Extreme overkill (AirPort mesh)

[mmomega]

Yessir +100 to those that hardwire their networks. Good job.


My wife has finally given in that I am a networking nerd.

 

[EugW]

I'm up to four 6th gen Extremes too now.

View attachment 825471

I picked up another inexpensive used 802.11ac 6th gen AirPort Extreme recently, making the 802.11n 5th gen AirPort Extreme superfluous. Now WiFi is moderately strong to very strong everywhere in the house, with no real weak spots anywhere. Specifically, for the kids’ rooms, they have very strong signal, perfect for their Covid-era online learning. The only deficiency after that was in the backyard. I have a large yard, and WiFi signal there just wasn’t very good. So I tried putting the 5th gen in the shed to extend the network wirelessly to the backyard. Unfortunately, it was unreliable, and even when it did work speeds often dropped down to as low as 2 Mbps or even lower.

So, I bit the bullet and actually ran outdoor Ethernet cable to that shed outside. With the 5th gen in the shed now, WiFi now works pretty well in the backyard. So, why did I bother? So that we can have WiFi there for our Apple Watches without having to always have our iPhones with us. (We have cellular models, but haven’t paid for cellular data plans for the Watches.) I usually do keep my phone with me, but my wife constantly forgets it in the house.

BTW, it’s below freezing outside now, and the AirPort Extreme is working like a champ. Actually I’ve had a cheap TrendNet out in the gazebo for years which is actually partially exposed to the elements (not in an enclosed shed) and it’s survived all these years. However, it runs on its own, not as part of the above AirPort pseudo-mesh. Before that I had a cheap 802.11g model out there and it ran fine for years too, but finally ran into problems when an ant colony moved in. ?

 

[EugW]

My home mesh is now complete, with basically everywhere in the house capable of streaming 4K, and also full coverage of my yard too with outdoor units.

Also, here is how I built the DIY mount for the 5th generation AirPort Extreme outside:

DIY AirPort Extreme (802.11n) mount made from leftover scraps in my house.

Out in my backyard I have a gazebo with an electrical plug, and several years ago I ran outdoor Ethernet cable to it for internet access. However, I've been using el cheapo third party access points out there, cuz it's outside and it's infrequently used. In my house, it's an all Apple AirPort...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I was using three 6th Gen Airport Extreme all on the same SSID, with one as a router and two as access points (bridge mode), with one on each floor (basement, main, and upstairs). But when roaming around the house the clients would hang onto the old access point until it got too slow/weak and then the client would finally let go to grab the closer access point.

I was often getting about 150-250 mbps on some devices (and 500-600 mbps routinely on the devices right next to the access points). We have Gigabit internet with Comcast that runs 700-940 mbps on most things that are wired, and right now my wired Apple TV in the family room is showing 743 and the iMac is wired and showing 848. But because the Airport Extremes upstairs and on the main floor sit behind a computer monitor and TV, the signal was blocked in some places and ran slower (25-100 mbps). That is fine for streaming, but for doing fast time machine backups or copying many files to the server not so much. Also we got only 2-20 mbps in the yard.

So I bought an ASUS GT-AX11000 AiMesh WiFi-6 Router (basement with modem where the cable enters the house) with a pair of Asus AX92U as AiMesh nodes on the main floor and upstairs, using wired backhaul for tri-band smartmesh. I'm still using my D-Link 8-port switch down there to distribute ethernet to the access points or nodes, and converted several unused phone lines (Cat 5e) coming out of the basement to ethernet jacks. With this I set up a new network for just the mobile devices that roam around the house and property (iPhone, iPad, MacBooks).

I left the two Apple 6th gen access points alone on the main floor and upstairs, so my smart home, cameras, and security system could be left untouched, while we could get the extra bandwidth of the mesh network for all of the iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks to roam around the house.

So now my 16" MacBook Pro runs 350 mbps instead of 150, and my iPhone 11 Pro Max is seeing 500 mbps (I know, a waste of speed for a phone). My son's PC is seeing 600-700 mbps on WiFi 6, and game downloads are very fast now. I get 50-100 mbps in my yard now as well. With the location of the access points on our cat 5e converted phone-lines to ethernet, my son and I both have our home theater setups moved to ethernet (ATV, receiver, Xbox, Smart TV) in our bedrooms and family room.

At this point, I could probably shut off the old network and rename the new one to the old, and all the SmartHome, cameras, and security system would just connect to the new Asus AiMesh network. But this way, for the devices that never move around, I have only 20 devices connecting to each Airport and distributing the traffic over more wires, making each access point less congested on the radios.

Everything is a bit faster, and transitioning from node to node is smoother. The biggest PITA was having to re-do all of my IP address reservations for cameras, my 4 servers, and computers for remote access, and also opening up ports for my servers to communicate with me when I'm not in the home.

 

[EugW]

I was using three 6th Gen Airport Extreme all on the same SSID, with one as a router and two as access points (bridge mode), with one on each floor (basement, main, and upstairs). But when roaming around the house the clients would hang onto the old access point until it got too slow/weak and then the client would finally let go to grab the closer access point.

I think you are right to an extent, but my experience is not quite the same as you describe.

With my old setup of non-Apple routers/access points, the Apple devices and other devices would hang onto the last access point to which it connected, until the signal was so bad it was undetectable, and then it would switch. ie. I'd be roaming around the house and it'd drop to say 3 Mbps and then eventually disconnect, and then would switch over to a closer access point. Obviously this is not ideal.

However, that has not been my experience with my AirPort Extreme network. It wouldn't always stick with the fastest access point, but it doesn't hang on forever to the last one it connected to either. It's somewhere in between. So what I'd get is an Apple device getting say 500 Mbps right next to the access point, and as I roam it would hang onto it to a certain extent. For example if I went downstairs and toward another room, it might give me 90 Mbps, but if I hung around there for a while it might eventually switch to the closer access point at 225 Mbps. During this period I would not notice any disconnection. The switch would be invisible to me.

So, that's not quite the same as truly actively managed mesh system, but it's good enough for my usage since my target end point is to have speeds that don't affect video streaming even at 4K everywhere in my house. With this many units in the house, I have achieved this, for a reasonable cost. (The last AirPort Extreme 6th gen I bought was ~US$30, and the last AirPort Extreme 5th gen was ~US$15.)

Also we got only 2-20 mbps in the yard.

This was an issue in our yard too. I recently installed two (!) AirPort Extremes in the backyard, so now I get 30+ Mbps everywhere there... and sometimes 500 Mbps. I have a 6th gen in a shed, and and a 5th gen in my gazebo. This is the custom mount I hacked together for the 5th gen:

DIY AirPort Extreme (802.11n) mount made from leftover scraps in my house.

Out in my backyard I have a gazebo with an electrical plug, and several years ago I ran outdoor Ethernet cable to it for internet access. However, I've been using el cheapo third party access points out there, cuz it's outside and it's infrequently used. In my house, it's an all Apple AirPort...

forums.macrumors.com

The AirPort Extremes outside so far don't seem to mind our Canadian winter at all. We'll see how they handle the heat in the summer, but I suspect they'll be fine since the el cheapo non-Apple unit I had in the gazebo before worked fine for many years until I finally disconnected it this weekend.

 

[EugW]

I was often getting about 150-250 mbps on some devices (and 500-600 mbps routinely on the devices right next to the access points).

I was curious what the max speed I could get out of this AirPort Extreme 6th gen would be. To my surprise, using a 2017 iMac Core i5 I can get over 850 Mbps on WiFi. Here is the Speedtest result with Ethernet disconnected. (Wired is well over 900 Mbps.)

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Use Speedtest on all your devices with our free desktop and mobile apps.

www.speedtest.net

Note that the iMac is the only device in this house capable of this, as it has 1300 Mbps WiFi link with the AirPort Extreme. It's also sitting close to the AirPort Extreme on the same table. My 2017 MacBook Core m3 is more in the 500-600 Mbps range as you describe.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I think you are right to an extent, but my experience is not quite the same as you describe.

With my old setup of non-Apple routers/access points, the Apple devices and other devices would hang onto the last access point to which it connected, until the signal was so bad it was undetectable, and then it would switch. ie. I'd be roaming around the house and it'd drop to say 3 Mbps and then eventually disconnect, and then would switch over to a closer access point. Obviously this is not ideal.

However, that has not been my experience with my AirPort Extreme network. It wouldn't always stick with the fastest access point, but it doesn't hang on forever to the last one it connected to either. It's somewhere in between. So what I'd get is an Apple device getting say 500 Mbps right next to the access point, and as I roam it would hang onto it to a certain extent. For example if I went downstairs and toward another room, it might give me 90 Mbps, but if I hung around there for a while it might eventually switch to the closer access point at 225 Mbps. During this period I would not notice any disconnection. The switch would be invisible to me.

So, that's not quite the same as truly actively managed mesh system, but it's good enough for my usage since my target end point is to have speeds that don't affect video streaming even at 4K everywhere in my house. With this many units in the house, I have achieved this, for a reasonable cost. (The last AirPort Extreme 6th gen I bought was ~US$30, and the last AirPort Extreme 5th gen was ~US$15.)


This was an issue in our yard too. I recently installed two (!) AirPort Extremes in the backyard, so now I get 30+ Mbps everywhere there... and sometimes 500 Mbps. I have a 6th gen in a shed, and and a 5th gen in my gazebo. This is the custom mount I hacked together for the 5th gen:

DIY AirPort Extreme (802.11n) mount made from leftover scraps in my house.

Out in my backyard I have a gazebo with an electrical plug, and several years ago I ran outdoor Ethernet cable to it for internet access. However, I've been using el cheapo third party access points out there, cuz it's outside and it's infrequently used. In my house, it's an all Apple AirPort...

forums.macrumors.com

The AirPort Extremes outside so far don't seem to mind our Canadian winter at all. We'll see how they handle the heat in the summer, but I suspect they'll be fine since the el cheapo non-Apple unit I had in the gazebo before worked fine for many years until I finally disconnected it this weekend.

I was curious what the max speed I could get out of this AirPort Extreme 6th gen would be. To my surprise, using a 2017 iMac Core i5 I can get over 850 Mbps on WiFi. Here is the Speedtest result with Ethernet disconnected. (Wired is well over 900 Mbps.)

View attachment 1727303

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Use Speedtest on all your devices with our free desktop and mobile apps.

www.speedtest.net

Note that the iMac is the only device in this house capable of this, as it has 1300 Mbps WiFi link with the AirPort Extreme. It's also sitting close to the AirPort Extreme on the same table. My 2017 MacBook Core m3 is more in the 500-600 Mbps range as you describe.

I'm sorry I wasn't as clear I should have been when I said:

I was often getting about 150-250 mbps on some devices (and 500-600 mbps routinely on the devices right next to the access points). We have Gigabit internet with Comcast that runs 700-940 mbps on most things that are wired, and right now my wired Apple TV in the family room is showing 743 and the iMac is wired and showing 848. But because the Airport Extremes upstairs and on the main floor sit behind a computer monitor and TV, the signal was blocked in some places and ran slower (25-100 mbps). That is fine for streaming, but for doing fast time machine backups or copying many files to the server not so much. Also we got only 2-20 mbps in the yard.

That meant that I would get 500-600 right next to the 6th Gen AirPort Extreme, but as I moved away from the 6th Gen the speeds would drop as low as 25-100 mbps in many cases as I would move around, instead of switching to the 6th Gen AirPort Extreme that was closer.

The signal strength at 25-100 mbps was apparently still good enough to hang onto the previous Airport Extreme (probably better than -70 dbm is my guess) for a while. But it was only in the master bathroom or when outside that it went below 50-75 mbps, going as low as 25 mbps in the bathroom with my iPhone or iPad. I was usually getting above 75-100 everywhere else, and 150-350 mbps in the same room as the 6th Gen when not moving around.

Some more thoughts, and tests...

I had one 6th Gen AirPort Extreme set up as my router in the basement, a second one wired as an access point in the main floor master bedroom, and the third one wired as an access point upstairs in my son's bedroom on the other side of the house (staggered middle of house > south end > north end, from bottom to top) with all connected via ethernet Cat 5e cable pre-wired in the walls. The one in the basement was just below the main floor family room and dining room in the middle of the house, so most of the time we would connect to that one when we were home (front or back door).

The basement 6th Gen was removed when we put the Asus GT-AX11000 router is in its place, and I was just keeping the old network for smart home and cameras through the two 6th Gen access points on the old SSID in the main floor bedroom and upstairs loft. The Asus mesh is on a different SSID (old name + AX at the end) with one on the basement, and an AX92U in the family room behind the 55" TV and another in my son's bedroom on the north side of the house.

Before, if we came into the house through the garage, we'd 1st connect to my son's bedroom Apple access point above the garage, and it would take a while to switch to the router under the family room where we'd hang out, but speeds were still 150+ mbps when connected to the one upstairs in his room, so the signal was not weak. Eventually clients did switch to the one under the family room and speeds would double. But it always took a while, if at all.

But, then if we moved from the family room to the other rooms it would stay connected to the basement, since the signal was still strong enough most of the time, unless we stayed closer to another 6th gen for a long time (like going to sleep in the same room with another access point for example, we'd wake up connected to the one in our room).

Although I'd get 25 mbps in my master bathroom farthest from the access points, like when the iPhone or iPad was hanging onto the basement 6th Gen router, I didn't stay in the master bathroom long enough for devices to automatically switch from the basement to the bedroom. Today on the Asus AiMesh network I walked from the family room to the master bathroom and just got 395 mbps there with my iPad Mini 5. Meanwhile, my 16" MacBook Pro just got 455 mbps in the family room, neither having WiFi 6! This is much faster than we used to get.

Before the AiMesh, taking my MacBook Pro from the family room to the bedroom during a TimeMachine backup would make a 20 minute backup take up over an hour, even though there was another AirPort Extreme in the bedroom, because it was still connected to the one in the basement at 75-100 mbps. During a TimeMachine backup I'd guess that Apple would prevent it from disconnecting from one access point to connect to another if my signal and speeds were good enough. As you stated, even you had to hang around for a while to see it switch from one access point at 90 mbps to another at 225 mbps.

My spot in the family room where I started out was a little diagonally above the 6th Gen in the basement, and I would see 150-250 mbps with the Apple network. Because the signal was still strong enough as I moved away, it wouldn't let go of the basement and connect to the bedroom 6th Gen, where I'd see 75-100 mbps when sitting in my bedroom chair. The bedroom 6th Gen is behind the TV by the wall 10 feet away from my chair but next to the ethernet jack, and I have hard wired my SmartTV, ATV, and Xbox into the 6th gen LAN ports. Waking up in the morning I would find that all my devices had switched to the 6th Gen in the bedroom, but I could not know how long it took to switch as I was asleep when it happened.

With the Asus AiMesh network I usually get over 250-300 mbps just about everywhere, and up to 455 right now on my MacBook Pro 16" when traffic on Xfinity is low, which is about 2-3x faster than my speeds with the Apple network. As I said, right now I'm seeing 455 mbps which is almost 2x faster than the old network was.

See Speedtest results below, with tests done before 2/6/21 being on the Apple network, and the most recent 3 MacBook Pro speed tests being on the Asus AiMesh network. I have done most of my speed testing in the family room spot with my iPhone and iPad, not the MacBook, but you'll see a similar trend with jumps in speed after the upgrade. The iPhone's slowest double digit speeds were done in the bathroom and single digit outside with the Apple Network prior to 2/4/21.

16" Macbook in family room before and after upgrade Feb 4th (6th Gen router in basement with access points in master bedroom on main and son's bedroom upstairs up until Feb 1st):


iPhone 11 Pro Max below, before and after upgrade middle of the night, Feb 4th:
The two slowest single digit speed tests on 2/2/21 were done outside back to back.
The slower double digit speed tests (18-29 mbps) were done in the master bathroom on two different days.


I currently have the Asus network set to let it switch to a stronger node when the signal strength drops weaker than -68 dbm (default was -70 which would have on longer before switching - www.dongknows.com estimated the -70 is about 2 bars of WiFi strength on the Asus, whatever that means - different brand, different bars).

Lastly, I before I typed this reply I had hooked up the previous 6th Gen router to the kitchen behind the iMac as a 3rd access point (all Apple in bridge mode) using the apple network's SSID. I plugged the iMac into the back of it and left the other two 6th Gens in my master bedroom and the upstairs loft. This gives me three Apple 6th Gen access points again, all wired into the Asus router in the basement, but without an Apple in the basement anymore. I have been sitting right in the middle of the two 6th Gen on the main floor, 15 feet away from the bedroom 6th Gen on the other side of the wall, and 15 feet from the 6th Gen in the kitchen, 35 feet from the one in the upstairs loft at the front of the house.

I had connected my iPhone 11 Pro Max to the old network SSID after that, when I started typing this post, and I just went outside and tested the speed in the back patio. I got 5.94 mbps down and 3.10 mbps up, with it having connected to the bedroom Apple 6th Gen access point automatically.

While on the patio I switched my iPhone to the Asus WiFi network SSID and I got 15.6 mbps down and 6.39 mbps up. So, the Asus is running 3x faster outside for download, and 2x faster with uploads. I didn't have a way to check which node I was connected to, but the most direct line of sight to the back porch was with the GT-AX11000 in the basement.

Apple 6th Gen network outside on back patio:


Asus AiMesh network outside on back patio:


Then, while standing next to the 6th Gen in the kitchen I switched from the AX network back to the Apple network and tested the Apple network speed outside on the patio again. I got 12.7 mbps download and 19.2 mbps upload speed. I confirmed that the iPhone 11 Pro Max was connected to the kitchen 6th Gen AirPort Extreme. Note - the kitchen 6th Gen access point is closer, with 1-3 less walls or floors to penetrate, than the Asus AiMesh router and nodes in my basement, bedroom, or son's bedroom.



After testing the speed outside, I walked back into the family room while still on the Apple network and saw 210 mbps down and 40.9 up, still connected to the 6th Gen access point in the kitchen. A repeat test confirmed a stable 226 down and 41.6 up.

Switching to the AX network while in the family room, without moving the iPhone, gave me 457 mbps down and 41.5 mbps up! Visiting the router webpage says I'm connected to the family room mesh node now:


I walked outside and tested the speed again on the back patio, while still connected to the AX mesh network on the family room node, and got 235 mbps down and 27.8 mbps up!


So I have to assume with my first AiMesh test when I was on the patio and chose the mesh network, that the iPhone connected to the basement AX router but I should have checked before I started.

I had checked to see which 6th Gen I was connecting outside to because it's easy to check with Airport Utility, rather than logging into the router. So, point would go to Apple for ease of use when tied to the Apple ecosystem and having the airport utility on every device. But I just discovered the Asus app and turned on settings to allow me to access the router, and now I can remotely see what is connected to where on the Asus mesh network too.

If I turn WiFi completely off and back on with my iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 14.4, even though it was connected to the faster Asus AiMesh AX network before, it comes back up on the old network connected to the 6th Gen Airport Extreme. So, I had to forget the Apple network on my iPhone 11 Pro Max in order to always reconnect on the faster WiFi 6 connection if I have turned off WiFi or disconnected (my iPhone 11 Pro Max is the only mobile device using WiFi 6 currently).

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I was curious what the max speed I could get out of this AirPort Extreme 6th gen would be. To my surprise, using a 2017 iMac Core i5 I can get over 850 Mbps on WiFi. Here is the Speedtest result with Ethernet disconnected. (Wired is well over 900 Mbps.)

View attachment 1727303

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Use Speedtest on all your devices with our free desktop and mobile apps.

www.speedtest.net

Note that the iMac is the only device in this house capable of this, as it has 1300 Mbps WiFi link with the AirPort Extreme. It's also sitting close to the AirPort Extreme on the same table. My 2017 MacBook Core m3 is more in the 500-600 Mbps range as you describe.

To follow up with your iMac test, I just ran speed test with my 2015 i5 iMac 32GB RAM/1TB fusion drive) that I wired into the 6th Gen Airport Extreme right behind the iMac. We used to have iMac directly wired to router downstairs with Cat 6 cable we'd had fished up the wall and into a jack. I just got 798 down and 32.4 up via wired ethernet with iMac plugged into the LAN on back of the 6th Gen AirPort Extreme, with 6th Gen WAN port connected by Cat 6 to the router in the basement:



Then, I unplugged ethernet and used WiFi to connect to the 6th Gen Airport Extreme behind the iMac:


The fastest speeds we see with the iMac is usually in the middle of the night, when we'll be almost 900 mbps. I know a while back we hit up to 940 from the jack behind the iMac and in the loft, and speed varies depending on neighborhood congestion, but we typically run in the 800's.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Also, sometimes when I'm in the web browser I'll use googles speed test, but it always reads 20-40% slower than the Speedtest.net in the browser or Speedtest app (Ookla). Anyone else notice this?

Today, multiple times Google speed test is 265-280 while Ookla (web or app) is 408-445 mbps (wifi on MacBook Pro 16").

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Lastly, I would worry about worse "mesh-like" results meshing when using a 5th Gen AirPort Extreme, because the one I used to have in my bedroom would max out at about 180 mbps wireless as an access point, which was not much faster than my 1st Gen when the 1st Gen was in 5Ghz-only mode.

My 1st Gen was running at 150-160 mbps in 5Ghz-only to my MacBook 16", or about 90-100 mbps in 802.11b/g/n 2.4/5 Ghz mode. I never tried the 5th Gen to work in 5Ghz only mode to see if it was faster, because the only way to do that was to split the 5Ghz into a different SSID, but 5th Gen was definitely faster running b/g/n mixed than the 1st Gen was.

I'd imagine 1st gen in 5Ghz-only mode would be even worse for a mesh-like network.

 

[EugW]

To follow up with your iMac test, I just ran speed test with my 2015 i5 iMac 32GB RAM/1TB fusion drive) that I wired into the 6th Gen Airport Extreme right behind the iMac. We used to have iMac directly wired to router downstairs with Cat 6 cable we'd had fished up the wall and into a jack. I just got 798 down and 32.4 up via wired ethernet with iMac plugged into the LAN on back of the 6th Gen AirPort Extreme, with 6th Gen WAN port connected by Cat 6 to the router in the basement:

View attachment 1727812

Then, I unplugged ethernet and used WiFi to connect to the 6th Gen Airport Extreme behind the iMac:
View attachment 1727813

Interesting. Does it show it being connected at 1300 Mbps in the AirPort Utility summary or in System Information? My understanding is that the 2015 iMac is also supposed to support 3x3 1300 Mbps.

My 2017 iMac is showing 1300 Mbps and 1053 Mbps respectively, but is still benching at 850 Mbps on WiFi. That is, if I pick the right server. Weirdly enough if I choose Rogers as the server, I never hit 850 Mbps, despite the fact that Rogers is my ISP. However, if I choose the server from Bell, who is their direct competitor, I get 850 Mbps.

Also, sometimes when I'm in the web browser I'll use googles speed test, but it always reads 20-40% slower than the Speedtest.net in the browser or Speedtest app (Ookla). Anyone else notice this?

Today, multiple times Google speed test is 265-280 while Ookla (web or app) is 408-445 mbps (wifi on MacBook Pro 16").

Using Google's internet speed test, I maxed out below 400 Mbps on WiFi. Fast.com was 220 Mbps. I believe this is a limitation of these sites, because I just tried it on wired ethernet, and Google again maxed out below 400 Mbps, and Fast.com only moved up to 260 Mbps.

Anyhow, it appears our use cases are quite different. I'm not really concerned about hitting 400+ Mbps everywhere in the house. Almost all of my devices which frequently require very high transfer speeds are all hardwired anyway. This includes my two NASes (which holds most of my important work data) and my main iMac (which holds my main Photos library). For my MacBook, most of the data is on the NAS, or else in the cloud, since it's a secondary machine (as the iMac is the main workhorse). Occasionally I do want such speeds with my MacBook, but for those occasions I'm usually sitting in my home office with the laptop in the same room as the 802.11ac AirPort Extreme anyway, so I'm getting 500+ Mbps.

We don't do any Time Machine backups of mobile devices. My NASes are backed up over Ethernet (one to the other, and also locally to a USB hard drive). Our iPads and iPhones do use iCloud backup for photos, but that's usually done incrementally during downtime so we don't usually notice the speeds for those.

Ironically, although we use WiFi the most in the living room, I didn't bother putting an access point there. There are units one floor down (basement) and one floor up (home office), so we never get max speeds in the living room, but we still get decent speeds. Importantly, we can always stream 4K video with no glitches, which is mainly what I'm looking for. Also, a unit in the basement is strategically placed in the guest bedroom directly underneath the dining room table, so on the rare occasion I need to work on the dining table, I'm still getting excellent speeds. If I wanted to though I could move that unit into the living room since there is a network jack there, but I just haven't bothered because it hasn't been an issue.

Note that our living room TV is also there, and initially I had set up the TV box on WiFi. I noticed channel switching would take a second or two longer than my other box which is wired. Assuming the difference wasn't just by random chance, I suspect it was because it took longer to buffer. However, after I placed the aforementioned AE in the guest bedroom below it, that was no longer an issue. It's a moot point now though because I've since hardwired the TV box anyway.

tl;dr:

Your new setup is superior in several ways, but I would say that for my usage and for the usage for lots of households, my AE pseudo-mesh setup is very good too. As the thread title suggests, mine is already overkill for most households, so the improvement you are seeing may be lost on most of those households. That said, for advanced users, it sounds like your setup is great. And truthfully, if I were building my network from scratch today, I would not choose my setup. I just chose it because I already had a few AirPort Extreme units, because it was easy to set up (at the expense of configurability), and because adding additional units is quite cheap now. My last 6th gen AE cost me about US$30, and my last 5th gen AE (just for the backyard) cost me just US$15.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

My 2017 iMac is showing 1300 Mbps and 1053 Mbps respectively, but is still benching at 850 Mbps on WiFi. That is, if I pick the right server. Weirdly enough if I choose Rogers as the server, I never hit 850 Mbps, despite the fact that Rogers is my ISP. However, if I choose the server from Bell, who is their direct competitor, I get 850 Mbps.

View attachment 1727863



Using Google's internet speed test, I maxed out below 400 Mbps on WiFi. Fast.com was 220 Mbps. I believe this is a limitation of these sites, because I just tried it on wired ethernet, and Google again maxed out below 400 Mbps, and Fast.com only moved up to 260 Mbps.

Anyhow, it appears our use cases are quite different. I'm not really concerned about hitting 400+ Mbps everywhere in the house. Almost all of my devices which frequently require very high transfer speeds are all hardwired anyway. This includes my two NASes (which holds most of my important work data) and my main iMac (which holds my main Photos library). For my MacBook, most of the data is on the NAS, or else in the cloud, since it's a secondary machine (as the iMac is the main workhorse). Occasionally I do want such speeds with my MacBook, but for those occasions I'm usually sitting in my home office with the laptop in the same room as the 802.11ac AirPort Extreme anyway, so I'm getting 500+ Mbps.

We don't do any Time Machine backups of mobile devices. My NASes are backed up over Ethernet (one to the other, and also locally to a USB hard drive). Our iPads and iPhones do use iCloud backup for photos, but that's usually done incrementally during downtime so we don't usually notice the speeds for those.

Ironically, although we use WiFi the most in the living room, I didn't bother putting an access point there. There are units one floor down (basement) and one floor up (home office), so we never get max speeds in the living room, but we still get decent speeds. Importantly, we can always stream 4K video with no glitches, which is mainly what I'm looking for. Also, a unit in the basement is strategically placed in the guest bedroom directly underneath the dining room table, so on the rare occasion I need to work on the dining table, I'm still getting excellent speeds. If I wanted to though I could move that unit into the living room since there is a network jack there, but I just haven't bothered because it hasn't been an issue.

Note that our living room TV is also there, and initially I had set up the TV box on WiFi. I noticed channel switching would take a second or two longer than my other box which is wired. Assuming the difference wasn't just by random chance, I suspect it was because it took longer to buffer. However, after I placed the aforementioned AE in the guest bedroom below it, that was no longer an issue. It's a moot point now though because I've since hardwired the TV box anyway.

tl;dr:

Your new setup is superior in several ways, but I would say that for my usage and for the usage for lots of households, my AE pseudo-mesh setup is very good too. As the thread title suggests, mine is already overkill for most households, so the improvement you are seeing may be lost on most of those households. That said, for advanced users, it sounds like your setup is great. And truthfully, if I were building my network from scratch today, I would not choose my setup. I just chose it because I already had a few AirPort Extreme units, because it was easy to set up (at the expense of configurability), and because adding additional units is quite cheap now. My last 6th gen AE cost me about US$30, and my last 5th gen AE (just for the backyard) cost me just US$15.

I went through the whole explaination above simply to justify why I switched from the 6th Gen AirPort Extreme mesh-like setup, due to just a few issues. It certainly wasn’t terrible the way it was being used, especially compared to just a single 5th or 6th gen router (time capsule) and a few Airport Express as wireless extenders like I was using a couple of years ago.

Those Airport Express are now being used to "join" the old network but not extend it, so that I can plug in something to the ethernet jack (PS Audio DAC ethernet bridge II in the family room headphone rig) or optical jack (Nuforce DAC-100 in the bedroom), which can't be wired into the network. My iMac is also connecting at 1300 mbps into the TimeCapsule sitting right behind it, via ethernet Cat 6 cable.

I paid retail for the Time Capsule before Apple discontinued them, but I only paid $75 each for the extra 6th Gen AirPort Extremes. I had an extra 6th Gen that overheated and gives slower WiFi when it does that, an issue that goes away if I wipe it and reprogram it, but then comes back if we ever remove power. That one is gone. Then we still have a spare that overheats like the other, and we have to reset it and reprogram it to get the overheating errors to stop, but it ran very fast WiFi speeds regardless. We still have that but don’t have anywhere to use it.

As for how we use our network, my son has a 2012 and 2014 15” MacBook on WiFi, while I have a 2014 13” and 2020 16” MacBook, and my wife’s work surface Laptop regularly on WiFi. My son’s gaming PC is now wired, as is the iMac. But the iMac is used infrequently, other than as an iTunes server or as a computer for occasional use in the kitchen if I forget my MacBook in the bedroom. My wife’s PC laptop lives upstairs, next to a 6th Gen Extreme behind a 32” 4K monitor, and is for work from home only. She was doing zoom meetings all day while I ran speed tests.

I carry the 16” around the house with me as I use it in the bedroom, family room, or kitchen throughout the day. I only use the 13” for taking on trips, but it’s syncing with Dropbox, iCloud, and google backup and sync so all my data is on it when I need it. All the Mac’s do automatic time machine hourly, with two of them alternating to two different NAS (Drobo and time capsule). So my use is different.

Then we have 3 iPhones and 3 iPads that wirelessly back up each day to the iMac running iMazing software, and the faster WiFi lets it finish sooner although it doesn’t matter since that happens while we sleep.

I have not run a Speedtest with a different server other than Xfinity. So I tried a few other than automatic with the wired iMac and Century Link gave me a speed of 90 mbps, PCI broadband was 230, StratusIQ was 333, Springs Hosting was 340, and "Automatic" chose SECOM and gave me 864 mbps! All servers were within 6 miles of me.

 

[EugW]

I went through the whole explaination above simply to justify why I switched from the 6th Gen AirPort Extreme mesh-like setup, due to just a few issues. It certainly wasn’t terrible the way it was being used, especially compared to just a single 5th or 6th gen router (time capsule) and a few Airport Express as wireless extenders like I was using a couple of years ago.

Those Airport Express are now being used to "join" the old network but not extend it, so that I can plug in something to the ethernet jack (PS Audio DAC ethernet bridge II in the family room headphone rig) or optical jack (Nuforce DAC-100 in the bedroom), which can't be wired into the network. My iMac is also connecting at 1300 mbps into the TimeCapsule sitting right behind it, via ethernet Cat 6 cable.

View attachment 1727893

Partially inspired by @HeadphoneAddict above and others, I dusted off my old AirPort Express as an AirPlay 1 receiver, with WiFi turned off on the unit. However, since my AirPort Express is the ancient 1st gen 802.11g model, I couldn't configure it with the current version of AirPort Utility. I found out I can use my Windows 10 laptop, but it's really old and slow, and it turns out the old AirPort Admin Utility from 10.4 Tiger actually still works. Strangely enough, that old iBook G4 actually feels pretty fast with that very light OS. Even more surprising to me is that AirPort Admin Utility recognized the other 6th gen AirPort Extreme models too.

And once configured, the 1st gen AirPort Express is recognized by the current AirPort Utility (although it's not configurable, nor is it listed as active).

 

[EugW]

I've reached the magic round number of 10 units now. ?

However, the added three are all the last model A1392 AirPort Express for AirPlay and have WiFi turned off. The one with the red notification is just because I downgraded the firmware to 7.6.9, since 7.8.1 was causing a pop noise at the beginnings of songs.

 

[Juicy Box]

I am starting my on AirPort pseudo-mesh.


I have recently bought a new single-family home, which is larger than my current townhouse. To prepare, I have been buying cheap 6th gen AirPort Extremes. Well, I purchase two more, and I already have two.

Probably will keep adding on to it, as I have a set price in my head that I am willing to go up to, and if I see any on eBay for that price or less, I will get it.

Not sure how many I will get up to, but 10 sounds like a good number.

I have some older generations of AirPort Extremes, and a few AirPort Expresses, but probably just stick to the latest generation with the exception of using the audio port of the Expresses or making them a wireless access point for something wired.


After experiencing some problems on my single 6th gen AirPort Extreme, I decided to try an expensive, and highly rated tri-band mesh system a little over a year ago. Normally I would troubleshoot the AirPort, but everyone talks about how good the mesh systems are, so I figured it was time for a change.

The problem was, I had the same issues, and much, much more with mesh system. So, I started troubleshooting.

Living in my townhouse, I ended up having to split the 2.4Ghz and 5GHz band due to over crowding and congestion on the 2.4GHz band which led to slowdowns. I did this on my expensive mesh system, and things improved, but then I decided to do the same AirPort Extreme, and not only did the problems go away, but the AirPort Extreme was out performing the brand new mesh system.

I moved everything I could to the 5GHz band, and left the 2.4GHz band on for devices that couldn't connect to the 5GHz band. This greatly improved the performance of my AirPort Extreme.

I returned the expensive mesh system a day before my returned period ended and purchased another 6th gen AirPort Extreme to add to my network for a tiny fraction of the price of the mesh system.

So far, my AirPort network has been great, and think it will only improve at my new home with more nodes being added.

 

[NyEsq]

APExtreme X 2 (same name/“mesh” with Ethernet backbone) here, with X5 APExpresses wired to in-ceiling speakers.

One of the APExtremes stops showing up in Airport utility, but the device is definitely still working. If I restart, it shows up for a while, then drops off again. Have restarted, factory reset, to no avail. Has anyone seen this?

 

[Randysutt]

Simliar setup tp those described here. Just a note re connecting speakers for airplay. I wanted to add an additional set of speakers, and was having trouble locating a reasonably priced airport express. So instead I hooked up an old Apple TV I wasn't using to the ethernet and plugged my speakers in. Works perfectly.

 

[EugW]

I lost my backyard AirPort Extreme:

However, the actual AirPort Extreme itself is fine despite having been outside (covered) for many moons. I'm going to have to figure out how to splice that Ethernet cable back together again in a way that is resistant to the elements. I don't have the time and patience right now to lay the outdoor cable again. It's a very long run, of weather resistant cable.

 

[jeremydixon]

Stumbled upon this thread and was glad to see updated posts from 2021. I have also decided to build my own “mesh” system using Airport Extremes. I have three and a ATC which provide wifi across the house. Recently had a strange issue Im looking for help with.

My wifi speed is normally around 100mb/s but when the signal drops by one bar it drops to a very slow 4mb/s

Ive reset the routers back to factory, changed the wifi password. Selected manual channels but this doesn’t seem to help.

Anyone else experiencing very slow speeds when the signal drops?

 

[danskoya]

Stumbled upon this thread and was glad to see updated posts from 2021. I have also decided to build my own “mesh” system using Airport Extremes. I have three and a ATC which provide wifi across the house. Recently had a strange issue Im looking for help with.

My wifi speed is normally around 100mb/s but when the signal drops by one bar it drops to a very slow 4mb/s

Ive reset the routers back to factory, changed the wifi password. Selected manual channels but this doesn’t seem to help.

Anyone else experiencing very slow speeds when the signal drops? View attachment 1903319

Kitchen is wirelessly extending ATC while Buster and Office are on Ethernet wire?

Buster, Kitchen, Office and ATC are using the same SSID / passphrase?

 

[jeremydixon]

Kitchen is wirelessly extending ATC while Buster and Office are on Ethernet wire?

Buster, Kitchen, Office and ATC are using the same SSID / passphrase?

Correct, everything is hard wired except for the ATC in the Kitchen

All ATC are using same SSID and passphrase

 

[blazerunner]

I have questions!

1. How does this differ from a typical mesh setup?
2. If I have 3 Airport Extremes, with one as the base station and the other two directly connected wirelessly to the base station as an extension, do the two extensions not communicate with each other to help each other out with a better signal?
3. Do connected devices to the network (like a laptop) only connect to ONE Airport Extreme at a time, automatically picking whichever one has the strongest signal?

I recently setup a second Airport Extreme for my parents, their house is old and big with multilevel flooring and very dense walls. My dad's room has the worst connection, the walls in his room are REALLY dense and thick (the thick black lines are the ones with the thick walls in the photo below), so with just one Airport Extreme he's getting about 3mb/s. I put in a second Airport Extreme on the other side of his room and it's helped (drastically, about double the speed). However, would a third Airport Extreme make a difference? I could place it in the kitchen near the entrance to his room (though not ideal because the would be right next to it).

Sidenote; ethernet over powerline is not feasible, I tried a TP Link AV600 and the speeds were significantly worse.