Here is the thread I was referring to:

"OC200 + EAP245 V3 - wireless speed optimization?" 

Given the size of your home.  Mine is ~2100 sqft but I don't have a basement. Adding a second EAP would likely be very helpful.  The 5.8GHz signal (in general) does not penetrate walls, studs, ductwork, etc. very well at all.

For optimal speeds you would do better to have one EAP per floor (at opposite ends).  Or one in the basement pointed up and one on the second floor (or attic) pointed down.

Hardwired Ethernet is best, but MOCA (essentially ethernet over Coax) also works very well.  There is a beta firmware for the 245 which supports Wireless MESH.  The EAP225 supports it out of the box.

We have 4 TV watching areas in my home.  One is close to the office downstairs (Ethernet to router), three are upstairs.  I have two connected via MOCA (at different ends of the house, each MOCA bridge is connected to a small gigabit switch to serve the multimedia components,  The one in my bedroom also services the second EAP.

My son's TV (Roku) is the only one using Wifi, but it's only one room away from my bedroom where the second EAP is located.

We have about 40 wireless devices at all times lots of kids streaming on their iPads, multiple VPN's work work, cameras, IoT, the whole nine.  Works great

Best case I see ~450-500 Mbit/sec DL & UL per EAP using 5.8GHz 80MHz with 2x2 clients.  The OC200 says that we've averaging 5-10 GB per hour, with occional peaks up to 15-20 GB / hr.

Best of luck,

Jonathan

@JSchnee21 

Thanks for your reply! 

The vertical mount will be facing my office room where power (-73 dBm) isn't that great but I still get max speed. 

My internet is only 100mbps, so I get that speed everywhere in the house. Only the RSSI suffers a bit. 

Regarding the comment you mentioned in fast roaming. Is the OC-200 worth only for that feature? I don't really care about the centralized management but I would like to take advantage on the transition. How would it differ if I had 2 APs, without the controller? If I set Tx to medium-high on both, would my devices roam appropriately without the controller? 

Thanks again 

 

Both use the same SSID's, but I have them set to different channels.  I use the OC-200 for centralized management and fast roaming. 

@JSchnee21 

Thanks again. Yeah I already have a 2nd EAP245 v3 on order. I debated whether I should order the EAP225 instead. It was definitely cheaper. I decided to go with the EAP245 just because it's faster, future proofing and hoping that it would cover my 2nd floor well even if I vertically mounted it. (we'll see).

I'm going to play with it but right now I'm aiming at mounting it to one side of the house (2nd floor). If I end up needing another one for my bedroom (the other side is a bathroom and a bedroom on the 2nd floor), then I think I'll just get the smaller EAP225. Same for the basement, I have a TV there with android TV and we don't use it often. But if I end up seeing loss of power, I think I would get the smaller EAP225 for the basement (rec room). 

Because my house doesn't have ethernet cable wired up anywhere, other than the main floor where my current EAP245 is located, I am unable to mount it to the ceiling without wires showing. And my wife won't be pleased with that look 😂. The only area I am able to mount it to the ceiling is the basement because my utility room houses my ISPs router (wifi capability turned off as well) and room is unfinished. So I can directly see the ceiling drywall in the rec room for easy wiring. 

Thanks again, 

Johnny 

Hi @Jmusic88,

"Regarding the comment you mentioned in fast roaming. Is the OC-200 worth only for that feature? I don't really care about the centralized management but I would like to take advantage on the transition. How would it differ if I had 2 APs, without the controller? If I set Tx to medium-high on both, would my devices roam appropriately without the controller?"

To be honest, I didn't really notice much of an improvement/difference with the fast roaming.  I thought that roaming was fast and seamless prior to getting the OC200.  As long as all of the AP's have the same SSID(s), and associated password (per SSID), I've never had an issue with my TP Link equipment.

For me, it's all about the management on premise and remote.  My wife and kids are not very tech savy and yet they use technology for work, homework, gaming, social all the time.  They always blame the network first so for me, being able to check the status of everything onsite (Omada Cloud & iOS client) together with inSSIDER and remote via Omada Cloud & iOS client over the internet is priceless.

-Jonathan

@JSchnee21 

Yeah I think I will wait to buy the controller. I am waiting for my cat6 cable (amazon is prioritizing the 'white' cable so I won't get it until may :(, yet I can get the black cable tomorrow.. Go figure!) , once I get the 2nd AP hooked up I'll give that a try before making a decision. 

Thank you again 

Guys,

If you want to try the "controller"  download the Omada software. It's free, and mostly easy.  It can run on nearly anything (even a Raspberry Pi). 

While it would be better to have a dedicated "always on" machine, it does not have to be running for wireless to continue.  There are a few very specific features that require Omada to be up all the time (fast roaming and guest portal are the big ones, others can be found in the documentation).  I've had my Omada software go down (on a vm I don't check often so it could have been week or more), and didn't notice a wireless issue.  Maybe fast roaming was effected, I didn't notice.

Fast roaming will not work without the Omada software (controller) or OC200.  The two AP's will not exchange information/keys for a fast roam.  That is not to say you can't roam authenticate quickly...you might switch fast enough that most things won't notice (youtube, and others are buffered so could handle the "reauth" time).

The Fast roaming (an actual tecnology, not just a buzz word or term) is very much worth it, especially for "free".  I do not care for v4 of Omada, they tried to integrate too much, and took away from the core of just seeing wireless in an easy to see/maintain manner.  (they now include TP-link switch, router, etc. controls.)  It's too much.  I just want to see wireless (that's sticking to Omada v3.x).  However, I was hitting an issue that was only fixed in Omada v4.  :(

I have a fairly small house, 1500 sq ft or less.  I have 3 EAP 245v3's.  I'm likely to add a 4th.  As a WiFi design engineer, it is our best practice to design small "cells" that match the lowest power device you have (Mobile phones run 11 - 14 db), so that's roughly the cell size you want it at).  This also helps throughput, as each ap or "cell" will have a dedicated LAN connection (unless you're using mesh, which I would ONLY do in the remotest of dire situations).

Another great thing about Omada, centralized configs.  Sounds over complex, right?  For 2 Ap's...maybe.  However with a 3rd or n-th AP, I easily control all the SSID's an make minor tweaks in 1 shot.  Another thing I do personally, and some professionally is, I do not like having mixed band SSID's.  I like having a dedicated band on an SSID.  If I am experiencing an issue with a device, I don't want to also try to "pick" which frequency it was on.  SSID1 = 5ghz, SSID2=2.4 or whatever.  My devices get both (if they are capable of having two, and capable of 5ghz).  But I want to know which was in use at time of issue.

Lastly,  5GHz is a shorter wavelength meaning it doesn't typically penetrate as well.  Longer wavelengths go farther (TV, etc is very low so it can go miles and miles).  2.4 is a longer wavelength so it can go further, however since it is 2.4 it is impeded by water molecules.  For those not paying attention in science class, that means if you have a high density of people, 2.4 will not be ideal (as well as the million other saturation reasons).  The 2.4 wavelength (also know as microwave) gets impeded by water molecules, there by "exciting" them (that's how your microwave cooks food btw).  That does not mean 2.4 AP's are cooking people, though we still don't have a good handle on the side effects, the power is vastly different for AP's and microwaves.  My point is that it might be good to use 2.4 in some areas, but high densities of people (like the stock exchange trading floor or a concert stadium) would not be a good choice.

Most of use probably know that stuff, but incase someone didn't...