Hi, I don’t know much about networking and I don’t understand what these new mesh things are. I’m stuck with Xfinity Internet in my area, and I have a TP Link AC1750 router wired to a Motorola modem.

Over the last few years, I’ve collected a lot of smart plugs, smart light bulbs, Alexas, & cameras. Those things always say to use the 2.4 Wi-Fi. I’ve had some signal loss issues at some times, inconsistently, and I started wondering if my router is not good enough? Are there too many devices? Some of the mesh things on Amazon say “supports ‘x number of’ devices”, so maybe I need a set of those, but I wasn’t sure which set to get. I am not sure what to look for, and I need to keep it lower cost.

I have the TV and 3 other devices wired to the router, and the 5g WiFi is used for cell phones, iPads, & a few computers.

Does anyone have advice on if a new router would help, or how the mesh stuff works and if that would help? Thanks

  • tcp-xenos@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Mesh is kind of a buzzword and only helps to solve “signal strength” at the cost of everything else… a mesh is basically when your access points are connected to other access points. each hop hurts your ping and bandwidth

    The “proper” solution is hard-wired access points that are each connected back to your router

    If you have cabling in the home, it’s definitely recommended to avoid mesh and go with proper APs

  • SamirD@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The reason why some stuff drops and other stuff is fine is due to antenna differences in the devices–good antennas, good signal, not so great antennas, not so great signal. It’s not a problem on the router side wifi as people commonly think.

    Mesh is just an expensive way to solve this problem. If you want the cheaper way (which just happens to be more professional), you simply need another access point or two wired back to your main one. This can even be an old router that you are no longer using because you ‘upgraded’. And by ‘wired’ that can mean using a long ethernet cable, powerline adapters that run ethernet over your power outlets, or moca adapters that run ethernet over coaxial cable–whichever works best for your situation, although a real ethernet cable is preferred since it is the best form of ‘wired’.

    If you are using wifi for security cameras, I would highly, highly, highly suggest hard wiring those as wifi jammers do exist that render these cameras useless and professional thieves do have these even though they are illegal. This would also give you wired connections where you can put access points that will wire back to your main router. See the linked diagram to see an example: https://i.stack.imgur.com/NjZ5e.png