Mesh Wi-Fi System Roundup 2019: Are these new systems worth the upgrade?

[Julio Franco]

Mesh Wi-Fi routers are a recent trend in the networking market and aim to bring some of the advanced features of enterprise networking systems to the consumer. How well do they work, and what performance benefit do you get by switching to one? We'll take a deep dive today into the top players on the market to find out.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1892-mesh-wifi-router-roundup/

 

[poohbear]

Great article as I was curious about this myself. However, I recently installed a solid router (Asus AC86U) in a 5 bedroom, 3-floor house, and it managed to cover every corner of it. So, are these things really necessary? I understand with the cheaper routers these mesh setups might look good, but a good quality router is just as good from my experience.

 

[ForgottenLegion]

Great article as I was curious about this myself. However, I recently installed a solid router (Asus AC86U) in a 5 bedroom, 3-floor house, and it managed to cover every corner of it. So, are these things really necessary? I understand with the cheaper routers these mesh setups might look good, but a good quality router is just as good from my experience.

They are absolutely necessary in highly urban areas.

Here in London with an Asus AC87U the WiFi dead zones in a 3 bed house is insane.
I tried everything from solo access points to repeaters to powerline adapters. Nothing compares to the mesh system I have now. It's an absolute blessing and something I've installed for nearby friends who have nothing but praise for them.

With a solo AC87U I'd get great signal in one room but often just a few metres away the signal would be unusable. Interference from other systems was a huge issue. Moving the router would grant a temporary reprieve but introduce an unstable connection in another location.

I've personally gone for the BT Whole Home discs due to their relative low cost and ease of integration into my existing router setup.
I've got 3 hard wired discs myself but with the option of adding another 3 in future if ever necessary I'm very pleased with it all.

Overall, mesh WiFi is incredible

 

[DelJo63]

Range extenders which receive from the main router and broadcast another wifi signal can be tenuous at best. Instead, I opted for an EoP device to bring Ethernet speed to the far end of the house and connected the TV and a wifi router there.

search Techspot for "mesh" for connectivity and bandwidth issues.

 

[OneSpeed]

I used to have the Orbi, until it kept losing (repeatedly) its internet connection. I waited months on end for a fix from Netgear and it never came. I have it on sale at a fraction of the price so I can tell everyone that inquires about them to tell them they will be totally frustrated with this product. I think that can of Coca Cola is better at what it does than Orbi.

I have the Synology mesh system, and have to say it is the best!

 

[heidarren]

I used to have the Orbi, until it kept losing (repeatedly) its internet connection. I waited months on end for a fix from Netgear and it never came. I have it on sale at a fraction of the price so I can tell everyone that inquires about them to tell them they will be totally frustrated with this product. I think that can of Coca Cola is better at what it does than Orbi.

I have the Synology mesh system, and have to say it is the best!

I agreed with you, Techspot should have it included in mesh system review, Synology has done a great job in the mesh system which they offer. I don't see them as a hardware company, but a software company. When a software company has a great hardware, it will be very strong product!

 

[rrwards]

I think including an Edgerouter X and a pair of wired APs would be an interesting addition to the testing at a similar price point (ErX $80 + two EAP 225v3s $140 = $220).

 

[Verne Arase]

I used to have the Orbi, until it kept losing (repeatedly) its internet connection. I waited months on end for a fix from Netgear and it never came. I have it on sale at a fraction of the price so I can tell everyone that inquires about them to tell them they will be totally frustrated with this product. I think that can of Coca Cola is better at what it does than Orbi.

I have the Synology mesh system, and have to say it is the best!

The Orbi firmware has been pretty stable for at least the last three releases or so, and now includes some more interesting capabilities including Disney Circle parental controls, and NetGear Armor security (both optional).

NetGear Armor allows you to run BitDefender on any PC/Mac in the house, and does whole LAN network security, including phishing block. It also lets you run security on your mobile devices, and scans local devices for network vulnerabilities.

 

[brucek]

What I learned from trying mesh in my larger house is that there's no beating a wired backbone.

Sure, performance at the central router was good. But there were plenty of places in my house that were two hops away from it, and performance there was not good. And there were nooks and crannies without coverage at all.

Overall I considered the "mesh" a gimmick for me, but at least it finally motivated me to get serious about setting up a well-performing MoCA backbone to power it. Then all the "mesh" units worked fine as regular access points.

 

[TheDevopsGuy]

I think as a topic it was pretty well built and interesting. Especially since this is based exactly on something which I've done for my thesis. What wasn't mentioned is one crucial thing. Roaming time in Mesh systems. It's almost as fast as a wireless systems functioning with a controller.

I do appreciate atleast that you mentioned

if you already have a Wi-Fi system that covers your entire living area and delivers consistently high speeds, a mesh system won't help you. If you have a slow internet connection from your ISP, a mesh system won't help you. Mesh systems typically offer lower peak performance than standalone high-end routers. This means that in smaller locations, a mesh system will usually perform worse than a single access point due to interference and lower-end hardware.

 

[D3z4R1]

The Orbi firmware has been pretty stable for at least the last three releases or so, ...

I totally agree. I've been running an Orbi mesh set up for well over a year and have yet to have any major issues.

At a little over 3600 square feet, I have yet to have any "dead spots"; at the second floor or even down to the basement. Of course placement is key, but I will notice a considerable signal drop at the end of my driveway.

Prior to the Orbi, I used an R7000 coupled with an EX7000. I gave that setup to my brother and works perfectly fine for his household.

One brand I'll stay clear of, however, is TP-Link. I have had nothing but headaches from using their hardware. (And D-Link as well).

 

[ubronan]

I actually am not sure about all these products, this far I had several in my house and could not get any steady wifi result at all.
True where I live there is a enormous amount of wifi routers close to me, in fact there are over 124 wifi points visible near my house and all are fighting for a good connection.
Now I must say in my country Netherlands its not allowed to have a wifi sending at a certain power level but guess what many neighbours have such a strong signal that my not so shabby official modem/router and legal AP's actually loose connection if I am not within 2 to 3 metres from the device. Yes it does not matter if I use mesh or not.
To make matters worse my house is build with some very metal rich concrete slabs which are also a huge pain to drill something in. So hard that a pro who had to place a new electric cable to the roof for my new heater could not get through this concrete slabs with his massive pro super drill ( yes diamond heads ) so he gave up.
So my hopes where to use mesh repeaters to get a decent signal over my 3 story house, but it ended into having to make sure every room has to have a cable connection or the signal gets lost. Even worse when I am in the living room ( about 9 metres long) in the front of the house near the modem I have a good connection but when I move 3 metres towards the back of the house I already loose connection with all wifi devices and even with my phone I loose connections ( short ones but enough to garble a normal conversation).
Anyway I am just saying if I use device within the regulations I am stuck wih failing reception.
So for me these things do not help me at all, or I have to put a insane amount of them in my house to get any good connection.
Ofcourse you learn to live with it, because when I want to react to forum or want to send a email I instant switch to my cabled computer todo the task I intended todo.
For that reason I had to sell my expenssive thin laptop for a 10th of its new price, because its pretty useless in my house.
Before one asks most of my neighbours hardly do anything with their wifi but have a modem/router sending all day for nothing.
But most who do not complain bought a much less legal router which sends a much more power than the ones I have.

 

[ubronan]

I used to have the Orbi, until it kept losing (repeatedly) its internet connection. I waited months on end for a fix from Netgear and it never came. I have it on sale at a fraction of the price so I can tell everyone that inquires about them to tell them they will be totally frustrated with this product. I think that can of Coca Cola is better at what it does than Orbi.

I fully agree on this statement I had almost exact same experience with orbi.
However its for me too costly to switch over to synology because I have to buy too many mesh connectors and an extra double modem/router to get it to work well. And I admit I hate to have a router behind another router. ( ps in my country most providers demand a certain modem/router and often do not give you access to admin/root so gettting that to work is a huge pain in the behind)

 

[yeeeeman]

Great article as I was curious about this myself. However, I recently installed a solid router (Asus AC86U) in a 5 bedroom, 3-floor house, and it managed to cover every corner of it. So, are these things really necessary? I understand with the cheaper routers these mesh setups might look good, but a good quality router is just as good from my experience.

They are absolutely necessary in highly urban areas.

Here in London with an Asus AC87U the WiFi dead zones in a 3 bed house is insane.
I tried everything from solo access points to repeaters to powerline adapters. Nothing compares to the mesh system I have now. It's an absolute blessing and something I've installed for nearby friends who have nothing but praise for them.

With a solo AC87U I'd get great signal in one room but often just a few metres away the signal would be unusable. Interference from other systems was a huge issue. Moving the router would grant a temporary reprieve but introduce an unstable connection in another location.

I've personally gone for the BT Whole Home discs due to their relative low cost and ease of integration into my existing router setup.
I've got 3 hard wired discs myself but with the option of adding another 3 in future if ever necessary I'm very pleased with it all.

Overall, mesh WiFi is incredible

Mind you, AC WiFi is a bit limited in general when many users and access points are close to each other. One of the big advancements with AX WiFi is that it supports coloured BSS, which means each router has its own ID so the interference between them is lower from a protocol standpoint. Also, AX WiFi supports up to 256 users compared to 32 of AC. So yeah, I think an 11AX router would be a nice addition to this review roundup.

 

[McMurdeR]

I went with a BT Whole Home mesh set up in a three story urban home. By and large it delivers anywhere between 75 to 300 Mbs/s depending on the location.

It's generally been a great success, given that most of our usage consists of gaming, HD streaming, Plex and browsing. With these things you sacrifice peak speed for coverage. At worst it performs significantly better than the modem provided by our provider. The only quirk I've noticed is that performance can be highly dependent on small changes to placement of the units.

WiFi mesh is no substitute for wired ethernet, if at all possible in your home, but so far it's the next best thing - I'd definitely try it before going back to home plug.

 

[ubronan]

I would like to see these new AX wifi routers going down in price but they all seem to have also a very limited range. So as I previously posted elsewhere in my urban area we have over 124 wifi sending devices pretty near.
So testing mesh and other solutions did not really work, second it becomes really way to expenssive. Now the main issue I have is heavily fortified concrete walls which are known to lower the distance you can receive the signal well. Then the massive amount of other radio devices ( keyboards, mouses and yes even fridges and so on ) make it even worse.
So to be honest my 3 story 6 room house is hell for receiving a good signal.
This far I have not found any solution which works well, and the pro products like the AX systems are way over my budget.

 

[mbk34]

I'm looking at putting mesh wifi into a small hotel for a friend. The problem is most of the walls are stone or concrete and the place is spread over approx 7000 sq ft at ground level. Ideally it would be nice to have fast access in the social area and then any access at all in the rooms would be better than the current situation where the signal just fades to nothing. Normally there'll be about 10 folk online at a time accessing emails or looking at the news but sometimes it might go to 20 or someone will start downloading a movie or playing fortnight. Suggestions?

 

[DelJo63]

@mbk34
Put the gateway router(with wifi) wherever it can be, then use two EoP devices to get Ethernet to both ends of the building and then add a good wifi router to each remote EoP device.

remote-wifi#1(lan)--eop-----eop--(lan)gateway(lan)--eop-----eop--(lan)remote-wifi#2

(TP-Link EoP or Netgear EoP ignore wifi in these devices)

Set the gateway router LAN address to 192.168.0.1, DHCP ON and LAN range to 192.168.0.3-192.168.0.253

Set one remote router to 192.168.0.2, DHCP off and the other to 192.168.0.254 also DHCP off. Give similar admin passwords and add a suffix -001, -002, -254 to match the IP addresses

Use the same SSID & Passphrase everywhere. Select 2.4ghz and avoid 5g altogether. Select a unique channel for each wifi.

The gateway router does the LAN assignments for all connections. Connect the remote routers to the EoP using a LAN slot, leaving the WAN-uplink empty.

The system will support 255 - 4 connections. If necessary, it can be expanded with more equipment.

Use Private Chat (or conversation) if necessary.

 

[mbk34]

Your solution would work well but unfortunately the place is in Greece and the power lines are a bit antiquated. I'm not even sure that they're all on the same electrical system. I was wondering about just getting the Google Mesh system because it looked simple to use then using Ethernet cable to link the two end points. Not sure how long you can have the cables? You make a good point about 2.4GHz as I doubt 5GHz will make it through the internal walls. Saying that though, could I have 5GHz in the lounge area where there are open sight lines. Would that give better connectivity there but still allow the 2.4GHz connections elsewhere via the other units?

 

[ubronan]

You can have 5 Ghz access in open and wide spaces, the problem with 5 Ghz is that it easily gets stopped by walls and objects so when large objects (especially metal) and ofcourse strenghtened concrete items are in the way of the signal 5 Ghz will sooner fade away.
Using access points will make your range much wider and can give excellent performance.
When you use proper cat 5e cables you can easily bridge over 100 metres before issues with signal starts to appear ( only if your router is weak ) but even then you can use more access points to break that. Theoretical the range of the cables goes much further, but in my long time of networking you better make safe than sorry. You do not have the need for shielded cables if there are no high powered devices with strong radiation which can interrupt the signal.
For instance some forget that a magnetron can make enough problems to loose signal when its used. But over usage of remote devices can have the same effect like many RF keyboards, mouses and so on. However in general when you have a good brand of wifi devices you probably would have ample problems. I agree that its wise to make at least 1 access point. But it all depends how many people make use of the wifi at once and what they are doing.
With a good router you could block people from downloading movies, but also could offer customers to get a access point if they want todo such things ofcourse if they pay .
But that makes the need of more cables needed where you could place those AP's.
So when you decide what todo make sure to make a proper cable plan and think carefull about the costs involved.
If you do it well I am sure customers will be pleased.
Ofcourse it can be costly todo it well
When you use mesh devices you can indeed get a better spread of the signal, but the risk is still that those who start looking movies and such online will use up all bandwidth of your wifi.
For those who want to look at such heavy bandwidth hungry stuff you still need a cable to avoid all loose connection.
But even with cabled connection it can be a pain, I did alot of testing with my 220 mbit provider. When I start looking mkv movies over the lan the signal for the tv used by others starts to stutter even though there is enough bandwidth, I admit this tv signal is 1080p and that is not too shabby either. But it shows that downloading/looking movies over any normal 1 gbit lan can be heavy.

 

[SPAM1]

Seeing mikrotik not mentioned here makes me think those *****s really screwed up with company development...

 

[ubronan]

Would not say that to be honest never heard that brand untill now.
After I looked at what they sell, it seems to me that all they make looks ok.
However they have a lot of weird devices in their collection 4 x sfp + 1 gbit connector for instance .....
It gives me the impression that they sell in the lower end segment of these devices.
So I can not make a real decision till someone shows up and tells their vision on this brand.
However they might be handy for some small companies to get something working which normally fails for very low prices.
Check their website for the LHG 60g dishes and the netbox 5 those can be a pretty good solution as well with its high sending capacity ( although forbidden in my country)
But I fear the support will be equal the prices ... very low

 

[yukka]

I have BT Wholehome Wifi (purchased the 3 disc bundle from amazon). It it very good. I have a 2 story house and I only used 2 of the 3 discs to get a good signal everywhere. And most importantly, moving between access points keeps the connection going instead of dropping - for example Skype drops its connection when I move out of range of the main router and into the range of a range extender at a relatives.

Mesh Wifi is great.