Sorry this article kinda lit a fire under my ass to get a new router, so I’ve been researching. Was looking into this and it feels like openWRT might be the way for me personally, the simpler and cheaper, while doing all the stuff I need it to do is more appealing to me.
Also thinking about going with a router that has the longe range 802.11ah HaLow 915mhz, I’ve got a big house and the wifi is bad in one area. I’ve also been dabbling in the sub ghz meshtastic and meshcore devices and I’m thinking it could be a fun thing to experiment with.
I turned off wifi on my router and instead use multiple wifi access points connected to the router by ethernet. It’s way easier to get good coverage and speeds that way.
Yep. I’ve only got three APs, and one is by the modem and router, so it’s really just two long wires, and one of those is to my office, which is also where my main desktop PC is, so I needed that wire anyway. The other one was annoying, and I had to drill a couple holes for it as well as exploit a laundry chute, but all that was ten years ago, and having pretty complete wifi coverage since then has been worth it.
The one weak spot is the kitchen, where there’s coverage, but it tends to be a bit slow. I just decided to upgrade my bedroom AP to Wifi 6 (from AC), though, and I might try switching the old unit over to mesh mode and mounting it to cover the kitchen. Mesh involves two wifi links so it’s a bit slower, but the connection strength will probably make up for that. It’s worth the experiment, at least.
Sorry this article kinda lit a fire under my ass to get a new router, so I’ve been researching. Was looking into this and it feels like openWRT might be the way for me personally, the simpler and cheaper, while doing all the stuff I need it to do is more appealing to me.
Also thinking about going with a router that has the longe range 802.11ah HaLow 915mhz, I’ve got a big house and the wifi is bad in one area. I’ve also been dabbling in the sub ghz meshtastic and meshcore devices and I’m thinking it could be a fun thing to experiment with.
Few videos for reference Sub gHz 802.11ah Halow Wifi https://youtu.be/-soMNhNqEVc
Video that touches on why I think openWRT might be a better fit for me than pfsense or open-ended
https://youtu.be/XGefV0Rf9QQ
Let me know yall’s thoughts.
The key to good WiFi is to turn the power down and put a lot of APs.
Don’t go with long range. Bury that idea.
I turned off wifi on my router and instead use multiple wifi access points connected to the router by ethernet. It’s way easier to get good coverage and speeds that way.
How did you wire that? Long cables going everywhere?
Yep. I’ve only got three APs, and one is by the modem and router, so it’s really just two long wires, and one of those is to my office, which is also where my main desktop PC is, so I needed that wire anyway. The other one was annoying, and I had to drill a couple holes for it as well as exploit a laundry chute, but all that was ten years ago, and having pretty complete wifi coverage since then has been worth it.
The one weak spot is the kitchen, where there’s coverage, but it tends to be a bit slow. I just decided to upgrade my bedroom AP to Wifi 6 (from AC), though, and I might try switching the old unit over to mesh mode and mounting it to cover the kitchen. Mesh involves two wifi links so it’s a bit slower, but the connection strength will probably make up for that. It’s worth the experiment, at least.