- Hey guys, this is Austin and our Wi-Fi sucks!
So you guys will probably remember our old set.
(laughs)
Alright.
Now, that was great, it was cool to have everything
in one office but as we've started expanding we've gotten
another office that's across the hall.
It's awesome because it's enabled us to do a ton of
cool stuff, build some new sets, have a lot more space,
but the problem is that the Wi-Fi is now a
straight up disaster.
So that's where Asus comes in, not only do they sponsor
this video, but more importantly they hooked us up with
their brand new Lyra Trio.
Hopefully the saving grace to our terrible Wi-Fi situation.
So, the thing is we actually have good Internet
here at the office.
We have a dedicated business line with 300 Mbps up and down,
and as long as we're actually here in the office,
typically we get pretty decent speeds.
So, over Wi-Fi a lot of times we're actually going to be
pretty close to that full 300 Mbps.
Now see there we're getting 190, 240, 260, I mean that's
definitely, totally solid speed.
Now, Wi-Fi's really important for us as not only are we
obviously going to be doing stuff like watching videos and
downloading stuff, but importantly we deal with a lot of
really giant video files we're constantly uploading
to YouTube, uploading and sending files back and forth
between us, and of course most importantly, downloading
those sweet, sweet Steam games to do the benchmarks with.
So in comparison if I run a speed test in our second office,
you're going to see that the speeds are slightly
less than 280 Mbps.
So right now we're getting...
Four, maybe five megabits, oh no, down to two, one.
So, the thing is not only do we not get great speeds,
but almost more importantly than that, it sort of
drops out pretty consistently.
So the way that a mesh Wi-Fi system works is
pretty straightforward.
So, right now we have a single Wi-Fi router, now it's going
to be a fairly high-end AC solution and it's fine for a
small space, but the laws of physics mean the Wi-Fi can
only go so far.
So, if you take a look at the actual Lyra itself, you'll see
that the way of getting around this is just to add
more stations to the mix.
I make it sound really simple, as if a bunch of engineers
at Asus didn't spend years and hundreds and thousands of
man hours on developing a product.
I'm like, "Just add more Wi-Fi, it's fine, don't worry
about it!"
(laughs)
Out of the years that we've shot videos, I've never heard
Ken say the words, "My thumb was in the shot."
(laughs)
So the way this works is that one of these will function
as your main base station.
So just like any other Wi-Fi router, you just need to
connect it via Ethernet to your modem, and especially if
you have a smaller house or apartment, one of these is
actually going to be enough to cover it.
However, if you've got a little bit of a bigger house or
specifically for our situation, you have an office that has
a lot of space to cover, you can connect to the additional
hubs and they will all work together.
What's unique about these is that not only do they have
3x3 MIMO Wi-Fi, but you're also going to be getting
this triangular design.
So, what's cool about that is not only do you have full
dual-band support for 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi, but because
they do have this triangular shape, you're going to be
getting some better range.
So you have to think about a mesh network a little bit
differently than a standard Wi-Fi network in that your
devices are going to be connecting and bouncing between
all of these depending on where you are in the house,
but also only one of these typically, at least, although
I'll talk a little more about that later, is going to be
connected to your router.
So these also need to be able to communicate between
each other and the 3x3 plus the actual triangular design
makes all of this work a lot better than
a traditional 2x2 solution.
The triangular design also helps the Lyra to project
better Wi-Fi signal into multiple story houses.
So this is something that I actually wouldn't mind using in
my own place.
So I do use a mesh network in Google Wi-Fi, and well for
the most part it actually does work really well,
one of my main issues is the performance.
It's reliable but a lot of times when I'm farther away from
the main base station, I see significantly reduced speeds.
In addition, while these will work wirelessly, if you have a
newer place that has Ethernet wired around your house,
you actually can use the Ethernet backhaul to connect
each one of these to the network independently.
So that will give you some better speeds because instead of
them having to talk to each other wirelessly, it can all be
done via wired Ethernet and you're going to be getting
the maximum speed.
So our current network setup is pretty straightforward.
So, a lot of it surrounds this, the Storinator that I built
with Linus a little over a year ago, which currently has
over 150TB of capacity that we use to store all of our
raw footage as well as our completed projects.
So Jimmy has the iMac Pro which is connected via
10 Gig Ethernet to the Storinator.
So you actually don't need the Wi-Fi that much, but for
Ken and I we're actually pretty much entirely relying
on Wi-Fi to be able to pull down files and that
kind of stuff.
So, let's actually get this set up.
With our UPS installed and our cable modem disconnected,
the next step is to install Lyra.
So, all we need to do with this guy is just plug it in
with the included power cable and plug it directly
into our cable modem.
So we plug the Lyra into power as well as connect our
Ethernet port into the LAN/WAN, then we just need to turn
on our cable modem and we will be up and running...
Hopefully.
Next step is to download the Lyra app for iPhone or Android
and it should be as simple as just connecting it like this.
Excellent, your Lyra mesh Wi-Fi node has been discovered.
And there we go, the Lyra is set-up.
So our next step is to take our other base stations and
spread them out throughout the office.
So, one of the main things we actually need to keep in mind
is that we have to cover not only this space but also
the space across the hall.
Setting up the base stations is really straightforward.
All you need to do is plug them in and then inside the app,
they will be added and then once everything is tied together
and any firmware updates are done, you're going to be
up and running.
Inside the app you can see that not only do we have the
main Lyra but also do have the secondary one in the office
as well as most importantly for what we need here,
we have a Lyra set up in our secondary studio.
So with Lyra we are getting features like AI protection,
which is using Trend Micro to be able to analyze any
kind of threats on the network.
But the most important question is, is it going to be
faster in here now?
Let's find out.
Please be faster, please be faster!
Alright, pings pretty quick and oh yeah!
Dude, 120, 130, wow!
And that's at serious upload as well.
170, 180 Mbps.
So no, it's not going to be the full 300 Mbps that's
theoretically possible, but considering that we were at
two, three, maybe 4 Mbps in here before, this has made
a huge difference.
So, that my friends is how we fixed the Wi-Fi
in our studios.
Of course, huge shout-out to Asus for sponsoring this video
and if you guys wanna go check out the Lyra, the link
will be in the description.