re: Home Mesh Wifi

Update firmly bought into Asus koolaid after spending half the morning on smallnetbuilder. Purchased an 86U and going to see how the range fares with that and put my old 56U into AP mode.

Then I'll just scoop up the inevitable sub-$50 AC1900 sales on Amazon to grab aimesh compatible hardware to increase coverage.

Three advantages:

(1) now i don't need to buy a PoE switch (which I would have to because those other mesh systems dont provide enough ports to plug in my existing crap). Yeah i could have gotten a simple gig switch but why pay $20 for a 4port dumb switch when i can spend $100 and get 8-10 ports + PoE?
(2) i keep all the Asus firmware features that I've come to love and don't have to manage everything on a damn phone screen.
(3) having full-on routers serve as additional mesh points means they can do tons of stuff a tuning fork antenna or limited AP 'mesh' point would not be able to. already set up a robot on craigslist to watch for used asus routers to pop up that are compatible with aimesh

so in short this is the cheapest solution and i don't have to compromise on features.

$199 out the door at B&H Camera with 2 day expedited shipping.

google would have cost $250 + another $50-$100 for PoE switch + hassle of cutting & running more ethernet.

Oh you'll hear about it. Cad is never shy about calling out crap products even if he happens to own them.

I know what you're saying but since this is so new and Asus has a God in the form of a user named Rmerlin, I'm thinking they'll work the kinks out.

They just released this in what... November?

Buy the google, set It up, and forget it

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consensus by September

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Moving next week, I need a faster turn around than that

I am thinking I am leaning Linksys Velop

Velop is a great system if you can stomach the price.

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Ubiquiti's APs aren't necessarily mesh either. It's just like setting your router to AP only mode, but Ubiquiti has a pretty seamless transition from one AP to another

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What gear from Ubiquiti are you looking at? What main router? I just don't really see anything I like in these mesh systems.

Thinking of getting something a little more office oriented and using MOCA to backhaul to some other places in my house.

The Best Wi-Fi Mesh-Networking Kits for Most People

This is the best article I've seen written on this topic. And, it specifically addresses Ubiquiti's UAP devices.

Mesh systems are consumer grade products for environments where standard wireless routers don't provide adequate coverage and where having wired access points is either impossible or undesirable. Mesh systems are very easy to use, but lack the features most wireless routers and enterprise level equipment, like the Ubiquiti APs, provide. Most people don't need those advanced features, so the easier to use mesh systems are a better choices for them.

The author didn't have any roaming issues with the mesh systems he tested. I think you could get better roaming using Ubiquiti APs, because you can tune their transmit power so they aren't stepping on each other.

So what I am thinking about now is this from Ubiquiti:

UniFi Security Gateway as my router
UniFi Switch 8 60W should be fine
2-3x UniFi AP AC Pro

$450-600 depending on number of APs, seems to be a lot more power there and room for expansion for the $.

It's not that cheap. It's like $60 I think.