SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Fnord666_
Getting WiFi to every corner of your home is made much easier these days with a mesh network, which uses a specialized router and individual nodes that can configure themselves. Companies like Netgear, Samsung and ASUS all have kits of varying price that can help you make one in your own home, but you generally have to purchase a whole new set of devices to make it work. Now, ASUS is offering AiMesh, a system that uses your current ASUS routers to create a mesh network without pricey extra hardware.
Since you're using routers that you already own to create a mesh network, you can decide which one is the primary and which will act as nodes. You simply find the router with the best capabilities, drop it in a central location, then use the built-in software to configure the network.
AiMesh only runs on routers from ASUS, though.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/03/asus-mesh-wifi-aimesh/
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zinho on Friday January 05 2018, @01:46PM
Multi-antenna routers are already set up for use as a repeater in most cases. "Range extender" is already a typical use case for a wireless access point, and if it has access to 4 antennas it can easily dedicate one each to receive and transmit on two different channels.
The biggest problem with mesh networks is contention for the limited number of channels available. When radio guys talk about bandwidth, they're talking about footprint on the EM spectrum, not data throughput. Put too many mesh nodes close together and eventually some of them will start stomping on each other.
As long as you approach it with competent hardware and an understanding that it's not all upsides, the downsides can be worked with/around.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin