them.

Good stuff! Looks like I’ll have to look for another deco unit with 2.5Gb Ethernet.

eonsim

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#3023332 18-Jan-2023 17:38

nzben:

I have the exact same situation as you, Fritz in the basement covers the front part of the house, needed to cover the back of the house and and outdoor shed, had access to an ethernet cable running up and into the basement.

I used a TPlink outdoor access point (there are various ones, this is the Omada one) and set up the wireless ID and password to be the same as the Fritz box.

...

I'm not sure how this is different to a Mesh setup, but the network is forced to the same name, if you go to the other end of the house then your device automatically switches to the other stronger network without interruption, which is what Mesh does as well, but in this case I have an outdoor WAP that cost about $150, or something like that.

...

Not sure what the difference with Mesh is apart from that it requires manual setup, and seeing as the data is hardwired to the WAP unit it gets really good throughput, up to max that the WAP is capable of from the modem - about 300/100.

The difference here is that Fritz and Omada WIFI networks are not aware of each other and so they can not coordinate to hand a client over for seamless roaming as you walk around the house. This means the choice of when to switch between the wifi networks is entirely down to the client device which can make less than optional calls for example it may insist on sticking to the 2.4ghz signal from the omada, because that is a stronger signal even though the data rate may have dropped down to 20mbps, while there is a weaker signal from the Fritz box 5G, but the data rate is 100mbps. For some older devices they'll hang onto that weak signal even when you are sitting right next to the other router/ap which would give much better performance and effectively kill the network for all the devices connected to the distant AP as it uses up lots of transmission time trying to maintain a crap wifi link.

With a proper mesh setup or Omada AP's with a mesh controller, the controller monitors all the client devices and their signal stregth and likely data transmission rate for each AP and each wifi band. When it detects that a client device could have a better connection it sends a suggest to the client device that it should switch to the better wifi AP and band. Modern clients will follow the suggestion so as you move around the area you are always connected to the best AP. In the extreme case when an old client device refuses to change bands even though it has a terrible signal, the mesh controller can tell the AP the client is connected to, to disconnect the client and not allow it to reconnect to the AP for a few seconds forcing it to connect to the better AP point. The combination of these techniques in a proper mesh network means you should often be able to walk around a building with a video chat open and not drop the connect as you seamlessly shift from one AP to another. It also improves the performance for all the devices on the network, by making sure all clients are using the most efficient AP they can access and thus maximizing the amount of clients and bandwidth of the wifi network can provide.

IoT or cheap wireless devices can significantly benefit as they tend to have lower quality wireless software stacks that don't do a good job selecting the best AP to use for there wifi connection.

nzben

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#3023533 19-Jan-2023 09:00

The difference here is that Fritz and Omada WIFI networks are not aware of each other and so they can not coordinate to hand a client over for seamless roaming as you walk around the house. This means the choice of when to switch between the wifi networks is entirely down to the client device which can make less than optional calls for example it may insist on sticking to the 2.4ghz signal from the omada, because that is a stronger signal even though the data rate ...........

Thanks for the explanation. I don't seem to have any problems with what you have mentioned, however we are only a household of 4, (and work from home), and I have most of the heavy lifting devices in the household hard wired so there's not a massive amount of Wifi traffic. Also I did notice that the reliability of the network improved once I cut out 2.4 and only run on 5.8.

Are you implying that I can get a Tlink Omada device that would convert my existing network to Mesh?

Current setup is:

Fibre to Fritzbox 7530 (Mesh capable but probably only to other Fritz devices)

LAN out to a 16 port switch

TP Link Omada EAP-225 Outdoor WAP creates the 2nd wifi network, hardwired via Cat6 (POE)

Thanks

eonsim

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#3023646 19-Jan-2023 11:22

nzben:

Thanks for the explanation. I don't seem to have any problems with what you have mentioned, however we are only a household of 4, (and work from home), and I have most of the heavy lifting devices in the household hard wired so there's not a massive amount of Wifi traffic. Also I did notice that the reliability of the network improved once I cut out 2.4 and only run on 5.8.

Are you implying that I can get a Tlink Omada device that would convert my existing network to Mesh?

Current setup is:

Fibre to Fritzbox 7530 (Mesh capable but probably only to other Fritz devices)

LAN out to a 16 port switch

TP Link Omada EAP-225 Outdoor WAP creates the 2nd wifi network, hardwired via Cat6 (POE)

Kind of if you wanted a proper TP-link omada mesh network you would need to do the following:

Turn wifi off on the fritzbox or change it to a different SSID.
Install a second Omada AP that's mesh compatible (not the wall socket ones)
Run their Mesh controller software on a computer that's online 24/7 (raspberry pi would do or any home server, possibly a NAS), or purchase their standalone omada controller (OC200) and tell it to control all your omada AP's

This would then turn that wifi network into a full Mesh network.

Alternatively, create a Fritzbox-based mesh network.

Buy a second mesh-capable and compatible fritz box and connect it up to your primary one, and enable mesh mode which will result in the Frtizbox mesh controller activating.
Either remove your Omada AP or potentially switch it to use a different SSID. You could keep it with the same SSID for it, but the mesh network would only work pass clients back and forth between the two Frtiz boxes And switching between the omada AP and the mesh network would be left up to the clients the same as it is now.

Mesh networks only work within the same brand/ecosystem. So TP-link omada AP's can form mesh networks with their controller, but they're no compatible with TP-Link Deco mesh units (though all deco mesh units are compatible with each other), and they're not compatible with Eero, Google, or any other mesh router manafacturers units.

PJ48

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#3024499 19-Jan-2023 22:56

eonsim:
nzben:

I have the exact same situation as you, Fritz in the basement covers the front part of the house, needed to cover the back of the house and and outdoor shed, had access to an ethernet cable running up and into the basement.

I used a TPlink outdoor access point (there are various ones, this is the Omada one) and set up the wireless ID and password to be the same as the Fritz box.

...

I'm not sure how this is different to a Mesh setup, but the network is forced to the same name, if you go to the other end of the house then your device automatically switches to the other stronger network without interruption, which is what Mesh does as well, but in this case I have an outdoor WAP that cost about $150, or something like that.

...

Not sure what the difference with Mesh is apart from that it requires manual setup, and seeing as the data is hardwired to the WAP unit it gets really good throughput, up to max that the WAP is capable of from the modem - about 300/100.

The difference here is that Fritz and Omada WIFI networks are not aware of each other and so they can not coordinate to hand a client over for seamless roaming as you walk around the house. This means the choice of when to switch between the wifi networks is entirely down to the client device which can make less than optional calls for example it may insist on sticking to the 2.4ghz signal from the omada, because that is a stronger signal even though the data rate may have dropped down to 20mbps, while there is a weaker signal from the Fritz box 5G, but the data rate is 100mbps. For some older devices they'll hang onto that weak signal even when you are sitting right next to the other router/ap which would give much better performance and effectively kill the network for all the devices connected to the distant AP as it uses up lots of transmission time trying to maintain a crap wifi link.

With a proper mesh setup or Omada AP's with a mesh controller, the controller monitors all the client devices and their signal stregth and likely data transmission rate for each AP and each wifi band. When it detects that a client device could have a better connection it sends a suggest to the client device that it should switch to the better wifi AP and band. Modern clients will follow the suggestion so as you move around the area you are always connected to the best AP. In the extreme case when an old client device refuses to change bands even though it has a terrible signal, the mesh controller can tell the AP the client is connected to, to disconnect the client and not allow it to reconnect to the AP for a few seconds forcing it to connect to the better AP point. The combination of these techniques in a proper mesh network means you should often be able to walk around a building with a video chat open and not drop the connect as you seamlessly shift from one AP to another. It also improves the performance for all the devices on the network, by making sure all clients are using the most efficient AP they can access and thus maximizing the amount of clients and bandwidth of the wifi network can provide.

IoT or cheap wireless devices can significantly benefit as they tend to have lower quality wireless software stacks that don't do a good job selecting the best AP to use for there wifi connection.

This explanation of s true mesh controller system makes them sound very desirable. Do you know if the Unifi controller system with hardwired Unifi access points also works like this?

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