I will say that we are generally very pleased with our current internet utilizing the router we "rent" from Xfinity. I get ridiculous speeds through the hardwired Xbox, my phone typically pushes between 400-600 down when I speed test on it, and the TV in the bedroom never has problems streaming Netflix. For some reason, the fiancee's laptop struggles to stream in the bedroom, and we get intermittent issues with our phones, to the point where a lot of times, it's just easier to switch to cellular and avoid the hassle. I say all that to say that I don't think we need broad, sweeping changes. Everything is excellent except the meh coverage in the bedroom.
This isn't the forum to ask about half-measures. These mother[uck fay]ers can tell you how to bathe your entire block in 2.4 or 5 Ghz radiation, they know nothing of half-measures. Now, do you want a dead bedroom and "intermittent issues," or do you want enough wifi ripping through your house to heat the center of a hot pocket?
If you have xfinity, just get one of their XFi pods or whatever they are called. Plugs into the wall and made to work with their router. If it doesn’t work, return it. I know we got one for free, you might be able to as well.
Circled back on this topic for prime day and looked into the XFI pods a bit more. Unfortunately, I can’t get one for free. It’s $119. I read back through what everyone posted and still don’t understand most of it. Might just buy the $30 extender a random website is suggesting and see if it works. Worst case scenario, it doesn’t, and we return it to try something else.
So I just plug this sum[itch bay] in and it will extend my existing WiFi network from my ISP’s router to the part of the house the google thing is located in?
You will have to plug it in to your modem and then walk through setup in the app. After it's setup, take it wherever you want, plug it into an outlet and it will automatically connect. It's very simple.
I was looking forward to his "Will it fit?" videos, but they got old quick when the answer was always yes.
Does it create its own separate network, or does it just extend the coverage of my network? I bought a cheap ($30) option that was recommended by multiple sources on prime day. We live down the street from a UPS shop, making returns to Amazon a breeze, so I figured I’d give it a shot. It’s great in the sense that it gives us solid WiFi coverage in our bedroom. The problem I’m having is that creates its own network (my normal network name followed by _EXT), and my phone doesn’t connect to it automatically when we go upstairs. It just stays connected to my base network unless I manually switch over, which kind of defeats the purpose. If I’m going to have to go in and switch networks manually, I might as well just use cellular. Wondering if your google recommendation does something similar (creates a new network rather than just extending the existing network to the rest of the house).
Wait, is this a thing, or are you just [uck fay]ing with me? Why wouldn’t that be the default way of setting it up. I’ll have to give it a look when I get home. If I can do that and get the same coverage in the bedroom without having to manually switch networks, this cheap little device will be perfect.
Yes, it's a thing. Some devices do better with auto switching to the stronger source than others. You might have a small, sometimes noticeable, pause, as your device jumps to the next device.
Same thing with home networks that have dual band network (5 and 2.4). Routers usually default to having them separately named (usually appending “5G” to the normal network name), but you can name them the same thing and then the devices themselves will connect to whichever signal is the strongest.
Okay, so the $30 thing I bought a while back hasn’t worked as well as I originally thought. I saw online that I could buy 3 of those google WiFi things that @utvol0427 had recommended for $150, so I went ahead and bought them. Just hooked them up and ran a couple speed tests on the top floor of my house, one with the regular network, the other with the mesh network. Got 130 down on the regular network and 100 down on the mesh network. So do these things just suck, or did I set something up wrong?
Ran another test at the far end of the furthest room from my router. The mesh point is set up right outside this room, at about the midway point of the house on the 3rd floor. The router is set up on the opposite side of the house on the first floor. Got 102 down from both of them. Just as a reference point, I ran a test setting right next to the router and the original google point. 640 on the regular network, 320 on the mesh network.
What is the nature of the problem? Are you experiencing no connection, or stuttering, or what? Ping, latency, or jitter?
Idk the difference. As I said earlier in the thread, the fiancee's laptop struggles to stream in the bedroom, and we get intermittent issues with our phones, to the point where a lot of times, it's just easier to switch to cellular and avoid the hassle. The bedroom TV also streams Netflix no problem but struggles with Hulu. I doubt that’s the internet though.
