Better router or wifi extender

[Lala81]

I think most companies mesh wifi is fine.

Netgear Orbi, Linksys veloop, TP link Deco, Asus Zenwifi. 

Google mesh is overpriced i feel. 

Do check that the AC or AX speeds are what u want. U can get mesh units from as low as 200 dollars. the AX units are the ones that can support wifi6, more future proof, and can likely support a smart home with multiple clients.

If i didn't want to use asus, i would get a TP-link. They provide some parental controls for free. Asus has free and the most complete parental control.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Lala81

[Fcw75]

  On 8/18/2021 at 1:23 AM, Lala81 said:

I think most companies mesh wifi is fine.

Netgear Orbi, Linksys veloop, TP link Deco, Asus Zenwifi. 

Google mesh is overpriced i feel. 

Do check that the AC or AX speeds are what u want. U can get mesh units from as low as 200 dollars. the AX units are the ones that can support wifi6, more future proof, and can likely support a smart home with multiple clients.

If i didn't want to use asus, i would get a TP-link. They provide some parental controls for free. Asus has free and the most complete parental control.

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Maybe that Starhub got a promo for google mesh router when sign new plan so didn’t feel it…haha.

[Ash2017]

There is always a concern with some about electromagnetic waves which some develop headaches, mood change and even some with more severe effect believe they are Pearly Gate Keeper.

In our homes, there are already, wireless IOT of appliance, multiple smartphones and etc, I wondered if anybody is worried about EM effects on health.

Documented evidence of strong EM can affect brain and heart. Individual appliance will be within the safety limits but when they are working at the same time, the accumulative effects may be significant. 

 

Unfortunately, I do not have the answers. I believe no one can provide also. Imagine if someone came out to proof that EM from appliances has accumulative effects eg mercury and radiation, what would happen to the various industries, namely telecoms. 

[Sdf4786k]

  On 8/17/2021 at 2:20 PM, Stratovarius said:

The most important is the main unit, which is the one connected to the modem. Depending where the modem is but location is not a main issue as long as it’s in the living room. I placed mine along the aisle that leads to the bedrooms. Then I placed the 2nd one in one of the bedrooms. Again I placed in the one beside the mbr as I don’t like placing such stuffs in mbr itself. 
No need any formation. Just place it evenly throughout the house. 3 units is overkill for a single storey apartment. 2 will be more than enough to cover a typical 1000 to 1200 sqft flat. My experience is based on the newer Bto and condos. Hearsay older HDB have more solids walls and signal harder to pass through but I can’t vet that. Lol.

mine is the older deco model and I’m sure the newer ones are better than mine. Oh and mine tends to get quite warm. So I do not recommend putting inside a tv console or the db cabinet.

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I am on a older ASUS RT AC88U so thinking of buying a reasonably higher / gaming router and downgrade the older router as a AI mesh.

Any ASUS model that plays well in this configuration ? or waste time? just junk everything and get a new WIFI6 everything

My current unit serves ok.. just certain part of the room got packet drop and gitchy / spotty wifi when 3 of us doing zoom calls..

Edited August 19, 2021 by Sdf4786k

[Stratovarius]

  On 8/19/2021 at 6:22 AM, Sdf4786k said:

I am on a older ASUS RT AC88U so thinking of buying a reasonably higher / gaming router and downgrade the older router as a AI mesh.

Any ASUS model that plays well in this configuration ? or waste time? just junk everything and get a new WIFI6 everything

My current unit serves ok.. just certain part of the room got packet drop and gitchy / spotty wifi when 3 of us doing zoom calls..

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AI mesh is an expensive setup so i will go for a new wifi6 mesh system and i like the overall simplified design. Unless you are a hardcore gamer and anal about latency issues then Asus AImesh will be a better fit. 

 

[Loki]

I am using Google nest and am very happy with it

[mersaylee]

  On 8/18/2021 at 2:03 AM, Ash2017 said:

There is always a concern with some about electromagnetic waves which some develop headaches, mood change and even some with more severe effect believe they are Pearly Gate Keeper.

In our homes, there are already, wireless IOT of appliance, multiple smartphones and etc, I wondered if anybody is worried about EM effects on health.

Documented evidence of strong EM can affect brain and heart. Individual appliance will be within the safety limits but when they are working at the same time, the accumulative effects may be significant. 

 

Unfortunately, I do not have the answers. I believe no one can provide also. Imagine if someone came out to proof that EM from appliances has accumulative effects eg mercury and radiation, what would happen to the various industries, namely telecoms. 

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Hearsay people in Yishun love IOT...😁

[ktnpl]

  On 6/26/2019 at 8:31 AM, Lala81 said:

 

my friend says powerplug is not reliable for him.

 

Actually guys ... move on with the times, just get mesh if u can afford it.

Powerline adaptor is very old school. Lan cables still got use. 

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@Lala81 

I have used a secondary router connected to powerline adapter for more than a decade and it's very reliable. Router also gives you more control than mesh and both routers are set to a single SSID throughout the home. The routers are free from the ISP so just need to buy a pair of powerline adapters for <$50 compared to >$200 for mesh.

[Ghgan]

So far asus router have the best reliability and feature packs as compare to other brand but expensive for higher end model. I doubt wifi6 is of much use other than copying huge files within your house network as the telco are unable to offer you higher bandwidth to keep up with wifi6 bandwidth.

In short wifi6 does not improve coverage issues, only improve speed and performance inside your home network provided you are also using a wifi6 device. Do note you might have to switch off or disable some wifi6 router features in order for it to work for legacy wifi devices such as IOT.

To enjoy the full benefits of wifi6 you probably need to overhaul all your wifi devices to wifi6 which can be costly.

For coverage issues, it is best to relocate your wifi router in the center of your house and change to a longer antenna and reposition your antenna. You can just buy a 15-30m lan cable and test it out by placing your wifi router in different location in your house to get the best location to place your wifi router. Position the antenna upward for a better horizontal reach, or sideways for vertical reach. In a multi-story home, positioning a router's antenna sideways can help you get a better signal upstairs. Pointing an antenna up helps the router reach farther laterally

Mesh AP is the 2nd choice if there are still blind spot that are unable to be cover by the wifi router. The Mesh AP speed will still suffer due to wireless signal degrades the further it gets from the point of origin. For internet browsing or video streaming for mesh AP it is still quite smooth, upload or download stuff might be slower then expected. Its biggest pluses are helping you get much better coverage throughout your entire home with a single SSID and the ability to intelligently switch between nodes as required.

[Lala81]

  On 8/19/2021 at 12:36 PM, ktnpl said:

@Lala81 

I have used a secondary router connected to powerline adapter for more than a decade and it's very reliable. Router also gives you more control than mesh and both routers are set to a single SSID throughout the home. The routers are free from the ISP so just need to buy a pair of powerline adapters for <$50 compared to >$200 for mesh.

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You can use lan cable for wireless access points also. Powerline if its convenient for u. 

Nothing wrong with WAP. After all its how your WiFi is set up in a big office. 

I preferred separate SSID cos I wanted to manually control which WAP I'm accessing. Cos for example in the mbr toilet, my phone can be still trying to connect to the main router even though connection is very weak.

Its usually the receiving device tendency to keep to one WAP until its totally not usable. 

Mesh systems are definitely smarter and can sort it out for you automatically. This is my experience with my handphone surfing in toilet lol. 

[Lala81]

  On 8/19/2021 at 12:54 PM, Ghgan said:

So far asus router have the best reliability and feature packs as compare to other brand but expensive for higher end model. I doubt wifi6 is of much use other than copying huge files within your house network as the telco are unable to offer you higher bandwidth to keep up with wifi6 bandwidth.

In short wifi6 does not improve coverage issues, only improve speed and performance inside your home network provided you are also using a wifi6 device. Do note you might have to switch off or disable some wifi6 router features in order for it to work for legacy wifi devices such as IOT.

To enjoy the full benefits of wifi6 you probably need to overhaul all your wifi devices to wifi6 which can be costly.

For coverage issues, it is best to relocate your wifi router in the center of your house and change to a longer antenna and reposition your antenna. You can just buy a 15-30m lan cable and test it out by placing your wifi router in different location in your house to get the best location to place your wifi router. Position the antenna upward for a better horizontal reach, or sideways for vertical reach. In a multi-story home, positioning a router's antenna sideways can help you get a better signal upstairs. Pointing an antenna up helps the router reach farther laterally

Mesh AP is the 2nd choice if there are still blind spot that are unable to be cover by the wifi router. The Mesh AP speed will still suffer due to wireless signal degrades the further it gets from the point of origin. For internet browsing or video streaming for mesh AP it is still quite smooth, upload or download stuff might be slower then expected. Its biggest pluses are helping you get much better coverage throughout your entire home with a single SSID and the ability to intelligently switch between nodes as required.

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Mesh nodes with wired backhaul. Best of all worlds. But some of the best mesh devices do so well that wired backhaul is also just slightly faster. Netgear orbi etc. 

[Lala81]

I think mesh systems are pretty standard nowadays. With tp link deco and the other brands, u get all kinds of options from 100+ to 1000+ for 3 node system. For the pretty pointless high end WiFi 6 ones. 

Anything above an ac1300 system should be pretty comfortable for most users bah. That's about 100+ mbps if there isn't heavy network usage. 

 

 

[ktnpl]

  On 8/19/2021 at 12:57 PM, Lala81 said:

You can use lan cable for wireless access points also. Powerline if its convenient for u. 

Nothing wrong with WAP. After all its how your WiFi is set up in a big office. 

I preferred separate SSID cos I wanted to manually control which WAP I'm accessing. Cos for example in the mbr toilet, my phone can be still trying to connect to the main router even though connection is very weak.

Its usually the receiving device tendency to keep to one WAP until its totally not usable. 

Mesh systems are definitely smarter and can sort it out for you automatically. This is my experience with my handphone surfing in toilet lol. 

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Mine is seamless auto switching to whichever access point has the stronger signal. The newer generation routers are pretty good at this.

For newer homes which are fully wired, you can have full and strong wifi coverage throughout the typical BTO and condo at zero cost since you do not even need the powerline adapters. Just need to switch ISP to get another free router 🙂

Truth is mesh is expensive and overrated. The only advantage I see for mesh is the relative ease of setting up.

[ktnpl]

  On 8/19/2021 at 12:54 PM, Ghgan said:

In short wifi6 does not improve coverage issues, only improve speed and performance inside your home network provided you are also using a wifi6 device. Do note you might have to switch off or disable some wifi6 router features in order for it to work for legacy wifi devices such as IOT.

To enjoy the full benefits of wifi6 you probably need to overhaul all your wifi devices to wifi6 which can be costly.

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When I changed my main router from wifi5 (free router from red) to wfi6 (free router from orange), there is a noticeable improvement in the coverage and signal strength even though none of my IoT or devices are wifi6 enabled.

[Ghgan]

  On 8/19/2021 at 12:57 PM, Lala81 said:

You can use lan cable for wireless access points also. Powerline if its convenient for u. 

Nothing wrong with WAP. After all its how your WiFi is set up in a big office. 

I preferred separate SSID cos I wanted to manually control which WAP I'm accessing. Cos for example in the mbr toilet, my phone can be still trying to connect to the main router even though connection is very weak.

Its usually the receiving device tendency to keep to one WAP until its totally not usable. 

Mesh systems are definitely smarter and can sort it out for you automatically. This is my experience with my handphone surfing in toilet lol. 

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That is provided the cable can be install during reno, otherwise it might be unsightly. My experience with powerline is not really good in term of speed, I am getting a small fraction of 1gbps rated speed when I do backup to my nas. When I moved house 3 years back I paid the electrician to help me run a 30m fiber cable from the ONT outlet in the living room to the passageway to the bedrooms, where I mount a ikea shelve on the beam to placed the wireless router, ONT and NAS. This allow full coverage to the whole house, inclusive of balcony, service yard and toilets.

[Rayleigh]

  On 8/19/2021 at 2:23 PM, ktnpl said:

When I changed my main router from wifi5 (free router from red) to wfi6 (free router from orange), there is a noticeable improvement in the coverage and signal strength even though none of my IoT or devices are wifi6 enabled.

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Yap. Since changing to wifi6, connectivity is more stable as compared to my previous setup with router and homeplug. The reason is due to Wi-Fi 6 OFDMA where different data packets for different devices  are transmitted under the same frequency at the same time. This is important as it allows connectivity and speed stability when multiple devices are streaming concurrently. 
 

Having Wi-Fi 6 ready devices will enjoy higher speed. Devices like my iPhone X may not enjoy higher speed but at least I am enjoying constant speed, stable video conferencing even my family members are drowning themselves in streaming video. 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Rayleigh

[Ghgan]

 

  On 8/19/2021 at 2:23 PM, ktnpl said:

When I changed my main router from wifi5 (free router from red) to wfi6 (free router from orange), there is a noticeable improvement in the coverage and signal strength even though none of my IoT or devices are wifi6 enabled.

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You need to compare the hardware spec from both router, probably the wifi6 router have much better cpu, increase memory and wifi chip set as compare to the older router and able to handle more wireless client. When the 1st gen wifi6 route is out in the market, there is not much different in coverage and signal strength with an equivalent wifi5 router. Subsequent wifi6 model have better cpu, more memory and add more features to be compatible with other non-wifi6 device.

[Ender]

  On 8/18/2021 at 2:03 AM, Ash2017 said:

There is always a concern with some about electromagnetic waves which some develop headaches, mood change and even some with more severe effect believe they are Pearly Gate Keeper.

In our homes, there are already, wireless IOT of appliance, multiple smartphones and etc, I wondered if anybody is worried about EM effects on health.

Documented evidence of strong EM can affect brain and heart. Individual appliance will be within the safety limits but when they are working at the same time, the accumulative effects may be significant. 

 

Unfortunately, I do not have the answers. I believe no one can provide also. Imagine if someone came out to proof that EM from appliances has accumulative effects eg mercury and radiation, what would happen to the various industries, namely telecoms. 

Expand  

Hello Chuck, you need a shield blanket like this.