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Old 10-30-2018, 06:29 PM   #1
Northendzone
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So I recently had my shaw service “upgraded” and I was hoping that the new modem/router would be a little more powerful and it is not.

My modem is in the basement, and I have an extender on my main floor that I had hoped would extend to my garage, and it works sometimes, but not all the time.

As I searched out the issue I came across these mesh things and I am very intrigued so I came looking for some insight.

Anyone installed one of these. If so which one? Was it easy? Any overall thoughts?
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Old 10-31-2018, 12:36 PM   #2
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There's some good posts later in this thread about some of the systems available on the consumer side: https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=169152

After some back and forth discussion with Diemenz via PM, I decided to go with the TP-Link Deco m5 system for my house. I chose this for a couple reasons:

1. Budget.
2. I knew I could do a physical ethernet/network cable backhaul for each node, which is important for this system.I don't think the performance would be there if I was doing a strict wireless only configuration.
3. Have a couple friends who I found out run them as well and they've had good experience.
4. Super easy setup (but I don't think this is limited to this system, as they all seem to be easy to setup).

I've been running it for about a month and am very satisfied. I get full coverage of my house, the speeds are fast enough for me, and I haven't had any nodes drop out or any such issues. I have it setup so that the first node comes off my SHAW model and is the firewall/router for my network, and then the rest of the nodes are connected via my central switch. My only concern is regarding the strength of the firewall itself. It's also a little weird for me to have to setup everything via their app, but it's also super handy to be able to config it from my phone on the fly.

Anyways, that's my two cents.
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Old 11-06-2018, 07:44 PM   #3
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I’m glad everything is still working great for you!

Mesh systems are not as cut and dry as they should be because companies use mesh as a buzz word (like tv manufacturers use HDR as one then they put a dwarfed joke panel in their TVs that display HDR pathetically)

There is several systems that perform really well. I have the tall Ac6600 Velop (not short and stubby Velop mesh that version sucks it’s called ac3900) . This system tested the best for me out of the 10 or so I tried because it had the least amount of loss on hops (transferring data between nodes) the Orbi is also top notch I just found it to have issues with wired backhaul but wireless backhaul worked great. The deco M5 woop Mentioned performs way above its price category and In my opinion can’t be beat when it’s on sale for 249 along with the Asus Lycra. I’m a bit bigger fan of the deco because it’s software is a bit more polished and the Asus sometimes fights with smart home devices and you need to disable a few features to get it working with LIFX and SmartThings.

Not all mesh systems are equal. Backhaul is a huge factor and without a dedicated band or wired backhaul a mesh system will piss you off like no tomorrow if you are a heavy user or streamer. Google wifi although easy has piss poor backhaul and multiple devices slow it to a crawl.

Let me know your usage, house size and price range and I can suggest a few.
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Old 11-16-2018, 10:22 PM   #4
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Orbi and Velop gear is both on sale at all vendors for Black Friday starting now (Orbi till Nov 29th)
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Old 11-17-2018, 11:12 AM   #5
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Orbi and Velop gear is both on sale at all vendors for Black Friday starting now (Orbi till Nov 29th)
So jealous of that price. God, people need to snap up the Orbi with that discount. What theft! What price!
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Old 11-17-2018, 02:20 PM   #6
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I'm eyeing the orbi ac3000. We have a couple of places in the house where the signal is really week. Router in the office and in a "workout" room and I have bike trainer trying to run zwift. Sometimes it just looses connection. And also in our Master bedroom and my garage.
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Old 11-18-2018, 08:37 AM   #7
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Diemenz, I went and checked out the Orbi last night at Best buy. That thing is hideous, which doesn't bother me, but I could hear my wife in the back of my head. I have a big house. The Shaw router is on the mainfloor in my wife's office. She hates it there, but it was the only place on the mainfloor to put it. The signal in the master bedroom which is upstairs is poor. In the basement, we have a room that I setup a bike with a smart trainer. Try to run zwift, and the signal is horrible in there, so I can't run the app. Upstairs we have our main tv. We have 4K, and stream Netflix in the evenings. In the basement is where my son plays his ps4. Just kids games. Very little online. We have sonos throughout the house, and in my garage. Other than that, it's just working on our laptops.

I'd like to move the router to the basement near the ps4 if possible and clean up my wife's office. I thought of getting the Orbi ac3000, and putting one down there and the other in the top floor. The other two I was trying to decide on, was the velop ac6600 which is on sale for $450, or the google mesh. Those each have three units which I could put on each floor. I like the looks of the google mesh, and I read that it's just simple to use. Any recommendations?
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Old 11-18-2018, 09:41 AM   #8
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The orbi is huge, in the other thread I mentioned how my wife called it a blender and disliked it as well. It’s not a bad system just wasn’t for me because of the backhaul over switch issues and the slow data hops. For streaming it works very well but it’s not a true mesh system it is a satellite system.

Personally if you like the footprint of the google mesh get the deco 5. It’s far superior to the google product and actually has great performing backhaul unlike the google mesh. Deco 5 performs way above its price range and the setup is very simple.

As mentioned I have the Velop AC6600 which has been nothing short of amazing for me (same setup one on each floor) but it carries a big price tag due to its hardware. I have only had 1 issue with it and that’s when Shaw upgrades the firmware on there modem my velop would not connect again. A 15 minute call to linksys support and it was back up and running. The velop isn’t as user friendly in setup as some other mesh systems because there is a wrong way to set it up and not following the instructions exactly will lead to poor performance.

Most reviewers rate the Orbi and Velop 1-2 and have them in different order depending on the review date (Velop lately has been ahead because of positive firmware updates). Then the deco line and Asus Lyra. I would get something that is expandable (you can buy a node separately if needed) So it’s future proofed for at least 5 years.

I want to be clear that I don’t hate the google mesh, I got it for my parents because they only web surf and stream Netflix and that system kills it for simplicity and performance in that area. It’s just not good at transferring data between nodes so would take about 3 times longer to copy a few RAW pictures to my server from my laptop versus the velop.

Personally my choice if you want three nodes would be
1. Velop - if you want the best file transfer and performance
2. Deco 5 - if you want to save $200 over the above and get 85% of the performance (which is still amazing performance)
3. Asus Lyra - just like the deco but less polished software.
4. Google - if you just web surf and stream

You can’t go wrong with the Orbi either as it is blazing fast and the device has multiple lan ports which is a huge plus if you don’t own switches (they cost $19 now so it’s not a huge hurdle) but you will not have the option for 3 units without shelling out more cash (but the 2 unit bundle covers a huge area)
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Old 10-16-2019, 03:24 PM   #9
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Bump, anyone have any updated opinions on this?

Seems like the Deco M9 - 2 pack is down to $250 on Amazon and Costco. The square footage coverage quoted at 4500 is double what I need. Have a switch and am able to do a wired backhaul.

Any reason to go with something different?
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Old 10-16-2019, 03:58 PM   #10
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A lot has changed since my last post.

Google developed a proper backhaul making the system considerably better. Orbi released new firmware and nodes which fixed their backhaul issues.

The M9 has dedicated backhaul and good software. I would recommend especially at that price.
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Old 10-16-2019, 04:13 PM   #11
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Double post
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Old 10-19-2019, 09:40 AM   #12
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*cough*

Have the Orbi system for sale over in Buy and Sell.
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Old 11-21-2019, 09:37 AM   #13
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After adding a new switch in my basement and having wired cat6 set to every room x2 I adjusted my network And noticed that 6 velop nodes are major overkill. I have put one on each floor and adjusted the channels allowing me to actually have an identical signal to having all 6 now that they are back hauled (only had 3 wired backhauled previously)

As such I have an extra set of the velop ac6600 3 pack available. I haven’t posted it in the marketplace yet as I’m out of town until Sunday night but if someone is interested I could let the whole set go for $250.
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Old 11-22-2019, 09:14 AM   #14
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We moved into a rather large house (~4200sqft) earlier in the year and I went with Orbi and got the higher end models for the dedicated backhaul channels: https://www.netgear.com/orbi/rbk53s.aspx

I got it in June on sale from Costco for $300 which I think at the time was decent. I have been very happy with it. Any device registers the same quality on speedtests whether it is hardwired to the base unit or using wifi from a satellite. I like that the base unit has 3 ethernet ports and the satellites have 4, so I can at least eliminate wifi on essential items.

Since moving, we ditched cable and do a lot of streaming including over the network using Plex and I have never had issues with multiple streams going at a time.
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Old 11-22-2019, 12:06 PM   #15
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Amplifi just came out with the Alien.



https://amplifi.com/alien
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Old 12-25-2019, 10:48 AM   #16
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Thoughts on the google 3 node system? Got it for Christmas. But unsure I trust google for such hardware and if I should return and go with something else.
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Old 12-25-2019, 11:35 AM   #17
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Thoughts on the google 3 node system? Got it for Christmas. But unsure I trust google for such hardware and if I should return and go with something else.
I echo my same response as the other site

I think it is a great system along with the eero for a great mix of ease and performance. These systems will not break speed records but the coverage and reliability are great. On a related note it takes 38MB/s to stream a HDR 4K remux file through my system so I think speed in many cases is over rated unless your downloading files or similar. For the large majority of people the google system is a great system.

I don’t think you can go wrong with the google, it does QOS very very well.
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Old 12-25-2019, 07:11 PM   #18
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still rocking the Orbi, still consider it the best wifi investment I've ever made. While it is huge, it's on my dresser around some picture frames, and isn't really jarring.
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Old 01-14-2020, 09:49 PM   #19
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I have an ASUS RT-AC66U router that is working just fine. (I know it's old)
Does it make sense to try to get an ASUS mesh kit to work with it or should I just upgrade the whole network??
Not crazy about changing out the existing router as the security cameras we have are configured through there and I do not understand port forwarding enough to figure it out myself.
Any thoughts??
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Old 01-14-2020, 10:27 PM   #20
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I have an ASUS RT-AC66U router that is working just fine. (I know it's old)
Does it make sense to try to get an ASUS mesh kit to work with it or should I just upgrade the whole network??
Not crazy about changing out the existing router as the security cameras we have are configured through there and I do not understand port forwarding enough to figure it out myself.
Any thoughts??
If you're getting a mesh system, why not parallel the two? Assuming your modem has more than 1 ethernet port, it should be easily doable. That way, you don't mess up the existing old stuff, and with the new stuff you can increase the wifi coverage in your home.

I personally am rocking dual AmplifiHD routers which cost me around $220 each when I first got them. It's probably too pricey and overkill for the average person though. Personally, I think they're awesome. So dead simple to use plug and play wise, reliable, effective and they look pretty darn good too. People who see the one in my bedroom often think it's a fancy alarm clock.
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