JediMonsoon
Gold Level Poster
They look a bit like smoke alarms. It would be great to attach them to ceilings as such. Shame they need power. Where is that Wi-fi electricity I saw in tomorrow’s world?!
Slow wifi - Distance from Router
- Thread starter ChrisCooney
- Start date
The one thing that always annoys me with mesh setups, similar with 3rd party routers, is that you need to keep up with protocol. Doing this is very expensive as by the time one product becomes affordable, it's only due to another variant coming out.
Ax mesh setups case and point, check the price of one of them compared to ac.
Ax mesh setups case and point, check the price of one of them compared to ac.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
yeah, the wifi 6 ones are like £800 which is just nonsense
ChrisCooney
Silver Level Poster
Anyone had a chance to check these out? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-Nova...ba270d&pd_rd_wg=MSMHZ&pd_rd_i=B078NJ2QX2&th=1
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Tenda are an extreme budget option, and they tend to have quite major software issues and driver issues. Personally I'd avoid.
ChrisCooney
Silver Level Poster
I'm a northerner you can't blame me trying to save a penny or two!! Is there one you'd say hits the best value for money?
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
As above.
ChrisCooney
Silver Level Poster
Apologies, missed that! I've noticed two models:
One of them costs a tenner more but supports Wifi 6 but then oddly supports a slower speed (1.8gbps vs 3gbps). Just looking for guidance on which one to go for? Apologies for the endless parade of Qs, I'm hopelessly out of my depth with a lot of this.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Ones AC and ones AX, AX being a newer standard than AC.
The AC one is a higher tier of an older model.
ChrisCooney
Silver Level Poster
Hello everyone, and apologies for the penny pinching! I've been on a bit of a mission, picked up the TP-Link Deco M5 AC1300s and got them set up. Well it's been a little interesting - I've set them up wirelessly around the house, including one selfishly in my office room, and the speed was.... 20mbps lower 
So now I've ran an ethernet cable from the back of the mesh disk into the back of my PC and just picked up another 100mpbs! So gone from 105 to 205mbps in my office room.
This is an awesome improvement, but it's still 100mbps less than I get when I'm next to my router (my network speed is 300mpbs).
I've got a couple of Qs:
1. Does the mesh system work better if the "main" deco is plugged directly into the wall and not via one of the router's LAN ports?
2. Can disks be too close to one another? Could that have some sort of impact?
All in all, happy enough with the purchase to not be sending it back, but was hoping it would be a little better than 2/3rds of the speed with a wire running from one of them into my PC. VERY open to the possibility that this is my fault too.
EDIT: As a troubleshooting step, I ran the speed test from the app. This speed test is supposed to check the speed from the "main deco" which is the one LAN connected to the router. This comes up at 300mbps! Which tells me it's losing strength as we go through the house
Chris
So now I've ran an ethernet cable from the back of the mesh disk into the back of my PC and just picked up another 100mpbs! So gone from 105 to 205mbps in my office room.
This is an awesome improvement, but it's still 100mbps less than I get when I'm next to my router (my network speed is 300mpbs).
I've got a couple of Qs:
1. Does the mesh system work better if the "main" deco is plugged directly into the wall and not via one of the router's LAN ports?
2. Can disks be too close to one another? Could that have some sort of impact?
All in all, happy enough with the purchase to not be sending it back, but was hoping it would be a little better than 2/3rds of the speed with a wire running from one of them into my PC. VERY open to the possibility that this is my fault too.
EDIT: As a troubleshooting step, I ran the speed test from the app. This speed test is supposed to check the speed from the "main deco" which is the one LAN connected to the router. This comes up at 300mbps! Which tells me it's losing strength as we go through the house
Chris
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Not sure what you mean? One is power and the other is network? The main deco plug needs to be plugged directly into the router LAN and the router needs to be set in bridge mode. It should all be in the setup guide.
Yes, but again, this is all addressed in the setup app. You can't set it up without that at all, that tells you where you need to place the pucks.
This is definitely a setup issue. With wifi mesh, you get barely any speed deterioration when it's correctly configured.
B4zookaw
VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Not sure id agree with saying there’s no speed lose. If your satellite Deco is some distance away from the main unit, its backhaul signal will drop, resulting in lower max throughput.
The speed test on the app is basically a test of your broadband connection, not the WiFi. So it will always show the max rate of your broadband, assuming it’s functioning at advertised speeds
The speed test on the app is basically a test of your broadband connection, not the WiFi. So it will always show the max rate of your broadband, assuming it’s functioning at advertised speeds
ChrisCooney
Silver Level Poster
Thought as much!!!
The setup app didn't need the router to be set in Bridge mode, just plugged into the back of the router. The router still works fine as a wifi access point - do you think this could be impacting the speed?
The app also didn't really mention anything about how far or how close to place them, just showed me a floor plan and I've followed that. One in the downstairs hall, one in the upstairs hall (straight up the stairs) and one in my office room.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Yes, but this means it isn't setup correctly. The app will tell you if the distance is too far. If it is, you don't just increase the distance, you have to buy another puck to cover the surplus.
This isn't correct either, it does to a speedtest, but it also does a latency and speed test from puck to puck. I know as I have 2 mesh systems.
B4zookaw
VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
You must have different apps, in the app for my Deco M5s, the Speedtest is just testing the broadband connection from the main Deco, using Ookla.
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
But at the same time it does speed tests to each puck, that's how it has the speed rating by each puck in the app. Ookla also does latency on each test.
Then you also have the network optimiser page which does various tests including congestion on channel, signal between pucks etc etc.
You just have to play around until you get it as you need it.
ChrisCooney
Silver Level Poster
OKAY, thanks for the pointers here. I checked my router settings and looked online and some other people reported that bridging from a BT Hub to a mesh network shaved off some speed, so now the puck is going right into the wall. That's got me up to 225mbps which is awesome! However, based on what @SpyderTracks has said, something else is going awry here that I've got to work out, since I've lost 75mbps, it seems, between the puck in the wall, the puck in my upstairs hall and the puck in my office. None of them are particularly far from one another, and they're all in open spaces. I'll move the puck around a little and see what I can find.
ChrisCooney
Silver Level Poster
Hi folks - worked it out! The puck in my wall was on the bottom shelf of a little hall shelf thing, I moved it to sit on top after reading advice that it should be in a wide open space. After that, the wired connection between the puck in the office and my PC is now running at 280mbps, which is damn good enough for me - excellent result x)
Thanks for the guidance!
Thanks for the guidance!
SpyderTracks
We love you Ukraine
Well done!