Hello and welcome to the show!
My name is Alex and this is TechFlow!
I'm really excited, right - really excited because I've wanted to bring you guys this video
for so long and I've worked so hard on it and I haven't stolen this video from anyone,
I've done all the background research myself, I've bought all the products, I've tested
it all out - this is my budget WiFi networking.
Let's do this!
So, we all know how much WiFi sucks.
You've got a WiFi router in your house and it's just not covering every corner of it
- it keeps dropping out and it's just not good.
Now, there are ways around this - you can install numerous multiple access points around
your property, you can hard-wire them, you can get power over ethernet but it's always
best to hard-wire an access point - we all know this - it's always best to run a cable.
But sometimes in your house, you can't run cables because sometimes, you know, you're
renting a property and so you don't want to be drilling holes through walls and you can't
run cables.
Now, what's the next best thing?
Well, in the middle of 2016, all these companies hit us with something brand new for wireless
networking and it's called "Mesh."
Now, Google entered the Mesh networking - they have a service called "Google WiFi."
You've got things like the NetGear Orbi and you've got the Mesh networking system from Eero.
Now, pretty much in a nutshell, what you do is these things, well, you buy a pack of them.
One of them is a router - you plug it in and it gives off WiFi - and then you have one
or two other little base units which you place around your home -and you don't have to run
any cables to them - you just plug them into the wall - and they just mesh together and
create one big wireless network with one SSID.
So, there's one network to connect to - you don't have to change networks and you can
roam around your house and have WiFi coverage everywhere.
Sounds like heaven, doesn't it?
Well, the only problem is that these units are upwards of $300.
Now, if you're going to spend that much money on a Mesh unit, you may as well just hard-wire
access points but this is a system for people that can't hard wire.
This is how to Mesh network, well, my way of Mesh networking, for about one quarter of
the price.
Right, so I'm going to walk you through how to do this step by step.
It's not an easy process so listen carefully and let's do this together!
If you want to buy the equipment, all of the equipment is linked in the description.
Let's go!
So, the first thing that you're going to want to do is turn off the WiFi on your computer
or laptop and plug into the main router in your house via en ethernet cable.
Now, just before we get into how to set this thing up, I'm going to run a quick speed test
so that we can see what speeds I'm actually pulling into the office right now.
So, about 47 Mb.
The next step, once you've hard-wired into your router via an ethernet cable is to log
into your router's preference pane by typing in something like "192.168.0.1" in the URL bar.
Each router is different and you can find your router's IP address probably online by
searching its name and model number.
Once you've logged in to the router, it's probably best to do so, if you haven't already,
to change the router's password for security purposes.
Once you've done that, navigate over to the wireless settings.
Now, you are going to need a dual band router for this.
Most routers nowadays are dual band but don't worry if you don't have a dual band router
- you can pick up one of the extenders which we're going to be talking about later because
it can also act as a dual band access point.
So, by now, hopefully, we're in the configuration page of the WiFi of your main house's router.
What we're going to want to do is change the 2.4 GHz frequency SSID to something that you
choose - maybe you'd like to have your WiFi name as something funny, maybe it's the name
of your house, maybe it's your last name - whatever you want, this is going to be the WiFi that
you connect to so make sure that you name it appropiately.
So, put that name in there - I'm just going to call it "TechFlow test."
And then, obviously, add some security to it - I'm just going to use "12345678" for
this demonstration.
Now, the 2.4 GHz link which you've just named and put security on - that is going to be
the network that you're going to connect to on your phone.
But now what you want to do is scroll down to the 5 GHz band and change the SSID to something
totally random.
And it doesn't matter because you're never ever going to see this SSID or use it - I'm
just going to call it "Backhaul."
And then, again, put a password on it - just for demonstration purposes, I'm going to use
"12345678."
Click "Save" and you can now disconnect from your router.
Unplug your ethernet cables and that's pretty much the router configured.
The next thing to do is plug in your first Netgear range extender.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Alex, all you're doing is extending the range - no I'm not -
we're going to mod these things and set these things up in a certain way which
acts like a Mesh system.
The next thing that you want to do is plug in the first range extender and then ethernet
it in to your laptop, open up your web browser and type this link in down here: "http://mywifiext.net"
Once you've done that, it's going to ask you to register and set up the product - just
put in your email address and password and all that sort of thing and then click "Next."
Once you've got in to your Netgear extender, you're going to want to click "Skip" and just
get to the main page of it - you don't want to set this thing up as a wireless extender.
What we want to do is get to the main page of this thing, click on "Do more" and then
"Fast lane."
We're then going to click on "Fast Lane technology" and then click on "Router to extender in 5 GHz."
You then want to click on "Continue."
The Netgear extender is then going to scan for wireless networks and I'm not going to
show you this because it is going to pick up all of the networks around me - what you
want to do is click on the one that says "Backhaul" and then click "Next."
It's then going to ask you for the password for the Backhaul network.
Ours was "12345678."
Click "Next" and then it's going to try and connect to your network.
Once it's done that, it's going to ask you to enter the 2.4 GHz extended network SSID and password.
So, for this, you're going to want to enter, in our case, "TechFlow Test," as this is the
same network that we've configured on the router on the 2.4 GHz side.
This is the network that we want to connect our phones to and seamlessly roam around the
house with.
And then you have to enter the same password as what you used for "TechFlow Test" on the
main router.
Once you've done that, click "Next."
What will happen then is that the range extender will reboot itself and then it's pretty much
set up.
Now, you can have multiple range extenders around your house - multiple range extenders
set up in the same way - you just have to go and set up all of the others in exactly
the same way as you set up the first.
And then what you want to go and do is to go and position them in places around your
home where you see fit.
You can use the indication lights on the Netgear range extender to see if you're close enough
or too far away from your router.
Now, I know that this isn't a true Mesh system and I know that this isn't going to give you
blazing fast speeds but it's going to work very, very well.
And, the thing is, you're not repeating the signal, so you're not halving the signal with
the usual wireless repeater using the same band to transmit and receive the data to your
client device and back to the router thus halving the speed.
With this, you're not doing that.
You connect to your router in 5.8 GHz and you're connecting to your phone in 2.4 GHz.
There's no speed harming involved at all.
Now, to get three of these thing set up, it's probably going to cost you around $120 which
is like one quarter of the price of a full on Mesh system.
Now, if your goal is to be able to have, you know, fairly fast WiFi that you're going to
be able to do some light gaming on, some email and web browsing and easily watch and stream
YouTube and Netflix videos all around your house, this is going to do the job absolutely
fine without any problems at all and more.
But don't just take my word for it - let's go and do some speed tests with and without
the range extenders or, you know, our little "Mesh" system installed.
But, before you go and do that, once you've got all of your extenders set up, you want
to go ahead and connect back to your main router, put "192.168.0.1" back into your web
browser or whatever your IP address of your router is and then go ahead and go down to
the 5GHz network and disable "Broadcast SSID" which, pretty much, what that's going to do,
is stop the "Backhaul" wireless network from being discoverable by your iPhone which just
makes things that little bit cleaner when you're searching for WiFi networks.
You'll only have the one WiFi network "TechFlow test" available to join and it will be there,
covering your whole house.
Right, let's go and do some tests!
Right, so what good would all this be if I didn't show you guys any examples of actually
what it does?
So, we're in the TechFlow den right now, as you can see.
We've got our main router set up just down there.
So, I'm in the vicinity of the main router and we're going to do a speed test right now
- we're connected to our new WiFi network - we're going to begin the test - as you've
seen by wired connection, which I showed you at the start of the video, we were getting
about 47 Mb which is the cap of our lease line here.
So, let's just do a quick speed test here and see what we're pulling right next to the
router for WiFi.
So, as you can see, 25, 24, 23 Mb which is OK for a 2.4 GHz connection.
So, location number two.
This is going to be a test without any of our extenders plugged in.
Right, so, as you can see, I've got one bar of WiFi - you can see I'm going to do a speed
test here...
Oh no, my phone has just clicked on to 4G.
I've lost the WiFi - I've just lost it.
Brilliant.
Right, location number three.
Our office is on the top floor of this building and we are now on the bottom floor of this
building in the opposite corner and, yeah, I don't have any WiFi signal - there's no
point in even doing the test.
Right, let's go and turn on our little extenders.
Right, so let's turn on extender number one, turn on extender number two.
Now, there really isn't any point in doing another speed test in the office because having
the extenders on isn't going to impact the signal connecting directly to the main router at all.
If I do a speed test again, I'm probably going to see exactly the same results as we did before.
We may as well wait for it to do it seeing as I've already clicked it.
So, we're going to wait for a ping to come through...
There we go.
As you can see, brilliant speeds on the internet.
Even faster than before!
Right, so we're back in the first location right now where we had no signal to the main
router at all.
With our extenders plugged in, I've got one bar of signal (the walls in this building
are absolutely massive so covering this building would be near enough impossible but I'm trying
to demonstrate here that we do have signal here, not absolutely nothing as before) and,
as you can see, the speeds are easily enough to let you browse the web and watch YouTube
videos - that's pulling over 10 Mb there and these walls are all solid brick - this is
an old building.
OK, back in location three, connected to now, well, hopefully one of our hotspots - I've
got two bars here; we are so far away from the main router.
11 ping and 12, 13, 14, 15 Mb.
You're easily going to be able to browse the web with that, watch YouTube videos and do
a bit of light gaming with that 11 ping.
This building is massive and I am now, well I've tested both ends of the building - we've
still got a connection.
The upload speed seems to be even faster coming in at 30 Mb which is absolutely incredible.
Let's just jump on YouTube real quick and see if we can load up a simple YouTube video
in like 1080p or something.
What's in my subscriptions?
Unbox therapy.
Let's see.
Working absolutely fine.
So, this works.
What I've designed here, this little mechanism thing - it works.
It's a Mesh WiFi system; you have to do it in the way that I've done it so that it works
in the best way, not necessarily using these things as repeaters, which is what they're
meant to be used for, you're using them as a bit of a Mesh unit.
This, it works and it's like, literally, a quarter of the price of a full blown Mesh unit.
Yes, you've got to set it up yourself but it's fun and it's cheap and it gets the job done.
Hope you've enjoyed - My name's been Alex, this has been TechFlow and we'll catch you in the next one.