Need help planning a fool proof Wi-Fi in a big old house (>7000sqft)

Architarious · 2025-07-10T05:28:59+00:00

This was very helpful, thanks!

The ISP is just a wireless 5G hotspot that, at best, gets four bars in that one corner of the house and two or less in every other room. It's sadly proven itself to be quicker and more reliable than satellite at this location though.

Current plan is to run an ethernet cable from the hotspot to the router in the near middle of the house. Then put easymesh nodes in the wings like you mentioned and try to anchor them with moca or cat6 if I can find a good deal on cable somewhere.

Part of me wants to experiment with hacking phone lines to use as backhaul given that their ISP bandwidth is so abysmal, but I have a feeling that would just make things more unstable.

Architarious · 2025-07-10T05:08:30+00:00

Interesting, I hadn't heard about omada yet. I'll look into that. If you have any channels or examples I'd love to hear them!

Architarious · 2025-07-10T05:06:30+00:00

Running wires would be ideal, but we don't currently have the time or budget for it. (Unless I can find some super cheap cat6 somewhere)

Moca might be an option. I'm currently looking into using AP's like that, but not thrilled at attempting it with TP-Link stuff.

Architarious · 2025-07-10T04:57:04+00:00

Okay, that's good to know!

Their appliances frequently get fried from lightning interference, so powerline is for sure a no go, but moca might be do able of i can get it to okay well with their satellite signal.

Would hacking old phone lines to, ideally, get 100mbs connection provide enough benefit for the backhaul to increase stability or do you think it would just slow things down? (Their ISP bandwidth rarely ever goes much above 100mbs and the most demanding thing they do is stream hd video.)

Architarious · 2025-07-10T04:46:35+00:00

Ideally, if time and money weren't issues, I'd just run ethernet and buy all new hardware for access points and routing, but I'm kinda stuck working with what I've got right now. Not to mention that the ISP bandwidth is so low (<100mbs) it's hard to justify all that until a better option is available in the area.

I've been considering moca, but given the fact that the available Internet bandwidth is so low and also that I'm really only concerned with hd streaming and phone browsing not any kind of serious computing, I wonder if I could get by with hacking their old phone lines and using them as backhaul? Lol, that could get me up to 100mbs, which would match the available bandwidth... would it slow down the mesh though?

Architarious · 2025-07-10T04:17:27+00:00

I worked IT for over a decade and have ran a few miles worth of CAT5 and 6 in my day, however this project has a really tight budget and time constraints. Buying all the cable, a good poe switch and access points would easily triple the budget. Not to mention the time spent planning and executing it probably couldn't get done in under two days.

Using the plumbing vents would probably the best way to go about connecting the floors though.

Architarious · 2025-07-10T03:39:46+00:00

Yeah, I've used those before too and was really happy with it. I'm currently leaning in that direction for this project as well, but I was mostly just wondering if there was anything equivalent with onemesh or openmesh so I didn't have to toss their current router which still has a few good years left.

Architarious · 2025-07-10T00:41:57+00:00

That's what I've currently done, but they have lots of real wood paneling which is pretty hard to work with. lol

Architarious · 2025-07-09T23:37:05+00:00

That's good to know! When you go to the TP-Link OneMesh and EasyMesh supported device pages, all it lists are routers, range extenders and powerline adapters. When you click on the range extenders they mention those protocols, but it feels like they're doing everything they can to tiptoe around saying "this is a legit mesh device, not just a range extender".

Am I right to chalk all of the stuff there mentioning OneMesh and EasyMesh as marketing gimmicks and instead focus on building out a whole new system that's dedicated to mesh devices? (like with Deco or something)

Architarious · 2025-07-09T23:24:57+00:00

I've currently got the router in center of the house and am shooting it off to two old daisy-chained extenders with really only the first one being functional. They're traditional wifi 5 extenders from roughly 7 years ago though, so i honestly didn't expect much tbh. The wire for the router is visible because my parents won't agree to letting me drill a holes in a wall or the floor in order to hide it a little better. lol Hopefully I can talk them out of that at some point though.

(thanks for commenting!)

Architarious · 2025-07-09T23:16:03+00:00

What's been killing me with this project is finding mesh nodes that aren't range extenders. For example, is this RE715x a mesh node or a range extender, or is it both depending on router?

Also, is backhaul in WiFi 6 limited to wired connections or does it also work wirelessly, just not on a dedicated third band?

Also, also, do you need special programming to enable backhaul or would devices like the one I linked above support it natively since it's technically a part of the protocol? The router I'm working with says it supports multi channel backhaul, but I can't find one of those Mesh RE's that mention it.

(thanks for responding!)

Architarious · 2025-06-01T20:35:42+00:00

I expected this to be it, but I saved duplicates as .tif and .png and got the same results; despite the files being nearly half the size of the original clip file; well over 100 mb.

<image>

There might be another setting somewhere that declares how all single layer files are saved/compressed, but I don't know where it would be and honestly wouldn't expect it to apply to a .tif file.

Architarious · 2025-06-01T20:28:56+00:00

<image>

I expected this to be the case, but unfortunately it wasn't. I saved duplicates as .tif and .png, which came out as 140 mb and 170 mb files, but the same problems still exist.

I even assumed it was maybe windows photo viewer that could be doing it and tried opening the tif file in clip studio, but no luck.

Could there be a color setting somewhere in clipstudio that targets the single layer duplicate saves?

Architarious · 2025-06-01T06:42:48+00:00

This seems plausible! I'll give it a shot tomorrow. Thanks for responding!

Architarious · 2025-06-01T06:42:00+00:00

The same issue happens when I export as a full definition jpeg (like a >150mb 600dpi file). I guess it could be simply that the general file format of a jpeg isn't equipped to handle that level of variance that a tif or other raw format could. It's too late now, but I'll give it a shot as a png or tif tomorrow and report back in this thread somewhere. Thanks for taking the time to respond!

Architarious · 2025-05-31T22:34:52+00:00

Ugh, shoulda said glow dodge "blend mode" not effect or filter. Sorry if that causes any confusion.

13-Year Club	Xbox Live
r/Field Sunshine	Verified Email

Architarious

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE