Please suggest what AC router I can get max range with

[Mastiff]

I finally got the last kit I had orderede, a trio of AirTies 4920. And I must admit that I wasn't too impressed with the shop, it took almost two weeks more than the Ubiquity kit, even if I ordered at the same day (within the same 15 minutes, to be precise), and I wasn't too hopefull when I saw the size. They are around half the size of the Ubiquity. And how I hate to be wrong! They had a slightly longer range in a rather thorough test, and the speed was a lot better, both at short and long range. So I guess the Ubiquity stuff is going back. Too bad, I thought those UFOs would look god in my ceiling... But better is better, period. Oh, and of course it helps that the price of that AirTies three pack is actually less than two Ubiquity Pro. So there you go. Smaller, cheaper and still better.

 

[thiggins]

I was impressed with AirTies when I met them at a press event two years ago. They were supposed to be starting distribution here in the U.S. But I think they are just exploring service provider deals.

They have been doing mesh wireless longer than eero, Luma, etc. so are much further along.

Too bad they won't be giving the newer guys a run over here.

 

[Mastiff]

Yah, they seem to do most of their distribution through broadband companies here too. But I'm impressed after a test, and I think it works a lot better than the old Asus 66, and it even kills the Ubiquity, so I'm satisfied.

 

[crashnburn]

Color me surprised! I figured I could make a private test of it, so I ordered both the Ubiquiti UniFi AC AP Pro and the LR. Didn't expect that the range would be identical within two meters in the garden (put them in exactly the same spot), and that the Pro would have around 30 % more speed on the extreme range. So far it looks like UniFi Pro. But I stil haven't tested the other kit that I have ordered, Airties. The shop didn't have those in, so I am waiting for them to arrive this week or next. And then I either send back four Ubiquiti or two Ubiquiti LR and the Airties. Stay tuned for more interesting info!

Do share some links to the AirTies stuff where they can be had for a good price? PS: It was interesting you read someone mention that it beat Ubiquiti stuff that everyone raves about

 

[Mastiff]

I'm afraid that would not help you much. As I write earlier in this thread I live in Norway! So no matter price here, with shipping and import you could probably buy a pretty nice, used car for the total...

And yeah, it really beat Ubiquity, and I still feel that, after a day of running it.

 

[awraynor]

I went through the whole Luma debacle. I cancelled the order after 8 months and it arrived the day after I installed Eero.

Trying to get great WiFi in my home. It's 30 years old and running cable would be problematic. Eero is doing well, but quite intrigued with Ubiquiti Amplifi HD which is due out soon. Sometimes wonder if I should just order Pro gear instead. Next considering some MoCA adapters to take some load off the network. We cut cable and use streaming. PS Vue is good, but it can have some buffering problems.

Hard to believe home networking is exciting again.

 

[pete y testing]

Sometimes wonder if I should just order Pro gear instead.

as far as wifi coverage goes it wouldnt help you much as no matter if its domestic , soho or commercial stuff they all have to live within the rules when it comes to max eirp / transmission power

pro gear would give you better router performance and so called feature sets and prob handle clients better but there is no smoke and mirrors here and they all have to play within the rules

MoCA adapters

pretty dam expensive for what they do however i havnt used them as they have never been released in my part of the world

 

[awraynor]

as far as wifi coverage goes it wouldnt help you much as no matter if its domestic , soho or commercial stuff they all have to live within the rules when it comes to max eirp / transmission power

pro gear would give you better router performance and so called feature sets and prob handle clients better but there is no smoke and mirrors here and they all have to play within the rules



pretty dam expensive for what they do however i havnt used them as they have never been released in my part of the world

Wanting to use them to get my TVs off of the wireless portion of my network. Hoping it will give better performance for internet browsing. Probably not, but it's a nice thought anyway.

 

[sfx2000]

Just keep in mind that physics get in the way of promises by vendors and various BBS forum experts... and sometimes reality diverges in a big way...

To whit - function of propagation loss is a physical law... in most cases is a 20LogR function - and that's in free space - then we add in multiple path effects (which can help or hurt), hard barriers like those things between rooms (in the US, we call them walls), and that adds to the overall path loss...

Which pretty much correlates with this... both the model above and the results below - pretty much physics - there's some efficiency across designs from the vendors, but it's not that major - read the trends...

This numbers are not huge variances - and it also suggests that Tim's test case models are fairly accurate - I just picked a random device result - but as you can see, they're not that much different...

You want to be on the sweet side of that curve, and as you can see above, there is a break point - and this is what I mentioned in another thread - Link Budgets - and losses across the link.

The best plan for performance on WiFi is placement of the AP's relative to where the clients are - and there, any hardware will do a pretty decent job - and SW won't make that much of a different with range.

This is the main precept with current trends of multiple AP's, and that to get coverage where the clients are - whether it's Mesh approaches (Eero and Luna) or more traditional approaches such as additional AP's backhauled over ethernet/moca/hpav or repeaters...

 

[sfx2000]

And just to add to this - here's 5GHz vs. 2.4GHz - and this is direct from my studies on mesh... it's repeatable, it's measurable, and it's consistent...

And a brief example of link budget between AP and client stations... again, Physics...

Note that I've included some gain steps here - as both the Rx and Tx radios have feedback and automatic again adjusts - feedback is at the baseband layer and this affect gain adjusts - and this explains a bit about the different curves across the vendors - and is not a Cost issue, it's the experience and expertise of the RF engineer assigned to the project (and also dependent on the experience/expertise of the engineer on the other side, which likely isn't the same person) - but this is ok, as 802.11 has minimum performance specs and defined link budgets...

You can turn power up, physics will beat you up there, as it's misses the symmetries... the client is no more sensitive, and it can't transmit any more...

High gain antenna's - for omni purposes - net zero, as we increase all signal - Eb/No - which is good bits over noise, and high gain antennas on the AP brings in more noise in most use cases - the downside to high gain on the AP is that the client thinks that AP is closer, so it reduces Tx power to the AP, and now we get into a Eb/No trap, which engages the firmware, and we reduce the MCS (in 11n/11ac terms) or the overall link rate, and the AP does the same...

WiFi is like Real Estate - Location is everything to get the best performance and user experience..

 

[sfx2000]

Going back to Physics - WiFi works best with a link budget, relative speaking, around 20 or less - which isn't that bad, until you look at the path losses at the frequencies... and this shows in Tim's results that I clipped above...

As a point of reference, CDMA (IS2000 1xRTT) - it uses a link budget of 103 dB - and it's much longer range, but is limited to about a 153 Kbit/Sec...

Physics are hard limits - one can push those limits, and the chipset vendors do there best, as do the OEM's...

 

[sfx2000]

To whit - function of propagation loss is a physical law... in most cases is a 20LogR function - and that's in free space - then we add in multiple path effects (which can help or hurt), hard barriers like those things between rooms (in the US, we call them walls), and that adds to the overall path loss...

If you take all of the above - and the charts - with WiFi - in a normal home - 60 feet is pretty good for 2.4GHz, and the pathloss for 5GHz suggests about 35 feet as a direct radius... doesn't sound like much, but most AP's can cover a typical standalone home fairly well... do the path...

Homework question - given a radius of 65 feet, what is the area of that circle in Square Feet?

The answer will surprise you... now, to accommodate variances in home construction, knock about 20 percent off that value, and you'll have a good network. Then it's just tuning channels to improve the Eb/No equation as observed at both ends.

Again, most performance problems, the AP is in a bad position relative to the clients... and that can not be fixed with HW or SW... or settings/different antennas...

Physics...

Math for the Win!

 

[crashnburn]

I'm afraid that would not help you much. As I write earlier in this thread I live in Norway! So no matter price here, with shipping and import you could probably buy a pretty nice, used car for the total...

And yeah, it really beat Ubiquity, and I still feel that, after a day of running it.

Thanks Will look around and if anyone else has some US sources to point, do share.

PS: Yes a lot of Wireless is based on "physical real estate & location factors" something that one can study, but having "good & well tested" Nodes (Tx & Rx) help with the topological landscape.

 

[Darcy]

Netgear orbi coming out soon as well.


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