John Vinton | Copywriter
Buffering in the boxroom? Dead spot in the dining room? Laa..aa..agg on the lawn? We’ve all been there. When your so-called home Wi-Fi doesn’t reach every corner of your home, let alone the garden. But help is at hand. And it’s called mesh Wi-Fi.
Thanks to the latest eero Pro 6E router included with all our broadband packages, we're able to make mesh Wi-Fi is available to all our customers. So in this guide we’ll explain what it is and how to get the most out of it.
It’s pretty simple really. Mesh Wi-Fi extends a reliable broadband connection to the areas of your home where the signal is poor. Instead of relying on just one router to transmit the signal, it uses several of them, dotted around the building. (The additional routers are sometimes called nodes).
They ‘talk’ to each other to create a network (or mesh) and give you and your family fast, reliable coverage wherever you are. It’s perfect for larger homes, offices or buildings with lots of rooms and walls.
By using a number of individually powered routers rather than just one. They connect together, transmitting and receiving data to create a strong, seamless Wi-Fi network a bit like a spider’s web in every part of the building. Including all the hard-to-reach bits. The clever thing is your phone, tablet or laptop barely notices the difference in signal strength as you move between them and you can stay connected as you go
Compared to using a single router, mesh Wi-Fi is better in lots of ways:
● Faster average device speeds compared to traditional Wi-Fi extenders or powerline adapters
● Increased reliability – if one router drops out, the others can try and find another path
● It’s easy to add routers to expand the mesh network to create wider coverage
● Extends coverage without reducing bandwidth, unlike existing Wi-Fi range extenders
● Only one router needs to be wired – the others can connect wirelessly
Of course, you have to buy the additional routers and they need their own power sockets but overall, it’s well worth it.
Unless you’ve upgraded recently, your router probably doesn’t have mesh capability. You’ll need one that can broadcast signal on multiple channels in an intelligent way.
Or you could simply switch to Cuckoo, as we only supply the latest mesh-capable eero Pro 6E routers. The eero is cleverly designed to work as a main router or as a mesh Wi-Fi extender. The main one is included in your initial price . You can then add as many additional eeros as you need and control the whole thing from an easy-to-use smartphone app.
This all depends on your home: how big it is, what it’s built with, the layout of the rooms and what’s in them. All these things affect where to place your routers and how well they’ll perform. This shows how to do it and, er, how not to.
Every router is roughly the same distance from the others. So they can both connect easily and the signal can find the easiest path back to the main router. Which means fast, reliable broadband all over your home.
The router on the second floor is too far from the main router. So the link between them will be weaker and slower which could cause dropouts. If the router on the first floor fails, the weakest link becomes the only link.
A few top tips
● Make sure the distance between routers is more or less equal, and as short as possible
● Think about where any other equipment is that might interfere with the connection (like a microwave)
● Check the building materials used in your home – solid brick or stone will seriously reduce the distance your Wi-Fi signal can travel
This all depends on the size and layout of your home.
An average two-bedroom house will normally need one to two routers, so you can put one on each side of the building. If you own a larger three-bedroom home, you’ll probably need two to three routers.
When you‘ve set them up, test each room to see how fast the Wi-Fi speed is, including downloads and uploads. It doesn’t take long and our previous guide will show you how. If it’s a bit slow or completely drops out in a certain spot, try moving the closest router. Or add an extra one. It’s that easy.
To wire? Or not to wire? With apologies to Shakespeare, that is the question. As we become increasingly dependent on a fast, reliable internet connection at home to work, watch and play, the way we set up our broadband becomes more important than ever.
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