Wi-Fi extenders

[dilligaf]

10 hours ago, Owen said:

After years of faffing about with WIFI extenders, Homeplugs and secondary routers I bought one of these recently:

http://amzn.to/2vW4MlX

It's not cheap, but I'm pretty sure I've spent more than that over the years and still had aggravation with wireless printers not wanting to connect, bridging issues, kids complaining about slow ping speeds etc.

Since I bought the Orbi, nobody's had any problems in the family, I have Wifi in house, garden and even at our neighbours and it does everything you'd expect (separate guest network, awesome range, etc)

Thanks for the info, but I couldn't justify the cost TBH.

The number of evenings that we can sit outside now are reducing fast, so I think a cheaper fix will be the order of the day.

Thanks anyway. 

[The Old Git]

21 hours ago, Owen said:

After years of faffing about with WIFI extenders, Homeplugs and secondary routers I bought one of these recently:

http://amzn.to/2vW4MlX

It's not cheap, but I'm pretty sure I've spent more than that over the years and still had aggravation with wireless printers not wanting to connect, bridging issues, kids complaining about slow ping speeds etc.

Since I bought the Orbi, nobody's had any problems in the family, I have Wifi in house, garden and even at our neighbours and it does everything you'd expect (separate guest network, awesome range, etc)

I was holding out for Eero to become available over here

Any idea how Orbi compares to Eero?

 

 

[Owen]

10 hours ago, The Old Git said:

I was holding out for Eero to become available over here

Any idea how Orbi compares to Eero?

 

 

A quick Google throws up a couple of reviews (including one by Netgear (who make Orbi) claiming the Orbi is better  ). This one looks pretty comprehensive:

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-mesh-networking-kits/

i think Orbi scores consistently better there, but it's a great read

[dilligaf]

Well I bit the bullet today and splashed out £12 19s 10d on a BT unit. I thought it worth a go. If it didn't work just bin it and buy a real one.

However it does appear to work in extending the Wi-Fi coverage, it just doesn't want to accept a password. !!!!!!

I won't be beat though ,..............................until I bin it or throw it out the window.

[pongo]

On 03/09/2017 at 0:41 PM, Owen said:

After years of faffing about with WIFI extenders, Homeplugs and secondary routers I bought one of these recently:

http://amzn.to/2vW4MlX

It's not cheap, but I'm pretty sure I've spent more than that over the years and still had aggravation with wireless printers not wanting to connect, bridging issues, kids complaining about slow ping speeds etc.

Since I bought the Orbi, nobody's had any problems in the family, I have Wifi in house, garden and even at our neighbours and it does everything you'd expect (separate guest network, awesome range, etc)

are you able to use that to create separate subnets so that potentially less secure devices all behind NAT can be isolated from each other and the network as a whole - eg IOT devices and stuff which no longer gets patched such as TVs, phones etc?

[dilligaf]

6 minutes ago, pongo said:

are you able to use that to create separate subnets so that potentially less secure devices all behind NAT can be isolated from each other and the network as a whole - eg IOT devices and stuff which no longer gets patched such as TVs, phones etc?

Just realised that I am getting old 

[The Old Git]

12 hours ago, Owen said:

A quick Google

Yeah, I should have tried that myself :-)

I'd assumed Eero was the best solution (advertising?) but Orbi sounds interesting.

I currently have 3 x Apple Airport Extreme base stations and a few Airport Expresses. Coveing the house is easy but getting a signal up to the summerhouse at the top of the garden can be a problem. It's OK for Sonos, but streaming video is a bit hit and miss depending on the source (encoding / bitrate?)

Tryin the find spec for range rather that area covered is a bit difficult.

[Owen]

22 hours ago, pongo said:

are you able to use that to create separate subnets so that potentially less secure devices all behind NAT can be isolated from each other and the network as a whole - eg IOT devices and stuff which no longer gets patched such as TVs, phones etc?

It has a secondary (guest) network that is segregated from the rest of the network (seperate Wifi SSID with optional bridging to main network). I use that for devices I don't trust, and usually set the guest network to not broadcast it's SSID so that family members don't connect to it by mistake.

I haven\t come across a consumer device that gives you the ability to have multiple NATted subnets, but if you know of any, I'd love to have a look. I would guess you'd need to assign fixed IPs to the devices though, unless you can allocate them to a particular subnet based on MAC address.

[dilligaf]

23 hours ago, dilligaf said:

Well I bit the bullet today and splashed out £12 19s 10d on a BT unit. I thought it worth a go. If it didn't work just bin it and buy a real one.

However it does appear to work in extending the Wi-Fi coverage, it just doesn't want to accept a password. !!!!!!

I won't be beat though ,..............................until I bin it or throw it out the window.

Right, that's it. If this 4 king BT lump of crap doesn't accept a password tonight, it is history.

[dilligaf]

Bought the TP-LINK 600 Powerline kit and it works 

I think Albert T was the one who suggested that make first , so cheers fella.

 Also thanks to all who tried to help. I appreciate it. cheers.