Google Wifi, their Mesh Network and RW

[joelb.wilmywood]

Oh where to begin…

Techie but not so much when it comes to networking. Fringe cell area, weird house layout that limited cable pulls and reliance on 2 different routers with different names to get coverage in all areas of the house. It worked but could be a pain to switch over from one SSID to another if you wanted to be mobile. I never could get both access points to work properly with the same name.

I had an opportunity to get a 3 pack of the Google Wifi pucks. With nothing to lose, I replaced one of the routers in the far end of the house and placed the remaining 2 pucks in rooms stretching to the other side. Ease of setup, WOW.

RW coverage is seamless now and better than ever in the house. So much so, I took the 2nd router out of the mix.

I don’t know how they did it or how it all works with the pucks to create the mesh network but again wow. Going outside to have a conversation meant the end of a phone call. Not anymore.

Jb

[billg]

Thanks! I was hoping someone would tell us how well that works.

[jben]

@joelb.wilmywood

Glad to see someone is now onboard with WiFi Mesh!!

• There is a lot of activity in the area and the good folks at Small Net Builder have been busy reviewing them … check it out
• Perhaps if you would change the title of this thread to “Mesh Networks and Republic Wireless” others would join in and share their knowledge

[billg]

I take it this is what you used:

Amazon.com: Google Wifi system (set of 3) - Router replacement for whole home coverage: Computers & Accessories

You mentioned replacing the router at the far end of you house with this. Was that a secondary router that was connected to a primary router? If so, is the primary router still in place and is it connected to the mesh network?

[joelb.wilmywood]

@billg,

Main router is the cable modem 2nd floor office which had both wired and wifi to service one end of the house.

Second was a hard wired wifi router into the first to get the signal to the first floor and other end of the house (Kitchen/den/garage and frog bedrooms). Due to range of it, I still couldn’t get great coverage to the further bedroom areas.

I replaced the second router with the 1 Google puck and spaced the remaining 2 getting a spread on the first floor to the garage end of the house with the frogs.

The main router is not connected to the Mesh. I removed the wifi portion from it and only use the wired ports for my home office use. The mesh from the first floor has sufficient penetration to the 2nd floor bedroom that I could remove the main router wifi.

The link is what I have but I purchased direct from Google.

If I’ve sufficiently confused you, let me know. It all makes perfect sense to me but I’m looking at the setup

[billg]

Thanks @joelb.wilmywood . What I was wondering is whether or not the mesh network could integrate with an existing router. As I understand it will not. If I were to achieve complete coverage in my home and couldn’t use my primary router I would need 4 pucks, otherwise 3. Presently I cover my upper level and half of my lower level with two routers, one as the master with a the slave hard wired to it.

I ran into a similar problem with the same SSIDs on both the master and slave. My phone would hand off just fine on the 2.4 GHz band but not on the 5 GHz band.

[joelb.wilmywood]

With the 3 pucks, I’ve got 2400 sq of coverage which amazes me based on the house construction/layout.

2 story cape cod style with connected 1 story den to a 2 story garage and bedroom frog. |||…|| made up of brick wood and no real clear line of sight from one end to the other. How the pucks get signal from just one wired puck to the other 2 is beyond me. I just know it works so well. Netflix has never worked better.