So it seems that one of my wifi access points on my home network has died.
Can't say it owes me much, it's about 9 years old.
What's a good brand for wifi access points these days? My old one was TP Link, which gave me 9 years of trouble-free wifi, so I would be fine with getting another one, but I'm open to other suggestions.
@statsguy I am now enamoured with wifi meshes, even if I am only deploying (for now) a single AP.
I have had a good experience with Asus Zen stuff.
@CartyBoston I currently have 2 TP Link WAPs, both set to the same SSID and password. When they were both working that just worked, and gave me access to the same network no matter which one I connected to.
Is that the same thing as a mesh or is it a bit more complicated than that these days?
@statsguy more complicated, more expensive, maybe better.
The mesh nodes use different radio spectrum to talk to each other (backhaul) than they do to talk to clients, so it's efficient and super scalable as long as you can plop $100 nodes all over the place.
@CartyBoston Is that something that means you can have a larger network with fewer cables?
I have plenty of ethernet sockets around my house so no problem at all with just plugging each WAP into its own ethernet socket. Does that mean that mesh doesn't really have any advantage for me?
@statsguy @CartyBoston mesh is grim. Overloading your spectrum with backhaul that can鈥檛 quite be overcome even with hacks like OFDMA.
If you have CAT 6 routed to the access points, you absolutely want to use that instead. Mesh is a distress purchase IMO.
@goatsarah @statsguy I hear you.
My point is that things have moved on in residences and small businesses. I don't mind managing my own stuff, but I e.g. lit up a friend's pub from nothing in literally 30 minutes the other day. It's a big change.
@statsguy Exactly, were you doing your house over again you'd have the option not to run all that cabling.
Also no matter how many nodes one has the mesh is managed as a single network, which is super easy. One can literally toss $100 boxes onto the network at will.
