Is mesh a good choice if the number one priority is stability?

[melodies]

Typical use case of the home Wi-Fi:

a) Speed (bandwidth) is not important, as long as something above 40 Mbps (or 5 MB/s) can be maintained;

b) Online gaming: consistently low latency is very important, and intermittent droppings of packages cannot be tolerated;

c) Video calls: it is not acceptable if continuous transmission of video and audio may be interrupted at any time just because the device switches between different signal sources;

d) Streaming videos: be it streaming myself or watching other's stream online, or simply watching stream from my NAS, stuttering and intermittently stucking at buffering is not acceptable.

e) Every client device needs to be wireless, except that the NAS can be directly connected to a main router/switch via CAT6.

I have previously tried various repeaters from different brands (with so-called "seamless roaming" or similar marketing ****), and all ended up with pretty poor results. Whenever my device (e.g. iPhone 7 Plus) is between two signal sources (e.g. between the main router and a repeater), even if I don't move the device at all, the device itself would intermittently (and automatically) switch between these two signal sources, losing some packages, causing a temporary block of connections. This is pretty disruptive and annoying.

I am now wondering whether the mesh system can do anything better. Could you guys share your experience?

Wiring the whole house with CAT6 and installing multiple APs can be too much harassment, and according to my experience at the office, multiple APs still cannot provide true seamless roaming, which means connections can be intermittently disruptive as well should the device decides to switch among signal sources.

 

[System Error Message]

it really depends on the backbone of the mesh. mesh that use another radio to communicate between and use wires as the backbone will be more stable as far as traffic goes.
There are really just 2 kinds of stability to wifi - signal and traffic. You can have a signal and be connected but still fail to load anything.

 

[melodies]

You can have a signal and be connected but still fail to load anything.

Exactly my point! Do I get a temporary loss of traffic (even for 2 seconds) whenever my device switches between two signal sources, if I use a mesh system with dedicated wireless communication as backbone?

 

[System Error Message]

nope, as long as the backbone is not a wireless repeater it will work well. Wireless backbones dont have as high capacity as gigabit ethernet in number of access points.

So just search for mesh that has a 2nd radio for communication or ethernet for that as well.

 

[thiggins]

Backhaul connection method doesn't affect roam time. The most important factor is the client.

This article provides some insight into how an iphone6 roams and explains the behavior you may be seeing.

 

[melodies]

Backhaul connection method doesn't affect roam time. The most important factor is the client.

This article provides some insight into how an iphone6 roams and explains the behavior you may be seeing.

Wow! Many thanks for pointing towards this article - very informative! I have already tried 802.11k and can confirm that these iOS devices don't roam well (i.e. temporary loss of traffic while roaming).

Any device staying in the red zone below (even if not being moved around) would actively roam between the two APs every so often, causing disruptions of traffic. This is why I'm forced to focus on single router range instead of setting up multiple APs. It looks like mesh solutions with backhaul connections can't fix this issue for me.

 

[coxhaus]

The best I have seen in my house is using 3 Cisco WAP321 set to 5 GHz. My wife can be sitting on my back yard picnic table and walk inside using FaceTime to mix a drink in the front part of the house. FaceTime pauses for maybe 1 second as it changes WAPs and then continues. There is no down time as it is buffered. I have mentioned this over a year ago on this site. One of the Cisco WAP321 devices is connected over a power adapter as I have not run the CAT5e.

 

[sfx2000]

Backhaul connection method doesn't affect roam time. The most important factor is the client.

Distance between AP's is also a big deal, as the client won't trigger a handoff if RSSI on the client side is above a certain level... so they might camp on the AP they were associated with...

 

[melodies]

The best I have seen in my house is using 3 Cisco WAP321 set to 5 GHz. My wife can be sitting on my back yard picnic table and walk inside using FaceTime to mix a drink in the front part of the house. FaceTime pauses for maybe 1 second as it changes WAPs and then continues. There is no down time as it is buffered. I have mentioned this over a year ago on this site. One of the Cisco WAP321 devices is connected over a power adapter as I have not run the CAT5e.

Does SSH connections drop for such a "one second"? Which would you recommend in the AC range?

 

[coxhaus]

I don't know about the SSH connections. I don't usually walk around when I am buying stuff. What do you think would be a good easy test?

My Cisco WAP321 have reached end of sale. They are not AC versions. I am thinking about replacing them with the newer Cisco versions but I don't know when. My current ones work so well I hate to ask for trouble.

Once you go multiple APs having the strongest signal doesn't matter any more. You have to tune the power levels so they work together based on placement.

 

[sfx2000]

Does SSH connections drop for such a "one second"? Which would you recommend in the AC range?

Depends on the client and server for ssh, and the configs - which works around the medium at large...

One could always do a shellscript to invoke ssh... here's one...

sssh(){
  # try to connect every 0.5 secs (modulo timeouts)
  while true; do command ssh "$@"; [ $? -eq 0 ] && break || sleep 0.5; done
}

 

[sfx2000]

My Cisco WAP321 have reached end of sale. They are not AC versions. I am thinking about replacing them with the newer Cisco versions but I don't know when. My current ones work so well I hate to ask for trouble.

Once you go multiple APs having the strongest signal doesn't matter any more. You have to tune the power levels so they work together based on placement.

Couple of points...

There are a couple of standalone AP's that might fit your needs - but that only if the WAP321's are getting there these days - they're pretty good...

I'm also working with a multi-AP solution - and the target there is coverage and capacity, not sheer bandwidth at any single point... That being said - my 150/10 broadband connection, with properly located AP's, pretty much all clients can enjoy the same level of connectivity...

I don't need 1GBe on most of my wireless clients, as that's not their use cases for what they're used for... which frees up a lot of things...

2.4GHz 802.11 still works well - 3*3:3 AP's offer some gain against noise there, even with 1 or 2 stream capable devices - with 2 AP's, 2.4GHz is going to get good data rates with 11n... and way out in the back yard, it's enough to support VOIP...

with 11ac/5GHz, it's more islands over coverage where people are... great bandwidth, and a fallback to 2.4GHz if they move - let's say from the common area to the bedrooms...

I run 5GHz as a common SSID overlay on top of the 2.4GHz platforms at Casa de SFX...

 

[coxhaus]

Couple of points...



2.4GHz 802.11 still works well - 3*3:3 AP's offer some gain against noise there, even with 1 or 2 stream capable devices - with 2 AP's, 2.4GHz is going to get good data rates with 11n... and way out in the back yard, it's enough to support VOIP...

with 11ac/5GHz, it's more islands over coverage where people are... great bandwidth, and a fallback to 2.4GHz if they move - let's say from the common area to the bedrooms...

I run 5GHz as a common SSID overlay on top of the 2.4GHz platforms at Casa de SFX...

I don't like 2.4 GHz wireless anymore so I don't run it. It seems slow to me once I put 5GHz every where. Plus there are too many 2.4 GHz devices around me which makes it even slower.

I have come up with a good solution for my house with 3 wireless units at 5GHz. I have coverage pretty much every where except the tile bathrooms. I would never go back to 2.4 GHz.

One other thing is once you turn off 2.4GHz you don't have to worry about getting a slow 2.4GHz connection and spending time changing to 5GHz. I think dual wireless speeds causes issues about how you are connecting. If you don't have 2.4GHz then the problems go away as there is only one connection speed.

One of my tests is to scroll through a bunch of pictures using both 5GHz and 2.4GHz. Using 5GHz seems much faster to me.

 

[bodean]

I don't like 2.4 GHz wireless anymore so I don't run it. It seems slow to me once I put 5GHz every where. Plus there are too many 2.4 GHz devices around me which makes it even slower.

I have come up with a good solution for my house with 3 wireless units at 5GHz. I have coverage pretty much every where except the tile bathrooms. I would never go back to 2.4 GHz.

One other thing is once you turn off 2.4GHz you don't have to worry about getting a slow 2.4GHz connection and spending time changing to 5GHz. I think dual wireless speeds causes issues about how you are connecting. If you don't have 2.4GHz then the problems go away as there is only one connection speed.

One of my tests is to scroll through a bunch of pictures using both 5GHz and 2.4GHz. Using 5GHz seems much faster to me.

That theory works great, however there still are a lot of devices out there that only work on 2.4ghz (ie. my ecobee thermostat, my harmony ultimate remotes....)

 

[coxhaus]

That theory works great, however there still are a lot of devices out there that only work on 2.4ghz (ie. my ecobee thermostat, my harmony ultimate remotes....)

Yes there are a lot of 2.4GHz devices out there. I just won't buy them.

 

[sfx2000]

I don't like 2.4 GHz wireless anymore so I don't run it. It seems slow to me once I put 5GHz every where. Plus there are too many 2.4 GHz devices around me which makes it even slower.

I have come up with a good solution for my house with 3 wireless units at 5GHz. I have coverage pretty much every where except the tile bathrooms. I would never go back to 2.4 GHz.

One other thing is once you turn off 2.4GHz you don't have to worry about getting a slow 2.4GHz connection and spending time changing to 5GHz. I think dual wireless speeds causes issues about how you are connecting. If you don't have 2.4GHz then the problems go away as there is only one connection speed.

I'd say 80 to 90 percent of my traffic in on the upper band - my main devices are dual-band 11n/11ac (still have some older 802.11n devices, as that's been a slow roll over... I replace as devices go obsolete).

With the two AP's I have running, they're located for 5GHz coverage where we generally are...

I could get away with making one of the AP's 5GHz only, and still be able to use 2.4GHz for coverage (example would be outside of the house).

I still need to keep some 2.4GHz b/g/n around - some of the single board computers I tinker with are 2.4GHz only...

 

[coxhaus]

I use 5GHz outside by putting 1 of my WAP321 units in a window which covers the back corner of the house inside as well. It works as well as my 2.4GHz in the middle of my house in the old days.
Well maybe 2.4GHz doesn't work as good since you can't use 40mhz wide channels any more using 2.4GHz.

I turned off all old 2.4GHz hardware in my house. It took a few months to upgrade my wife's old iPhone which was 2.4GHz only.

I would like to buy some home automation devices. A lot of them are 2.4GHz only so I am waiting for 5 GHz versions. Actually I would prefer to run home automation across my home wiring like my power adapters. I think it would be more secure than using wireless.

 

[melodies]

Yes there are a lot of 2.4GHz devices out there. I just won't buy them.

I still cannot get rid of them, e.g. my printer.