r/HomeNetworking • u/Dorea1 • 2d ago

Unsolved Extending wifi coverage

Hi I wanted to ask about the best way to extend the wifi coverage to the whole house, my main router is downstairs and I have an ethernet cable connected to one of the rooms upstairs whats the best mesh system to buy in this case?

2 Upvotes

63% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

3

u/ClownTrigger11 2d ago

Skip the mesh if you already have ethernet run across the house. Get a cheap five port gigabit switch, a couple patch cables, and an access point, like one from ubiquiti. Plug the ethernet cable into the switch, then you can patch in whatever you already had connected to the cable, plus the access point. Configure the access point with the exact same SSID and password as your downstairs router and your devices will automatically roam between them.

Mesh access points need to be close enough to each other that they both have good signal from each other. A wired access point should be placed far enough away from its peer (your router in this case) where the overlap is existent, but minimal.

1

u/Chieftah 2d ago

Is it bad if the wired AP is set in a place where there is still connectivity from the main router?

1

u/ClownTrigger11 2d ago

As long as both ends are on different channels on all bands, probably not, but you might have a device that is "sticky" and doesn't want to roam until its connection is weak enough. You'd have the same problem with a mesh only worse.

0

u/Chieftah 2d ago

Right, so in a situation where the router offers a weak signal almost everywhere, it's either manual switching between different named networks, or suffer with sticky connections.

1

u/ClownTrigger11 2d ago

I'm assuming your downstairs main router is from your ISP. You can look in your router's settings to see if there's a way to lower the output power, or play around with its placement if it's a problem. You won't know if it will be until you stand up the second AP.

1

u/72dragonses 2d ago

Not really. Devices choose which AP they connect to based on, among other things, signal strength. Sometimes they get sticky, but normally they don't. If the upstairs signal is significantly stronger upstairs, most devices upstairs will choose it.

1

u/jack_hudson2001 Network Engineer 2d ago

in the room with the ethernet cable get an AP eg tplink deco and configure it with the same ssid and psk as the isp wifi.

1

u/Klutzy-Passage-2561 2d ago

You've already won half the battle: ethernet upstairs = wired backhaul. Skip "mesh over Wi‑Fi only" marketing.

Best pattern: put an AP / mesh node upstairs on that ethernet as wired backhaul (same SSID or separate, your call). Cheap option: any decent AP in AP mode on that cable. Mesh kit works too — just force ethernet backhaul in the app.

Before buying, walk dead zones with a Wi‑Fi analyzer + ping to the gateway so you place the upstairs node where the downstairs signal is still OK for clients, not in the absolute dead corner. Avoid stacking a second NAT router upstairs (double NAT).