WiFi MESH: which one?

DIY Products&Projects DIY Product Questions
1

I am about to look for better WiFi network in my home. Too many times I suffer from bad coverage, disturbances, etc. So I want to look for a good WiFi mesh product, with 3 or 4 stations.

I assume there are forum members with a lot of experience with audio streaming and WiFi MESH. So here are my questions:

  1. I read that MESH systems with Tri-Band have better and stronger coverage and signal. Is that correct?
  2. I would like to set priority to audio streaming. Can I use QoS (quality of service) on a MESH system?
  3. Are there any other features/functions I should take into account?
  4. Which MESH products are recommendable with these features, and affordable?
2

Hi kolfMaker,
I did some throughput tests with a Lyksys WiFi6 Mesh system. It was so good that you would never need to worry about QoS. It was staggeringly good. And no, I have no affiliation with them. One down side is that it was quite power hungry and got hot. This was around 18 months ago so I assume more modern units are a bit more eco friendly. Check out all the brands, the throughput on any WiFi 6 system is incredible. In some rooms the throughput was over 800mb/s. This was tested running a server on one Mac and checking send and receive data rates.
Costs etc…over to you.
M

1 Like
3

Thnx @MartinD for sharing your experience!

Few questions:

  1. Is you Linksys MESH WiFi ‘dual’ or ‘tri’-band?
  2. Besides that the thoughput is high, does it support QoS?
  3. What is the model number of this Linksys product?
4

Hi KolfMAKER,
It was a Tri-band system.
From memory it did support QoS but you should check this.
Again, from memory it was a Velop system.
As I said earlier, this was a couple of years ago and things have moved on, so I would shop around. This was a test for a client so the units were eventually installed for him.
For me, power consumption would have been an issue as they consumed around 14w each. Again, newer stuff will be better I guess.
M

5

Thnx @MartinD

6

Aruba AP22’s as long as you’re willing to run ethernet home runs for each access point. It’s amazing.

7

@John_Lauer

Thnx John, I believe Aruba has a good reputation. So definitely worth looking at the AP22.

Do I understand correct that each AP22 needs to be connected via an Ethernet cable?
Is that a must, or can they be set up without Ethernet cabling?

8

Only ethernet as far as I know.

9

I have 3 Netgear Orbi units in my house. Easy to manage, but they don’t offer some advanced features that others do to better customize the network layout. They can ethernet backhaul, or they have a dedicated 5ghz wireless backhaul radio. My set are several years old, but still work great.

10

In the meantime I have had some experience with several WiFi MESH networks, like Netgear and Fritz! My experiences have not been positive, and here’s why.

How I use my setup with WiFi MESH
Again, in my setup I always use at least two wireless speakers, based on the Up2Stream Mini, and combined in one group to function as a Stereo set. So yes, good synchronization between the two speakers is critical at all times.

My experience
Very often I hear de-synchronization between the Left and the Right speaker, often also some crackling disturbing sound on one or both speakers, and sometimes even one or both speakers stop streaming music.

First conclusion
I believe that if WiFi MESH is being used, you don’t have control over which speaker connects to which MESH-point. It can easily change at any time, even causing that one or both speakers are not connected to the optimal one. This switching between MESH-points affects the synchronization between the two speakers configured as one Stereo set, which is the cause of the disturbances.

Possible solutions

  1. Wireless speakers configured in a group for Stereo, need a solid and stable WiFi connection. In some cases WiFi MESH will disturb that. Some WiFi MESH systems are able to support a separate SSID on a fixed MESH-point. In this case the grouped speakers will not experience switching between MESH-points.
  2. A lot of WiFi MESH systems do not support the above. But sometimes they are able include/exclude IP-addresses per MESH-point. In that case, it might be possible to use the IP-address of both wireless speakers to be assigned to only one MESH-point. Which will also stop the switching between MESH-points. (Be aware that most MESH systems do not support this kind of management settings)
  3. If the above does not work, adding a separate WiFi access point to be used only with the wireless speakers, will create a stable connection for the speakers to appropriately stream music with undisturbed synchronization.

The above is all based on my own experience. Which does not exclude there might be other opinions or ideas. I welcome anyone with other suggestions!

11

Just wanted to add my two cents here as I finally found a solution for this crackling/cutting out/out of sync problem.

The problem: When two or more devices are in a group, they periodically go out of sync, make a crackling sound, and/or stop playing for a few seconds. It happens at totally random intervals, sometimes it doesn’t happen for a whole day, and sometimes it happens so often that the system is practically unusable. It seems to get worse the more devices I add to the group. When the problem occurs, it mostly only effects the grouped devices that are not set as the “host”. Although occasionally the host device will also crackle and stop playing for a few seconds.

I initially thought the issue was caused by the mesh network, but (for me at least) it turned out to be interference from a neighboring network on the same wifi channel.

For reference I have the tp link deco x4300 pro mesh network with 3 access points. I am using 3x up2stream pro, 1x v4 amp stereo, 1x 2.1 plate amp, and 1x amp sub. I often put all 6 devices in one group, but sometimes as few as 2.

This is everything I tried that did not fix the problem

  • I set each up2stream to “high priority” (qos)
  • I turned off roaming and set a preferred router on all the up2stream devices so they only connect to their nearest router
  • I repositioned all of the antennas so that they all have line of sight to a router, in the same room, with no obstructions, and away from any other electronics. (This is ridiculous and should not by necessary, but I was desperately looking for a solution)
  • I added an access point to the dining room where I have an up2stream, despite the fact that the device had a strong signal and was very close to another access point on the other side of a wall.
  • I tried setting each up2stream as the host. No matter which device is host, all other linked devices crackle and cut out at the same time, while the host device continues playing with no issue.
  • I primarily use spotify connect so I tried other input methods to see if spotify was the issue, it happens with every input and streaming service.

The following solution completely fixed the problem

Customer support said it is most likely interference from a device on the same wifi channel, which can slow down the data rate which causes lagging and eventually the crackling, stopping, and desynchronization. They said to look for a setting on my router to change the wifi channel.

I went into my router settings and found an option called “network optimization”, which scans the network for issues (I’m not sure why it doesn’t just do this automatically). The scan found that the 2.4g channel had a lot of interference (which I’m guessing is from a neighbor’s house). It recommended switching from channel 5 to channel 10, so I did that. Now the scan doesn’t find any interference.

Since I changed the 2.4g channel I have had not a single interruption, even with up to 6 devices in the same group, all over the house, including one in a detached garage.

Your router may or may not give you the ability to scan for conflicts and change the channel, this solution is for my specific mesh network. I would imagine other mesh networks or routers that come with a mobile app would offer a similar feature. I believe there are 3rd party apps and websites that will at least do the scanning part.

I hope this helps someone who is having this problem!

12

Thanks for your contribution to this topic @Angrybobdylan !

If I may ask, did you have these issues and tests with a single speaker, or two (or more) speakers in one group?

13

I only had these issues with 2 or more speakers in one group. It seemed to get worse the more speakers I linked together. Using only one speaker at a time always worked fine for me. The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think the desync and crackling has anything to do with the mesh network, rather, it is interference from a neighboring network that is using the same wifi channel. I have edited my previous post to make this more clear.

14

Thanks for this addition @Angrybobdylan.
In that case, we are talking about the same situation.

I have 20+ stereo systems in 20+ different WiFi networks. All are based on stereo-sets built with Up2Stream products, so groups of 2.
Experiencing problems like you describe, in all my cases happened in WiFi Mesh networks. And actually it is not that surprising understanding how WiFi Mesh operates.

Simply said, the Mesh system controls which device will connect to which WiFi Mesh point. And in some cases the switching between your device (in this case wireless speakers) can happen frequently. It could even happen that one speaker in a stereo set/group, switches several times and the other does not.

I believe this is critical for wireless stereo/groups of speakers, because they need perfect synchronization and zero latency between the Left & Right channel. But this is what can go wrong, and on many WiFi Mesh systems, is uncontrollable.

So to my opinion and experience wireless stereo/groups of speakers, need a stable/non switching WiFi access. Most WiFi Mesh systems are not able to do that. I have seen only few WiFi Mesh systems that are able to assign a fixed WiFi Mesh access point to wireless devices such as speakers.

In my cases I have added a separate WiFi access point for the wireless stereo/groups of speakers. And since then, no more issues.