Question

Good morning everyone, i’m looking for some help and figured I’d turn to all of you. Prior to COVID-19, I had a plan to run ethernet cables to each room in my house, as I have an unfinished basement. Originally, the plan was to move my Arris modem & Linksys WRT3200ACM router to the basement and set up a cabinet. This was going to include 2 24 port POE Switches, UPS, my ReadyNas104 & DVR system. However, due to COVID-19, I’ve had to put that project on hold as both myself & my wife are working from home among other things. This is the current situation: Right now, without my work laptop & her work laptop, we are about 24 devices on the 2. 4Ghz wireless band. When we both go on VPN to our companies network, the router seems to lose connection with the internet. I am considering buying a few Wireless Access Points to put in the house to have the Smart Home Devices (9 Amazon Devices, 1 Samsung Smartthings Hub, SimpleSafe & MyQ Garage Door Hub) connect to one of the WAP’s and the WAP be hardwired directly back to the router. Any recommendations on wireless access points, good or bad?  

Answer 1

I am working on something similar. Looking for answers.  

Answer 2

If you can swing it, get the Aplifi Alien. I've got 50+ devices running wireless (mixed but primarily 2. 4) and I work from home 100% of the time. This router is outstanding!  

Answer 3

I just upgraded to Ubiquiti AMPLIFI and I am throughly impressed.  

Answer 4

Even with my laptop connected directly to my router, I drop vpn a few times a day. Internet stays up.  

Answer 5

Regardless of the wireless vendor of choice, it needs to be understood that wifi spectrum (802. 11xx) is a shared medium and the coverage and density of the Access Points will behave differently in each environment depending on factors such as interference (including building materials, other wifi devices etc). You can do a predictive heatmap using a variety of software tools available (some paid others free) which will have many of the different vendors AP's antenna patterns incorporated in the tool.  

Answer 6

There is a Smartthings hub that does WiFi. Works great in my house and I have three kids, wife and about 100 devices.  

Answer 7

Switched to ubiquiti AP pro's and edgerouter 4 years ago. I don't think it's ever gone down.  

Answer 8

Not an answer to your question but maybe the answer to your problem: Wire the laptops! Whenever possible, wire all essential devices.  

Comments

Would love to but the home office is on the other side of hte house and the wife is in the next room with hers lol

---

Its temporary, what's a few ethernet cables in the floor or around the baseboard for a reliable connection. If nothing else, try it for a day!  

Answer 9

I've used a second router with DDWRT installed on it as a bridge so that several devices could plug into it. The router usually has much better radios than a laptop or in my case a cheap TV had built in.  

Answer 10

Can either of you go wired? I have a couple of wireless networks, connecting to different networks may solve?  

Answer 11

Switch your laptops to 5GHZ band and then try the VPN

Answer 12

I love your original plan, I wish my basement were accessible like yours. I've run about a dozen lines through the attic, which is not conditioned space, always adding complication. If you're network savvy, I would recommend going on ebay and getting some used commercial Cisco APs. I found a handful of their 1602 series for under $50, and with a little bit of programming and re-flashing, they were up in under half an hour each. I've also done some larger 1550s, but those were a rare find at on auction for under $30/ea. If you program them to the same SSID but with different channels, almost all modern devices will hand-off. Of course, getting any of the devices wired would help.  

Answer 13

***So update*** I found my old Linksys E4200 router. I turned that into a bridge and ran the ethernet wire thru the basement to it and started to migrate ALL Smart home devices to this. If this works, my next item will be to order a good way. Torn between Cisco WAP's (since i like everything under the same brand) or Ubquiti