EAP225 deployed in mesh (residential application) advices/recommendations
I am the IT manager at my work and I deployed a complete TP-LINK Omada system 2 years ago with several EAP225-v3 + the Omada controller and this system is absolutely fantastic especially considering it low price. I am now considering to deploy the a similar system at my home with two EAP245 to fix some issues I have with my internet provider (Bell Fibe Canada) wireless router with the signal and the overall stability.
My house is a modern cottage (2 stories) all made of wood with a narrow 27x27 feet square floorplan and it have a basement level where I have my IT room with my actual wireless router. So if I want to place a first AP in the basement (wired) and a second at the highest level of my 2nd floor, I need to be able to establish a wireless (mesh) link between the 2 APs, if that's possible. I was told that the EAP245 isn't supporting *officially* the mesh network feature yet but that TP-Link have a stable BETA firmware for that. The other option would be to purchase EAP225 except they are lower speed that the EAP245... I don't actualy understand why the EAP245 seem to be depricated (sort of) when the lower-end model the EAP225 is still fully maintained??
I would like to have your recommendation/advices regarding mesh networking with the TP-Link Omada APs. If mesh isn't the optimal layout, a second option would be to run an ethernet cable in-wall to my 1st floor, which is accessible from the basement in opposite to the 2nd floor where it's not possible to run ethernet cables. So I could place a first AP in the basement to cover the basement level (wall made of concrete) and the second AP would be on the 1st floor (wired) to cover the 1st and 2nd floors and also cover the exterior of the house (such as my pool's deck) I assume. My current setup with a single wireless router located in the basement (concrete) offer a decent signal to 1st and 2nd floor but signal is dead as soon as you exit from the house to the deck (attached to the house) which is one of my problem, if for any reason the signal is still poor outside, I guess that one option could be to add a 3rd AP outdoor like the EAP225-OUTDOOR...
I hope my question/concern is clear enough, if not, please ask me more about it! ;-)
Thanks!!
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Hi @SimonC,
So like a "transfer duct" then. The code relates to the potential for noxious fumes and fire spread inside of the duct from room to room from the burning plastic. So it's had to say.
Re: outside to the attic. I've considered doing something similar. It is a longer run, but my thought was to put a PoE switch in the attic anyway so as long as the run from the "office/basement" router/switch to the attic PoE swtich was <100m you'd be good. Of course, I have electric in my attic already.
But which ever is easier. Fortunately my coverage is good enough with just the two indoor EAP's where I have them (one on MOCA). I use MOCA a lot for my Entertainent centers / game centers, etc. when Ethernet isn't practical. It works really well and keeps a lot of the streaming traffic off of the Wifi. And the kids get good latencies -- not quite as good as Ethernet, but better than Wifi.
-Jonathan
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I haven't run my ethernet cable yet to my 2nd floor EAP225 AP because of lack of time, but I finally moved both my root AP (in the basement) and the 2nd floor mesh AP from a few inches and I get a better signal a bit, a stable -62 to -64 dBm which is not bad for the bandwidth, but I am still planning to run the ethernet cable very soon to get the maximum bandwidth possible.
However I have another issue in the meantime. Since I am working from home for a while now (and for the next few months at least), I am often working outside on my deck with my laptop. When I am on my outdoor deck, my laptop connect to the 2nd floor AP since the other AP is it the basement. However it can't connect to the 5 Ghz network to any of my 2 AP's. I have 100% strong 2.4 Ghz signal, but no 5 Ghz signal (well, too weak) pass throught the wall of my house apparently.
Since I am working in IT on pretty bandwidth consumming applications, I would like a faster signal outside. One idea I have will be to install an EAP225-Outdoor AP on the wall of my house... I can easily run an ethernet cable throught the wall for that. However my only concern is about the proximity with other APs... since my house is pretty narrow (27x27 feet, two stories), in a straight line perspective, the outdoor AP would be installed at like 16-17 feet away from others AP, but separated by the exterior wall as well... is this could cause any problem?
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SimonC. wrote
the outdoor AP would be installed at like 16-17 feet away from others AP, but separated by the exterior wall as well... is this could cause any problem?
Not likely. First, if you use only one or the other EAP at the same time for bandwidth-intense applications, there will be not much interferences at all. Second, with wired EAPs you can decrease their signal level somewhat to avoid such interferences even if both EAPs are under load, but this requires wired EAPs, not meshed ones, since a lower signal level of a mesh node can cause other issues.
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R1D2 wrote
SimonC. wrote
the outdoor AP would be installed at like 16-17 feet away from others AP, but separated by the exterior wall as well... is this could cause any problem?
Not likely. First, if you use only one or the other EAP at the same time for bandwidth-intense applications, there will be not much interferences at all. Second, with wired EAPs you can decrease their signal level somewhat to avoid such interferences even if both EAPs are under load, but this requires wired EAPs, not meshed ones, since a lower signal level of a mesh node can cause other issues.
I just thought that my patio is 22 feet long (therefore, the farthest point is 22 feet away from the exterior wall of my house), so instead of mouting the EAP225-Outdoor AP on the wall of my house, I could run an ethernet cable (exterior grade as well) under the patio (not visible and not exposed to weather) and then install an EAP225-Outdoor AP on a existing pole at the very end of my patio. This way, the AP would be located at roughly 40 feet from the indoor EAP225 AP and it would still give me a full and strong 5 Ghz coverage on my patio and probably a great portion of my 1 acre land. What do you think about that?
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SimonC. wrote
This way, the AP would be located at roughly 40 feet from the indoor EAP225 AP and it would still give me a full and strong 5 Ghz coverage on my patio and probably a great portion of my 1 acre land. What do you think about that?
Sounds good. Anyway, I would try it first w/o deploying the cable in its final destination, so I could find the optimal distance by trial and error. Air is an obstacle for microwaves, too, and with increasing distance the signal will become more attenuated.
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