Wireless issues, considering a Ubiquiti system

[boomhower]

I am sick and tired of the wireless issues in my home. I'm irritated, my wife is irritated and the kids are constantly complaining so something needs to change. I have cut the cord and all media consumption is streamed with most of it being wifi so wireless performance is essential. I have tried about all the top end wireless routers with little difference noticed between them other than the Apple routers suck.

Home: 1500sqft with the living room on one side and the bedrooms on the opposite side of the house. Internet connection is 50mbps Time Warner cable.

I have included a crude network diagram but I will explain a little. The Linksys WRT1900AC is in the living room. It is connected to a switch which has a Kodi box, FireTV, Apple TV, xbox one and a Synology NAS connected to it.

In the bedrooms are a FireTV in the master, PS4 and Roku in my sons room, Xbox 360 and Lenovo AIO computer in my daughters room. We have several notebooks, iPhones and iPads scattered throughout the house. Another AIO Lenovo in the living room as well. For most part it works ok but my daughters computer and xbox are particularly problematic. (had to connect an old airport express to even make her computer usable, still sucks.) In the master the FireTV often buffers and drops the connection.

An IP bases camera system is connected to the switch. No virtual network is used for it, simply plugged in.

Given the size of my home the Linksys should work fine but doesn't. Have used Apple, Netgear and Asus top end routers with similar results.

So now considering going all in with a Ubiquiti system. I am not an IT guy but am a tech guy. With proper guides and youtube vids I am confident I can get it done but don't want it to be a constant issue of something needing to be addresses. I like GUI and am no comfortable at all of doing command line stuff. I do not have a server other than the NAS constantly running. My wife has an AIO Lenovo as well that is always running that could run the software but is connected via wifi if that makes a difference.

All I need is to get these things up and running is some port forwarding for the cameras to get them accessible from outside the home along with dyndns for my static IP for the cameras. Obviously whatever is needed for the game systems to not to have NAT issues.

Tow worries: 1. Am I biting off more than I can chew. 2. What to buy.

For 2: What do I need? The edgerouter light? USG? What about firewall? Thinking either one or two of the AC Light AP's. (Either one in the middle of the house or one in living room and second in hallways between all the bedrooms.) Just at beginning of the process and greatly appreciate the help. The switch I have currently is a simple unmanaged trend net switch that's worked fine.

I have done DD-WRT, configured DD-WRT bridges(difficult but got it done) and in my younger days have done programming but that was a long time ago.

I greatly appreciate any help.

 

[sdifox]

you need more WAPs or commercial ones. home routers are not meant for so many clients.

are all the clients on the left wifi? or are they hardwire?

what is the wiring situation in your house, as in can you run a few lines in the ceiling to do ceiling mount WAP?


I would go pfsense for router on a nuc or older pc. then get a proper switch for all hardwired devices then two WAPs.

 

[boomhower]

you need more WAPs or commercial ones. home routers are not meant for so many clients.

are all the clients on the left wifi? or are they hardwire?

what is the wiring situation in your house, as in can you run a few lines in the ceiling to do ceiling mount WAP?


I would go pfsense for router on a nuc or older pc. then get a proper switch for all hardwired devices then two WAPs.

Yeah, everything going to the router is wifi, only thing hardwired to the router is the switch stuff on the right. There's plenty more wifi stuff, iPads, iPhones and probably others I am forgetting. I can hardwire AP's, run up the wall and into the attic to wherever they are needed. Not all wifi stuff is running at the same time. Usually a couple tablets and the kids game systems their media boxes. If a new router is not needed any particular AP that would be suggested? Another concern is life expectancy. Regardless of brand I do good to get a year out of the latest routers. I ran older Linksys stuff into the ground. Had a netgear die in six months and an Asus in eight months. I am tired of messing around and want to get this done and done right but within my technical abilities. Don't want to spend three weeks getting my camera online or the kids having NAT problems with their games.

Pure bandwidth doesn't seem to the the issue. My daughters room in particular seems to be a dead zone. Her xbox and computer are both essentially useless. Connected an old airport express bridged to get a connection to her computer that is usable. Physically it is the same distance as my sons room to the router and closer than the master which doesn't have near the issues.

I don't currently have anything to run PFsense on. If I am going to go to the trouble to do that and buy AP's then I may as well do ubiquiti unless I am misunderstanding something.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Mushkins]

A SOHO device connecting all of those devices via WiFi should be fine. If they're all streaming at the same time? Probably hitting a bottleneck either in your available bandwidth from your ISP or from the router itself.

You'll need to give us more information. What *exactly* do you mean by it "doesn't work fine?" Are things slow? Dropping signals? Not getting an IP address? Devices just out of range? It's very hard to make a proper recommendation without knowing precisely what problem needs to be solved.

 

[sdifox]

Yeah, everything going to the router is wifi, only thing hardwired to the router is the switch stuff on the right. There's plenty more wifi stuff, iPads, iPhones and probably others I am forgetting. I can hardwire AP's, run up the wall and into the attic to wherever they are needed. Not all wifi stuff is running at the same time. Usually a couple tablets and the kids game systems their media boxes. If a new router is not needed any particular AP that would be suggested? Another concern is life expectancy. Regardless of brand I do good to get a year out of the latest routers. I ran older Linksys stuff into the ground. Had a netgear die in six months and an Asus in eight months. I am tired of messing around and want to get this done and done right but within my technical abilities. Don't want to spend three weeks getting my camera online or the kids having NAT problems with their games.

Pure bandwidth doesn't seem to the the issue. My daughters room in particular seems to be a dead zone. Her xbox and computer are both essentially useless. Connected an old airport express bridged to get a connection to her computer that is usable. Physically it is the same distance as my sons room to the router and closer than the master which doesn't have near the issues.

how secure is the password for your cameras?
do you have spare computers? take a look at pfsense, download, install, see if you can handle that. if so just use an older computer or a new nuc and that router will not die.

ubiquiti make decent hardware.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Edge...ie=UTF8&qid=1446212372&sr=1-11&keywords=unifi

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netw...qid=1446212043&sr=8-3&keywords=ubiquity+unifi

get a poe switch and you just power the WAPs through the ethernet cable

something like this

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ProSA...1446212311&sr=1-2&keywords=poe+gigabit+switch


unless you want to go 802.11AC, which gets expensive real fast.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netw...ie=UTF8&qid=1446212372&sr=1-14&keywords=unifi

these are just ideas.


any particular reason why some of these devices are not on hardwire? I mean the desktop and console systems would work best on hardwire.

 

[Mushkins]

get a poe switch and you just power the WAPs through the ethernet cable

something like this

I feel it's very, very important to mention that traditional POE is not compatible with anything but the Enterprise level Ubiquiti APs. The lower level APs use a proprietary POE solution and require special POE injectors (they come with them).

Buyer beware.

 

[sdifox]

I feel it's very, very important to mention that traditional POE is not compatible with anything but the Enterprise level Ubiquiti APs. The lower level APs use a proprietary POE solution and require special POE injectors (they come with them).

Buyer beware.

just noticed only the pro are 802.11af, the enterprise ones are not. That is retarded.

op you would need something like this for the 24v poe

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007TQAZGM?psc=1

 

[boomhower]

A SOHO device connecting all of those devices via WiFi should be fine. If they're all streaming at the same time? Probably hitting a bottleneck either in your available bandwidth from your ISP or from the router itself.

You'll need to give us more information. What *exactly* do you mean by it "doesn't work fine?" Are things slow? Dropping signals? Not getting an IP address? Devices just out of range? It's very hard to make a proper recommendation without knowing precisely what problem needs to be solved.

Here are the issues. In my daughter's room the signal is extremely poor thus her speeds are atrocious. Even with the Apple Express bridge we are talking 5mbps. Her xbox is essentially unusable. Which doesn't make sense because distance wise it is plenty close, exact same as my sons room. My son doesn't have as many complaints. PS4 is fine, roku buffers and drops connection. In the master we typically use the FireTV. It often drops the stream or buffers. Signal wise it is OK. iPads typically show full signal or full minus one. Bathroom in the master is another dead spot where nothing works but not a big deal, a magazine gets the job done there.

I don't think it is an ISP bandwidth issue. At night when we have the most issues in the bedroom everyone else is asleep so it's just us. 50mbps should support video streams OK, mainly Hulu or Netflix. No 4K, just regular 1080P. This is the fastest speed available to me.

how secure is the password for your cameras?
do you have spare computers? take a look at pfsense, download, install, see if you can handle that. if so just use an older computer or a new nuc and that router will not die.

ubiquiti make decent hardware.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Edge...ie=UTF8&qid=1446212372&sr=1-11&keywords=unifi

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netw...qid=1446212043&sr=8-3&keywords=ubiquity+unifi

get a poe switch and you just power the WAPs through the ethernet cable

something like this

http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-ProSA...1446212311&sr=1-2&keywords=poe+gigabit+switch


unless you want to go 802.11AC, which gets expensive real fast.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netw...ie=UTF8&qid=1446212372&sr=1-14&keywords=unifi

these are just ideas.


any particular reason why some of these devices are not on hardwire? I mean the desktop and console systems would work best on hardwire.

Camera password has been changed. Been to the website that streams everyone's none passworded home security systems, not a pretty sight.

I don't know a tone about pfsense, just what it does. I do not have anything that is hardwired that will run it. I could put together a Raspberry Pi 2 if that would do it or a NUC if needed, again if going to that trouble thinking ubiquiti. If I go ubiquiti here is what I am looking at:

UAP‑AC‑LITE either 1 or 2 of them. Still rolling out in availability but looking around $130 a piece.

Edge router

I am not entirely clear if all the ports are POE on the router so may need one of these these"]switches[/URL] to run two AP's/

Not cheap but around $300 without the switch or $400 with the switch. Certainly not a lot different than what top end consumer routers are running. Just questioning the ability to successfully set it up.

 

[boomhower]

And to give an idea of bandwidth used we average 1.5TBs a month according to TW's site.

 

[sdifox]

Here are the issues. In my daughter's room the signal is extremely poor thus her speeds are atrocious. Even with the Apple Express bridge we are talking 5mbps. Her xbox is essentially unusable. Which doesn't make sense because distance wise it is plenty close, exact same as my sons room. My son doesn't have as many complaints. PS4 is fine, roku buffers and drops connection. In the master we typically use the FireTV. It often drops the stream or buffers. Signal wise it is OK. iPads typically show full signal or full minus one. Bathroom in the master is another dead spot where nothing works but not a big deal, a magazine gets the job done there.

I don't think it is an ISP bandwidth issue. At night when we have the most issues in the bedroom everyone else is asleep so it's just us. 50mbps should support video streams OK, mainly Hulu or Netflix. No 4K, just regular 1080P. This is the fastest speed available to me.



Camera password has been changed. Been to the website that streams everyone's none passworded home security systems, not a pretty sight.

I don't know a tone about pfsense, just what it does. I do not have anything that is hardwired that will run it. I could put together a Raspberry Pi 2 if that would do it or a NUC if needed, again if going to that trouble thinking ubiquiti. If I go ubiquiti here is what I am looking at:

UAP‑AC‑LITE either 1 or 2 of them. Still rolling out in availability but looking around $130 a piece.

Edge router

I am not entirely clear if all the ports are POE on the router so may need one of these these"]switches[/URL] to run two AP's/

Not cheap but around $300 without the switch or $400 with the switch. Certainly not a lot different than what top end consumer routers are running. Just questioning the ability to successfully set it up.

NONE of those ports are POE you need one of those 24v passive injectors if you go with the uniquiti 24v ones.

 

[boomhower]

NONE of those ports are POE you need one of those 24v passive injectors if you go with the uniquiti 24v ones.

Wow, so the ubuiti POE switch needs an injector to run their own AP's? You'd think their own hardware would be compatible with each other or the AP come with the injector for it to work right.

 

[sdifox]

Wow, so the ubuiti POE switch needs an injector to run their own AP's? You'd think their own hardware would be compatible with each other or the AP come with the injector for it to work right.

no if you buy the poe switch from uniquiti they power the waps. I was talking about the edgerouter.

 

[mxnerd]

Powerline WiFi extenders?

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WPA4220KIT-ADVANCED-Powerline-Extender/dp/B00HSQAIQU

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WPA4220NET-Extender-Powerline-Extenders/dp/B00OIA1Z9I

 

[lif_andi]

Considering the number of devices you have I'm assuming you have some money. If that's true then Cisco has recently released the 1800 AP series, which are kinda aimed and the Small Business market, and are "easy" enough to set up. I'm biased a bit as I work with Cisco gear, but for durance and simultaneous connections you'd be hard pressed to find better.

 

[boomhower]

Powerline WiFi extenders?

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WPA4220KIT-ADVANCED-Powerline-Extender/dp/B00HSQAIQU

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WPA4220NET-Extender-Powerline-Extenders/dp/B00OIA1Z9I

If I am doing this I am going to move away from consumer gear.

Considering the number of devices you have I'm assuming you have some money. If that's true then Cisco has recently released the 1800 AP series, which are kinda aimed and the Small Business market, and are "easy" enough to set up. I'm biased a bit as I work with Cisco gear, but for durance and simultaneous connections you'd be hard pressed to find better.

Nope, lower middle class. Just stuff accumulated over the years. After watching several youtube videos it looks like everything I need to do can be done with the web GUI with the possible exception of dyndns but those commands are easy enough with CLI if need be. My biggest concern at the moment is setting up the firewall but with some research shouldn't be to bad.

What I am looking at:
Edge router X
Toughswitch 5 POE x2 (maybe 3)
And then access points. Either two AC lite's or one AC pro.

Now I am questioning whether I need to get my modem moved. Currently in the living room and not sure if noise/heat will be to much for it there. Would really rather not though.

 

[mxnerd]

I think it's pretty good choice by going Ubiquiti route. The Web UI is great.

Toughswitch 5 POE with UAC AP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8-KWO4Dnu0

Various new Ubiquiti access points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sodK_IRjCqE

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'd definitely look at Unifi, they are great and easy to setup, and support vlans, which will allow you to setup multiple networks if you want, such as a guest network that does not have access to your lan. (you configure this in the firewall). The APs will come with their own injector, as they don't use a standard POE... kind of annoying that they don't just stick to 48v. Even if you buy a POE switch you can't use it with the unifis.

Also I'd move any stationary device to wired. Only use wireless for mobile devices. A wireless network is like a hub, only 2 devices can communicate with each other at a time. So the more devices, the more latency.

 

[sdifox]

You don't really need poe switch since the unifi comes with poe injector. Just neater if you use a poe switch.

 

[boomhower]

You don't really need poe switch since the unifi comes with poe injector. Just neater if you use a poe switch.

Would using a cheap unmanaged switch I already have make a big difference then?

I am going to have to add a switch regardless. Right now in the living room I use an 8 port cheapo switch that is pretty much full, may have one port open. Xbox, Kodi box, NAS, FireTV, AppleTV, router, and bridge. Add either one or two AP's and I am out of space. So got to do something. But not spending $170 on an 8 port UBNT switch would be nice.

 

[mxnerd]

You still need PoE switch if you are going to use Ubiquiti PoE access points.

 

[boomhower]

You still need PoE switch if you are going to use Ubiquiti PoE access points.

Thought that was the point of the injectors, to not need a PoE switch?

 

[sdifox]

Would using a cheap unmanaged switch I already have make a big difference then?

I am going to have to add a switch regardless. Right now in the living room I use an 8 port cheapo switch that is pretty much full, may have one port open. Xbox, Kodi box, NAS, FireTV, AppleTV, router, and bridge. Add either one or two AP's and I am out of space. So got to do something. But not spending $170 on an 8 port UBNT switch would be nice.

No diff really. You just add the injector between your switch and the wap. Look to ebay off lease commercial switch if you want a better switch.

 

[sdifox]

You still need PoE switch if you are going to use Ubiquiti PoE access points.

They come with injectors.

 

[mxnerd]

They come with injectors.

You are right. I was wrong.

Lite version comes with 24v injector, yet pro version comes with 48v injector.

 

[mxnerd]

Thought that was the point of the injectors, to not need a PoE switch?

I was wrong, see above.