Had problems with wireless around my house for a while now. Devolo plugs kept playing up and killing the wireless. So been looking a Mesh solution for a while, not been 100% sure but after speaking with one of the IT network guys who just bought one I took the plunge.
Bought the Linksys Velop Tri-Band AC6600 3 pack, not cheap @£380 but I had estimated replacing the problem DLan500 plugs with 1200 would set me back £240 and I had no confidence these would be any better.
Set up is all driven by a IOS app that has a simple step by step wizard. First job is to get out a node that will be “master” in that it will be wired into your router or modem.
Thing to note here is that the Velop wants to take over your router (it’s a router itself) there is a bridge mode but it’s not easy to get any tweaking done prior to following the wizard. So if you have VPN and or other complex router stuff at home do your homework first.
After some attempts not following the wizard I finally gave in and the first node was done, my router was then reduced to a switch. Not too much of an issue as I had a Linksys router before so interface etc is the same.
The node had annoyingly given out a different IP range so I had to change a couple of things but was soon good to go for node 2.
Adding node 2 proved to be a pain in the arse, had about 10 attempts to join it, even having it next to node 1.
Got the same error again and again saying it couldn’t attach to main node. In the end, I found the problem, the first node had updated its firmware after setup and the 2nd node needed this version to join the network.
The frustration is the firmware update is only done after a node is joined to the network, so it’s a bit chicken and egg! I found I could update the node firmware via the IOS app part way through the setup so it finally worked.
Coverage is very impressive with only the 2 nodes in so far. House is full bars everywhere and I get this signal strength at the bottom of my garden which is 130ft from the house. Will put the final node in my shed just to catch the last bit of garden.
With the wireless, you have one SSID, I chose my old one so that everything just connected, it offers 5GHZ and 2.4GHZ from a single SSID, devices that support 5 will use that and if they don’t they use 2.4.
I did have a few issues, one Echo needed resetting, my Plex server needed restarting and my Kodi boxes need rebuilding. They have SMB connections to media with the old IP range, whilst you can edit these the interface just freezes half way through as the box is trying access the library all the time.
I have a house of around 1900 SF and it started life a bungalow with extensions upstairs so is bottom heavy space wise. I would think one node would be ok for the house, but I would lose range in the garden. 2 is more than enough and 3 is one too many but I will use it regardless.
Overall not cheap, but then getting the sort of coverage I wanted isn’t, would recommend it though.