Router, range extender, etc. Where to place, what to get?

Upgraded the WiFi to a "much better" vreizon router (50 mbps, vs the 15 I had before). It's on the thrid floor, where the desktop is. I have a range extender on the 1st floor, where we have a smart tv (across the house) and where I work with my laptop. Range extender is by window, same side as the router. I'm sitting right next to the extender operating ont he 5G setting, and this is what I'm getting on fb: [see photo]. Situation is not really improved from old router. Switching to 2.4 sometimes helps, but then it stops working. Should I just get a new or additinal extender(s)? the one we have is a cheap Belkin dual band...

Can I add a wired router for the third floor, and move the wireless router to the sun room cable entry point for better 1st floor service?

There isn't enough information to determine what's wrong and what you need. You would do well to have an engineer come and decide for you, if you are willing to pay. One possibility is running an ethernet cable from your router to a wireless access point (WAP) so there is no wireless transmission between your router to the access point. An access point doesn't act as a router, only a wireless "gateway" to the wired portion of your network, which is the fast and reliable portion. If your wireless device is close to either the router or the WAP, you'll have good performance.

I can recommend someone to call if you like, and I'm also available, if you like.

I have just started looking at some of the newer "mesh" wifi solutions that are coming on to the market. Eero, Google wifi, Orbi and the Asus Hivespot are just a few I've read about. They all seem to be the kind of product that a lot of people on MOL are always looking for but didn't know it... something to relieve the Wifi dead spots in the their homes.

Since we got the newest Verizon router our wifi certainly improved, but since the router is in the back of our house (the one and only place where coax currently comes into the house) the signal completely drops off in the front of the house. So I look at these two- or three-unit integrated systems and think they're pretty hot stuff.

Hivespot and Orbi both have dedicated channels for communicating between the units which preserves speed for any clients (users) who are connecting through a satellite unit. There's a Linksys offering, the Velop, coming soon which looks pretty hot as well which allows connecting all the units with ethernet which would promise the best performance of all.

Google Wifi is the cheapest of the bunch with a three-unit system running $299. The most expensive looks to be the Velop which would come in at $549 for 3 units. Google wifi also requires being logged into Google.

I'd be curious if anyone has tried any of these or has done some more research.

@mrincredible, those look good. I'm also curious to learn how well they work. I saw an ad for eero. It looks nice, and it better be at that price.

I have a Ubiquiti access point. I installed it in the dead spot of the house. I ran a cable from the router to the access point for best reliability. It works, but running the cable could be the expensive part of the investment.

As eager as I am to jump on one of these I think I will sit on my hands until the price inches down a little. I kinda like the look of the Asus but I'm interested to see how these things shake out in six months or so.

Eero is getting a lot of attention because it was one of the first mesh systems to hit the market but it looks like we're just at the front edge. Eero and Google wifi don't have a dedicated backhaul channel so you lose a fair chunk of speed if you're connecting via one of the satellites.

Google wifi has a nifty looking app the seems to make it very user-friendly. One neat feature is a wifi pause option that lets you pause wifi for one device or a group of devices. Nice for dinner time.

My boss the mad scientist installed an eero system (three units) a few months ago and she's very happy. Says she gets great coverage throughout the house (a large log cabin) and a good distance outside as well. Very easy to set up.

There appears to be a lot to like about the eero, and it's probably true about the other new products. Call me old fashioned, along with @mrincredible. I like wires feeding my APs. There is one big downside, and that is the cost of running the cables, but that is only one. I think it wins in every other way, particularly long-term reliability.

@shanabana, any news?

I installed a Ubiquiti access point in our house, and it works well to extend the wifi. I just remembered your husband has mad skillz at various things, so it would probably easy for him to run a cat5 ethernet cable from your verizon router to the room where you add the access point. It is likely to work a whole lot better than your over-the-air extender.

An easier and cheaper thing to try first is to move your extender to the 2nd floor, putting it between the router and the worst spot. I think some people make the mistake of locating the extender as far as possible from the router, and this is the wrong idea. You want it in the middle of the router's coverage area, not at the edge.

No need for an engineer. Verizon sells network extenders that connect to any coax outlets in your home and which will rebroadcast (as opposed to extending - which generally stinks) your wifi signal using MOCA. With the appropriate splitter you can run a tv and the extender from the same coax outlet. It is the best alternative to hard wiring your whole home, which with these old houses, can be expensive. You can buy similar MOCA adapters elsewhere, they don't have to be through Fios, but the Fios ones are pretty idiot proof and rebroadcast the same network and take the same password and require no set-up other than connecting and powering on. They also have ethernet ports that allow you to connect Apple Tvs, Rokus, etc. so they are hard wired and not subject to the whims of wifi.

I have my fios router on a ground floor office, with computer hard wired, and then an extender upstairs and in a ground floor addition. Seamless 75mbps coverage everywhere. I think they were rentable, but I bought them for i think $99 each.

Just to note the difference between a moca or powerline adapter and an extender. An extender is only ever going to be as good as the signal it is receiving. If the wireless belkin one you are currently using is getting a weak signal, it will only ever be able to push out a weak signal. Using MOCA extenders you are essentially tapping into the full force of the internet "flowing" into your house and that extender will push out the full 50mbps you are paying for. A second, cheaper alternative is to use powerline adapters. But in my experience they are more hit and miss and require another product, like an apple airport express to broadcast the wifi.

That's really good to know for people who 1. have Verizon and 2. also extensive coax running through the house. It seems like an ideal solution.

It's also lowers the cost factor to a certain extent. If you need to run ethernet cabling to a specific location in a specific room (this corner of my office according to my Feng Shui consultant) that's potentially complicated and expensive. If you just want to get a coax cable from your basement to your attic, and then connect a MOCA bridge WAP in the attic to cover your second floor that might do for a lot of people and not be quite as expensive.

ive got a different read on that. I'm finishing my third floor. My FiOS router is on the first floor. I ran an Ethernet and a coax cable from the basement to the attic. To use the coax will require MOCA devices, but I think I can just add a standard router with the Ethernet cable, making that less expensive.

FilmCarp said:

ive got a different read on that. I'm finishing my third floor. My FiOS router is on the first floor. I ran an Ethernet and a coax cable from the basement to the attic. To use the coax will require MOCA devices, but I think I can just add a standard router with the Ethernet cable, making that less expensive.

Yes but don't add a second router. Use a plain access point. If you do use a router, plug the first router into the second one into a LAN port on the second one, not the WAN port, and also disable the DHCP feature of the second router.

thanks.

I am NOT a techie, so please forgive me if I use the wrong words to describe the mesh units.

We just purchased Eero.  Due to a difficult situation (brick walls, metal lathing in the walls, etc) we went with the Eero Pro 2nd generation.  It wasn't cheap, but it works MUCH better than the extender we had before.

Before buying this I looked at Eero, Netgear Orbi, Google, and Linksys Velop.  

Orbi can only have three satellite units.  Orbi is a "hub and spoke" system, which means satellites can't connect to each other, they all have to connect to the main unit, so you can't get an extended reach out of it. This was a deal breaker for me.  

Eero does not have a dedicated channel for back haul, or whatever it is called.  But their 2nd generation system has three bands, and allegedly it switches channels based on need so they claim it doesn't suffer from performance issues.  You can add on as many satellites as you want.  With Eero you can daisy chain the units, so it something is too far from your router you can still extend wifi to that area.

Google can only take 6 units, which should be more than enough for any home in this area.  I can't remember the reason I ended up scratching them off the list.

The Linksys Velop can also be daisy chained, I don't recall how many units can be added together.

Part of the reason I went with the Eero was real life tests showing signal strength through walls and floors. While Eero claims the units can't be more than 40 feet apart, the signal actually goes quite a bit further than that.  I don't have a tape measure handy, but trust me, we've gone well beyond 40 feet between the router and the second unit and it's working great.

One thing, you'll see a lot of reviews saying that Eero was easy to set up, and a few that say it was difficult.  We were one of the difficult ones.  My husband ended up having to call tech support, and all in all it took about two hours to get it up and running.  But now that it is set up there is strong signal in areas that had no signal with the old router and extender set up we had.  Areas where before I would have to wait for my FB feed to load on WiFi I can now play youtube videos with no issues at all, a HUGE difference.  I did have an issue where the desktop tried to connect to a unit that was further away and wasn't getting a good enough signal to function, but I rebooted it and it automatically chose the stronger signal and now is working quite well.  We don't have the TV hooked up yet, but I don't know if that is an issue with the Eero or with the TV as with the old extender we were never able to get that working either and ended up having to hard wire it.  While Tom is correct that hard wires are the best for signal, I don't know how to run them properly, and with kids I know that any exposed wire risks becoming a jungle vine for Tarzan adventures.  Having as many things wire free as possible is a goal in my house. 

This system isn't cheap, but in the end we felt that it was worth buying for our particular situation.  The frustration with the old wifi was also getting on our nerves.  According to the app I currently have speeds of 57 Mbps down, 61 Mbps up, I don't know what that means, but I do know that there is a visible difference in the speed of the internet.  Of course, this is with only two devices running (my phone, and the computer with multiple windows open while streaming music).  When we get the TV up and running I'll see how it works with two phones, a computer, and a TV all working simultaneously and I'll report back here. 

You say you're not a techie, but you could have fooled me. That's a really good review.

When I say wired, I mean with wires placed behind walls where possible. I hired someone to run a cable in Maplewood, and he ran it from the the first floor (where my router was) through the basement (for convenience) and to the third floor where I had my computer lab. It cost money to do, but it was worth it for me, and it was done for good.

I got tips from my electrician and ran the cable in our NYS house. That worked out great. Since then, my wife and I climbed into the attic again and ran cables for thermostats. We're getting good at this. The network cable I ran allowed me to place a hardwired wireless access point (WAP) so I wouldn't have to use an extender. It works great, except there is an annoying glitch when a device moves from one zone to the other. I notice it when I'm streaming audio from a radio station but not with any other kind of service, so it's really not bad at all. The zones certainly overlap, but the device decides to prefer one over the other after a short period.

57 Mb down is excellent for home wifi. Was that with a computer or a mobile device?

Sorry, but I think two hours with a tech support job doesn't sound bad, considering the outcome.

Daisy chaining is less than ideal because each hop adds delays and retries. Retries add even more delays. But in practice, it can be OK, as you notice.

Band switching is definitely a good thing.

With the old router and extender my husband was never able to get the TV to accept the WiFi signal and he had to run a wire to the TV.  With the Eero he was able to get the TV to easily recognize the signal.  Running multiple devices we have no issues at all.  This thing actually works too well, I'm waiting for it to crash since right now it just seems too good to be true   

I don't know if Eero is needed for everyone who wants a mesh system.  We needed one that we could daisy chain, and I'd think that most people wouldn't need that, so other options might work just as well for most people, and will cost less.  We did get a good discount on ours, but only because Best Buy screwed up the order, and they discounted it as an apology, so obviously that isn't something everyone can count on.

Tom_Reingold said:

You say you're not a techie, but you could have fooled me. That's a really good review.

Thank you.  I read multiple reviews, explanations, etc.  None of these systems are inexpensive, so I wanted to make sure we chose the one that would be the best for our needs.  Kinda like cramming for a test, just give me a week and I'll forget more than half of what I read and I'll be like "The thingy connects to the other thingy when they talk to each other"   

Moving my router from a low shelf in a bookcase to the top of the same bookcase made an impressive improvement in my WiFi performance throughout the house. Now I’m trying to figure out how to move it upstairs without drilling holes in plaster and brick.