Posted: 9/10/2014 9:02:57 AM EDT
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so right now I have a varying set of wireless adapters and old routers I use to extend my range in my house.
however a few are g only and not n. rather than upgrade a few pieces I thought I would ask, other than a bunch of new bridged routers, is there another choice? is there some overall package I can pick up that has wireless extenders instead of new adapters and routers bridged? this is one of those things I sort of understand, but because of the way I pieced things together, I might have missed the bigger picture. I cannot run any new lines easily. so I want to keep this wireless if possible. |
| Personally I would look into something like this and get several of the adapters that support wifi. I use these and have a couple of them and use external AP's but with these they have AP's built in. |
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Quoted:
thanks, but there are enough bad reviews on that, that match some of my specific setup, that I wouldn't want to risk the money. if it won't cross circuits and older android devices don't work, it also doesn't help me. I understand your concern. The problem with the wireless range extenders is they use half the available bandwidth for the back haul. Short of hardwiring with either cat5e or cat 6 and dropping in some Access Points that are POE I don't know what to tell you. I can say that I haven't had any issues using Ethernet Over PowerLine converters in two different homes. One was from the 60's and another from the late 80's. I'd like to point out that I have not used that specific brand. I'm sure someone else makes a better one that included wifi. |
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Quoted:
I understand your concern. The problem with the wireless range extenders is they use half the available bandwidth for the back haul. Short of hardwiring with either cat5e or cat 6 and dropping in some Access Points that are POE I don't know what to tell you. I can say that I haven't had any issues using Ethernet Over PowerLine converters in two different homes. One was from the 60's and another from the late 80's. I'd like to point out that I have not used that specific brand. I'm sure someone else makes a better one that included wifi. Quoted:
Quoted:
thanks, but there are enough bad reviews on that, that match some of my specific setup, that I wouldn't want to risk the money. if it won't cross circuits and older android devices don't work, it also doesn't help me. I understand your concern. The problem with the wireless range extenders is they use half the available bandwidth for the back haul. Short of hardwiring with either cat5e or cat 6 and dropping in some Access Points that are POE I don't know what to tell you. I can say that I haven't had any issues using Ethernet Over PowerLine converters in two different homes. One was from the 60's and another from the late 80's. I'd like to point out that I have not used that specific brand. I'm sure someone else makes a better one that included wifi. have you looked at Ubiquity Unifi products? depending on range and what you want covered they cost a little but I have one it works great covering a large home |
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I was curious about those, but I couldn't tell. does each of those have to be hard wired to the network? I would say yes each needs to be in a switch or router with an injector if you want it as a AP. I also believe the newer ones AP Pro it has 2 Ethernet ports and you can place them in a bridge mode or uplinked as they call it but never tried it and don't believe is really recommended. UBT also sells the switch and router to power these devices all over POE but the AP sets come with a inline adapter. Nice thing about these is they work together If run CAT5/6 is a problem they make a dedicated air bridging solution using AirOS called PicoStation its about $75 per device. What are the ranges you need covered? |
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it really isn't physcially that far.
no more than 30 feet from the main router I have. but the signal drops off pretty bad. 25 feet away and I am down to 1 bar on the wireless. but that is going through 3 walls, piping and electrical, etc.. going upstairs is pretty much the same. I have a buffalo router with ddrwrt. so I have it turned up pretty far. I thought bridging it to one upstairs with the same name would help, but it doesn't seem to work that way. I thought naming them both the same would allow the systems to pick the one with the best signal, but it doesn't ever seem to switch. |
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Quoted:
it really isn't physcially that far. no more than 30 feet from the main router I have. but the signal drops off pretty bad. 25 feet away and I am down to 1 bar on the wireless. but that is going through 3 walls, piping and electrical, etc.. going upstairs is pretty much the same. I have a buffalo router with ddrwrt. so I have it turned up pretty far. I thought bridging it to one upstairs with the same name would help, but it doesn't seem to work that way. I thought naming them both the same would allow the systems to pick the one with the best signal, but it doesn't ever seem to switch. Unifi AP works together to create a mesh network they will hand off to one another there are others but your are looking at not so cheap solutions. The long range units have pretty good overall range but Wifi is a line of sight frequency 5Ghz is better for speed but actually using the older 2.4Ghz has better range It seems you still need a good physical network distribution to your APs. What about running the CAT5 on the outside of the house to the attic and dropping it from there to a distribution point "switch" and then to your APs. If you have cable TV to your rooms you could try a MoCA instead of Powerlines to do the same thing. Tivo sells a pair for 89 bucks and speeds are in the 170Mbs range http://www.actiontec.com/251.html Each device has its own purpose I am not a fan of consumer multi network devices they usually suck |
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over coax probably isn't a good idea.
had a near miss with lightning when I first moved in, and it doesn't seem to work right in a few of the rooms. switched over to ethernet where I could, but no easy way to get it to the second floor. I am not sure routing anything outside is a good idea. I might have to do a combination of options then. I would prefer the unified solution, but if the "pucks" are all hard wired, then it does me no good. I will have to dig around the attic a bit. maybe I will get lucky and they ran the wiring from the downstairs all the way up to the attic to get to the other rooms. |
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This has worked great for me and it even has an ethernet port if you want to use that.
Wifi Repeater |
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Quoted: Its quite costly for home but Meraki is great for mesh. http://www.open-mesh.com/ |
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Quoted:
I was curious about those, but I couldn't tell. does each of those have to be hard wired to the network? WrightP- that is a good point. I will dig further into them, but the reviews make them seem pretty iffy. I too had the same experience naming two AP's with the same name and it freaked out my network. Only one was "commercial" grade and I think that was the downfall. Unless you can find something like what was just said above that uses Mesh networking for the backhaul I wouldn't go with the "repeater". The repeaters are going to experience the same drop in signal you are already experiencing before it is able to amp up and provide a stronger signal for it's access point in the room you are trying to get better coverage in. Have you tried a new AC router or are you stuck with older equipment(laptop, cell phone, ipad) that won't support it? |
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Angry-American- does that stuff need a drop per puck too? doesn't seem like it but not sure.
WrightP- I am slowly checking everything. I have a problem right now bridging upstairs to downstairs. I have a wireless ap that is running on G. I have a second n-router, I tried to put into bridge mode. but I must have done something wrong. I cannot see my network in that mode when I unplug the g ap. if I can fix that, then I could probably go all N and speed things up. I checked again, I still have a little "room" left to bump up my signal strength. it says not to go much past 70 or risk burning it out. I am at 50 on everything right now and it didn't help much on signal as far as I can tell. We have a lot of crap all over the house I think making "noise" so it might be harder than I thought. I will probably dig around the attic this weekend and see if I can find my network drops in the attic. it would be weird to do since all of them are downstairs, but who knows. or rather I only have 2 in the downstairs. and the directly connect to each other. |
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Quoted: Angry-American- does that stuff need a drop per puck too? doesn't seem like it but not sure. WrightP- I am slowly checking everything. I have a problem right now bridging upstairs to downstairs. I have a wireless ap that is running on G. I have a second n-router, I tried to put into bridge mode. but I must have done something wrong. I cannot see my network in that mode when I unplug the g ap. if I can fix that, then I could probably go all N and speed things up. I checked again, I still have a little "room" left to bump up my signal strength. it says not to go much past 70 or risk burning it out. I am at 50 on everything right now and it didn't help much on signal as far as I can tell. We have a lot of crap all over the house I think making "noise" so it might be harder than I thought. I will probably dig around the attic this weekend and see if I can find my network drops in the attic. it would be weird to do since all of them are downstairs, but who knows. or rather I only have 2 in the downstairs. and the directly connect to each other. |