ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Evening all,
hoping that someone will be able to assist! In the process of creating a multi room audio house whilst refurbishing and will be running cat 5 to all rooms to ensure a steady connection, however I will be placing an M3 in the bathroom and attic room that has no wired connection option. Signal is patchy at best up there, am I best to create a mesh network, or use one of the Ethernet points to creat a wireless access point? Will all speakers show on the app doing either of those things? I’m far from a networking expert.
Beovision 10, Beoplay V1, Beolab 17, Beolab 9, Beolab 4, Beosound 2, Beosound Moment x 2, Beoplay M3, Beogram 1700
I would highly recommend a google wifi setup as I have found the wifi to be rock solid.
But I would say get wires to them. I have the 3 pucks setup around my apartment for full wifi.
Basically. Internet into comms cabinet. Patch that to the bedroom. Have the main google wifi setup there and plugged into the internet. . Then loop back out the second port back to the comms cabinet to a switch. Then patch two cables out of the switch to the other two pucks in other rooms. So they have wired backhaul.
This then gives me a solid single network that hands your devices over with out glitches when walking around
So that would be my recommendation. Run cables to a google wifi or ubiquity setup (the latter being more expensive and more admin heavy) but then you get a bonus of solid wifi for your m3’s and any other devices :)
those setups have the advantage of seamless handover which acces points can be tricky with. I can have a FaceTime call and walk about switching from puck to puck with out a millisecond of a hiccup
I have ubiquity accesspoints to strengthen my wifi coverage.
I also have an M3 in the bathroom, like you plan to have. Works well over Wifi.
With access points, your device will just see one network and all devices across the various access points will appear in the app.
Livingroom: BL3, BL11, BV11-46 Kitchen: Beosound 1 GVA, Beocom 2 Bathroom: M3 Homeoffice: M3, Beocom 2 Library: Beosound Emerge, Beocom 6000 Bedroom: M5, Essence remote Travel: Beoplay E8 2.0, Beoplay EQ, Beoplay Earset
Both very helpful, thank you!!
It also depends on the size and topology of your location. No argument that you should wire as much as possible. The question of mesh vs access point is where there are a lot of "depends". If your space is small-ish and you don't need to support both 2.4 and 5 GHz devices with wifi, then an access point might be sufficient. The bigger the space, the more likely a mesh solution will be better.
I have a fairly large house (~4000 sq ft) and had multiple access points (apple airports, airport extremes) and had some issues with the devices connecting to the "wrong" wifi. That is, the apple products showed separate networks for 2.4 and 5 GHz. Depending on where I was, sometimes the 2.4 signal was stronger, sometimes the 5 was stronger. The B&O app would not always (or maybe ever?) see devices across networks. That is, if my phone was on the 5 GHz, but the Essence was on the 2.4, then the app could not see it. I'd then have to switch my phone to the other network (or selective reboot network gear to get the devices on the "right" network). Not the end of the world, but kind of a pain.
I have since switched to a mesh (I bought Orbi - has worked very well), and all of these problems go away because it treats the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands as the same network. Then again, if you have a smaller apartment, then a single access point, broadcasting a single band might be sufficient.
Thank you for your reply, I live in a Victorian property, less than 2500 square feet but set iverc4 floors. That’s where the difficulty will come in I think. On balance it sounds like mesh will be the best solution I think.
The only downside to a mesh (that I can tell after a month of ownership) is they tend to cost more and don't have the full range of network/wifi options that you can get with a router / access point. Some people want different networks in different parts of their house so they can explicitly set their equipment to operate on a specific router / access point. With mesh you just have to trust the equipment works the way it is supposed to, and, so far, it does.