What is Mesh Wi-Fi?
Mesh WiFi is a whole-home WiFi system which provides a seamless wireless coverage in your home, eliminating dead zones. The term “mesh” implies that all of the networking devices are connecting and working together.
To build up mesh topology, you will need a cable gateway, or connect a modem with mesh Wireless AP as host network, to link with a series of devices, or called “nodes”, which are placed throughout your residential or business place separately.
The nodes in your mesh WiFi system creates a blanket-like WiFi network that provides a full coverage. No matter where the router, modem and other end devices are placed in your home, all devices share the same SSID and password. This means that you can enjoy an uninterrupted WiFi connection as you move around.
Before we further explain Mesh WiFi, let’s talk about traditional WiFi networks.
In traditional deployments, all signals communicate through a single cable or wireless connection as backhaul to the hub gateway or router, such as star or tree topologies. The farther you are from the router, the weaker the WiFi signal, so you may set up several WiFi extenders to eliminate the dead zones but may experience an decreased WiFi performance due to its limitation. Also, if one of the nodes in the topologies fails, the end devices in this single communication route won’t work.
How Mesh WiFi Works and the Advantages
If you set up a Mesh WiFi topology, the signal communications can pass through the whole system throughout your home, with benefits of optimizing your wireless connections. The main advantage of leveraging Mesh WiFi includes:
- Seamless wireless coverage
Mesh WiFi is a blanket-like network system which shares the same SSID and password. As you move around your home, you don’t need to manually change to connect with the WiFi network with stronger signal in the area you are staying in.
- Self-healing and re-routing
In a mesh WiFi system, all of the nodes are connected. If one node in the system shuts down, the other communications will reroute itself to still get from node A to node B, all the way to the host network.
- Flexible and scalable
No matter how huge the place you are staying in, you may add as many access points/nodes as you need to create a whole-covered wireless environment.
How to set up your home Mesh WiFi topology over a wired network?
Despite Mesh WiFi works wirelessly, you may still leverage wired networks if your home is ready for Ethernet cable, with a suitable gateway/router as network host.
With mesh WiFi deployments, you may even get signals in your garage, basement, backyard or other rooms which are far away from the host gateway, to enjoy a better WiFi experience and avoid Internet interruption.
Should I use a pure WiFi extender or build up a Mesh WiFi system?
No matter if it is a WiFi extender or a Mesh WiFi system, both of them help to resolve the same problem: weak WiFi coverage.
WiFi extenders could be more budget-friendly compared with Mesh WiFi, it may be suitable for those who are renting an apartment or the space is small. However, if you would like to experience a seamless and flexible WiFi environment, a mesh WiFi system is the best option for you.
Hitron offers whole-home solutions including cable modems & gateways as host networks with wireless AP as network segments (subnet), to enhance your networking experience. Our WiFi extender can work with third-party WiFi management solutions such as Plume OpenSync, ASSIA or WiFiGarden to eliminate dead spots in your home. Check out Hitron’s Learn Page for more information.