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Comment by benlivengood | Hacker News Reader

The key to good mesh wifi is to have wired mesh routers (at least with google/nest wifi). That still means one or two cat6 runs but better than a switch and as many cat6 runs as you need in every room.

Wired connections will also have stable latency.

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That's not a mesh, that's just multiple access points broadcasting the same SSID.

Wired or wireless backhaul doesn't alter mesh capabilities? Multiple access points is merely range extending and is a much poorer solution, with no proper handoff and usually at half speed.

Handoff is handled by the client, not the AP. Mesh is useful when you can’t hardwire multiple APs. Otherwise, you’re much better off with wiring up multiple APs on the same SSID/auth with non-overlapping channels.

Is 802.11r still the latest and greatest to do wired back haul with multiple AP?

> Handoff is handled by the client, not the AP.

For virtually all consumer grade gear, that’s definitely true. That isn’t exactly true if you are using enterprise grade hardware.

> multiple APs on the same SSID/auth with non-overlapping channels

Would you mind saying more? I have a 2 wired APs and 2 mesh APs in my home network. I would prefer to have them all on channel 11 2.4Ghz Wifi (since I have a zwave system as well, which overlaps with the lower part of the wifi spectrum), but I've been wondering if I should have them all broadcast on a single channel, or if they should be staggered - or spread out. Do you have any advice? Or how can I learn more about this? I think my latency is higher than it should be.

Thanks regardless!

That's where you're wrong, and this is the difference between wired meshes and multiple access points.

Wired meshes will handle the handoff (and do it better than devices, with no downtime). Multiple APs will not.

I want wired mesh but never want wireless mesh to avoid inconsistent performance. Sadly there's very few wired mesh APs meanwhile many expensive wireless mesh APs available.

I personally use the multiple AP setup myself. No downtime with handoffs on any of my devices, and I most certainly do not have any sort of “mesh” system. If you can provide some references to back up your claim, I’d love to be educated further. Otherwise my personal experience suggests you are mistaken.

So mesh is still a DS (distribution system) - to use wifi networking jargon

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