How far apart is the best distance to place EAPs for best coverage?
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How far apart is the best distance to place the EAPs?
How many should you use in a 2400 sqft house? I have a 615wall, and a 245 right now. Would it be advisable to get one more EAP for complete coverage?
Also, is there a place to go to find out how to set the EAPs properly? Any YouTube videos to show the proper procedure in finding the best settings?
Thanks.
Having installed hundreds of APs, I hate to be honest but there really isn't a simple answer to this 
Every install you come across will be different in some way, yes there are some general rules but no 'white paper' for this. That aside some pointers below that might help!
I replied to a post similar to this last year, link below might help you to start!
https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/245868?replyId=544196
Pointers... (in no particular order)
If you have an AP free or can borrow one its good practice to do a SNR test.. Set the AP where you would like to start and move away in distances, ideally staying below -65db. Once you hit -80db that's where you should look to place another AP within 10 meters... generally -80 is so low its unusable, therefore that position in relation to the first AP should give you -40db all the way on average, take into account that will never happen so add some walls / refraction / interference etc and it should still be -50ish in the middle between the APs.
A better way to do this is with a heatmap software, I have personally always used solarwinds for this as it just works... place a single AP and mark it on the map you upload, walk around and mark positions as you walk, it will generate best placement for the APs for you. There is a 30 day trial of this if you need, good starting point. Another reasonable FREE one is NetSpot WiFi Heatmap, not as good however!
Channels.. If using a controller its generally OK to let it automatically control these, it does a reasonable job in fairness. It used to be that channels needed to separate and manual setting was best, namely 1 6 11 6 1 6 11 etc etc.. the problem with that is the 2.4ghz in reality is saturated and likely someone near you will take up channel 4 and bust your manual settings. Its therefore better to just let the controller change it as needed. There is nothing wrong with 2 APs on the same channel if your not hammering dozens of clients on the air.
5ghz wireless, again just let it do it automatically unless channels 36-48 are really busy by your neighbours. Personally I use DFS on 52 and 104 manually as I live in an area with LOTS of random SSIDs around me, just prefer the DFS channels as I get ~15% faster speeds on them.
Enable Fast Roaming, always the best option.
Avoid MESH on the APs unless 100% necessary, it will slow the entire network down considerably
MAX power on the APs isn't the answer to all WiFi issues.. Sometimes you will get much better results at lower power. If you have an area or AP with lots of retries, try lower power as it could be refraction / mis-phasing of signals. This will also help if you have clients randomly doing mass roaming between APs.. lower power on one and that should help
Ceiling Mounted APs are best as the signal goes evenly left and right, but in reality wall mounted will also work fine. In tests there is a little less signal coverage from wall mounted but its marginal at best (5-10% IMHO). Its sometimes just easier to mount on a wall, corners at an angle (45 degree) are good if you can do that.
METAL will kill WiFi, if you are in a metal building expect reflection / signal bouncing and possible retries. Lower the power where appropriate and consider mounting as far from metal beams / supports as possible.
5ghz doesnt go as far as 2.4, best to do the SNR tests on 5ghz as that is your lowest penetrating frequency. If its good at 5 its likely better at 2.4!
Speeds. The rule of 40% - Huawei engineer once told me that WiFi is the rule of 40%, basically any 'speed' you can get 'on average settings' will be 40% of the connection speed. So if you have a 2x2 connection (866mbps) then speeds around 350mbps+ is what you can expect as acceptable in a multi AP setup. Clear air this might be 500mbps, dirty air 350mbps. After much time, it still holds true! Too many people buy APs claiming 3000mbps and call me when its not working, its simply a pipe dream! The best WiFi6 setup you might get 700/800 area but not into the gig range.
NEVER use an IPhone to test WiFi.. It will straight out LIE to you! In fairness its not specifically IPhone, but Apple is the worst and they tend to be very un-reliable for SNR ratings. Android is better, laptop with power save OFF is best. Remember battery devices reduce the WiFi card strength to save juice, this in turn affects your tests
Having installed hundreds of APs, I hate to be honest but there really isn't a simple answer to this Every install you come across will be different in some way, yes there are some general rules but no 'white paper' for this. That aside some pointers below that might help!
I replied to a post similar to this last year, link below might help you to start!
https://community.tp-link.com/en/business/forum/topic/245868?replyId=544196
Pointers... (in no particular order)
If you have an AP free or can borrow one its good practice to do a SNR test.. Set the AP where you would like to start and move away in distances, ideally staying below -65db. Once you hit -80db that's where you should look to place another AP within 10 meters... generally -80 is so low its unusable, therefore that position in relation to the first AP should give you -40db all the way on average, take into account that will never happen so add some walls / refraction / interference etc and it should still be -50ish in the middle between the APs.
A better way to do this is with a heatmap software, I have personally always used solarwinds for this as it just works... place a single AP and mark it on the map you upload, walk around and mark positions as you walk, it will generate best placement for the APs for you. There is a 30 day trial of this if you need, good starting point. Another reasonable FREE one is NetSpot WiFi Heatmap, not as good however!
Channels.. If using a controller its generally OK to let it automatically control these, it does a reasonable job in fairness. It used to be that channels needed to separate and manual setting was best, namely 1 6 11 6 1 6 11 etc etc.. the problem with that is the 2.4ghz in reality is saturated and likely someone near you will take up channel 4 and bust your manual settings. Its therefore better to just let the controller change it as needed. There is nothing wrong with 2 APs on the same channel if your not hammering dozens of clients on the air.
5ghz wireless, again just let it do it automatically unless channels 36-48 are really busy by your neighbours. Personally I use DFS on 52 and 104 manually as I live in an area with LOTS of random SSIDs around me, just prefer the DFS channels as I get ~15% faster speeds on them.
Enable Fast Roaming, always the best option.
Avoid MESH on the APs unless 100% necessary, it will slow the entire network down considerably
MAX power on the APs isn't the answer to all WiFi issues.. Sometimes you will get much better results at lower power. If you have an area or AP with lots of retries, try lower power as it could be refraction / mis-phasing of signals. This will also help if you have clients randomly doing mass roaming between APs.. lower power on one and that should help
Ceiling Mounted APs are best as the signal goes evenly left and right, but in reality wall mounted will also work fine. In tests there is a little less signal coverage from wall mounted but its marginal at best (5-10% IMHO). Its sometimes just easier to mount on a wall, corners at an angle (45 degree) are good if you can do that.
METAL will kill WiFi, if you are in a metal building expect reflection / signal bouncing and possible retries. Lower the power where appropriate and consider mounting as far from metal beams / supports as possible.
5ghz doesnt go as far as 2.4, best to do the SNR tests on 5ghz as that is your lowest penetrating frequency. If its good at 5 its likely better at 2.4!
Speeds. The rule of 40% - Huawei engineer once told me that WiFi is the rule of 40%, basically any 'speed' you can get 'on average settings' will be 40% of the connection speed. So if you have a 2x2 connection (866mbps) then speeds around 350mbps+ is what you can expect as acceptable in a multi AP setup. Clear air this might be 500mbps, dirty air 350mbps. After much time, it still holds true! Too many people buy APs claiming 3000mbps and call me when its not working, its simply a pipe dream! The best WiFi6 setup you might get 700/800 area but not into the gig range.
NEVER use an IPhone to test WiFi.. It will straight out LIE to you! In fairness its not specifically IPhone, but Apple is the worst and they tend to be very un-reliable for SNR ratings. Android is better, laptop with power save OFF is best. Remember battery devices reduce the WiFi card strength to save juice, this in turn affects your tests
Thanks guys for the great responses. I don't have an ideal situation. My main office is located in the basment. That is where the er605 is also. I have an EAP in the hall about 9' away from my main office, but it is inside of a suspended ceiling. I figured since the signal has to go up to the room above it was just as important to have it in that spot since there was no way to mount it on the outside on the ceiling (WAF 
).
My OC200 controller is in what I call my control room, which is an area that I have with myCasaTunes server, Blue Iris server, Russound server and one of my NAS, along with 2 Omada switches. It doesn't make a great signal to the control room for any wifi equipment needs. Anyway the signal is good up and down in the close proximity for this EAP.
The 615 doesn't cover as big of an area and I knew that going in. It had the features I wanted going in so that is what I got.
I have one area where the signal says weak, but it is in an area that doesn't really have anything, but with my OCD (lol), I really want to fill that void, so I'm pretty much thinking another EAP is in line. After doing further research, I think the new 610 V2 looks like a good option because it is the new standard, and it's not the size of a car anymore.
I'll do a little more research, but the info you guys provided is more than helpful.
Oh, if I add a 3rd, do I have them all on the same SSID, or do I make each one a different SSID. I have seen briefly where some have said one or another? What do you guys do?
Thanks so much.