April 12, 2022, 4:38 am | Read time: 4 minutes

Who hasn’t experienced it: There’s usually a room in every apartment or house where Wi-Fi reception is problematic—be it the kitchen, bathroom, or basement. However, there’s a new and modern solution: Wi-Fi mesh.

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For a long time, especially in large apartments and houses, people have relied on so-called Wi-Fi repeaters, which capture the signal from the router, for example, a floor below, and then spread it further. This sounds good in theory, but in practice, the signal forwarding doesn’t always work optimally. With each repeater, the data throughput decreases. One reason for this is its functionality. It uses only a single channel, that of the router. If many Wi-Fi-enabled devices are connected in the household, the reduced data throughput eventually becomes noticeable. The data highway in your own home gets clogged.

Particularly annoying is the so-called sticky effect. This means that although you’re connected to the repeater, you’re still receiving the weak and therefore slow signal from the router. The connection is not handed over to the receiving device losslessly and at the best moment.

Also interesting: The best Wi-Fi repeaters for stable internet

Mesh always ensures the best Wi-Fi reception

This is where a mesh Wi-Fi network helps. Essentially, it looks the same from the outside as a system with repeaters. Mesh Wi-Fi also requires various nodes to distribute the wireless network in the apartment or house. The crucial difference lies inside the distributors. The technology in mesh Wi-Fi is completely different from that of repeaters.

While the repeater uses and distributes the router’s Wi-Fi, a mesh Wi-Fi system builds its own wireless network, where the nodes can communicate with each other, and the software automatically switches between the 2.4- and 5-gigahertz frequencies depending on the load, ensuring the best and fastest connection to the receiver. But why is this helpful for a fast connection?

Consider the following situation we all know: We move around the apartment with the laptop. In a repeater system, problems often occur at the handover points. Since each repeater is its own hotspot, each device has its own SSID. So, it can happen that the laptop is much closer to a better-placed repeater but is still logged into the network of the repeater two rooms away. The result: a slow connection because the laptop doesn’t automatically log into the closer repeater.

This problem doesn’t exist with mesh Wi-Fi. Here, the first node of the mesh is connected to the router via a network cable. This deactivates the router system. The mesh Wi-Fi takes over and spans its network in the apartment. The other mesh distributors then serve as access points, like the repeater, with the crucial difference that all mesh devices are interconnected and use only a single identifier.

As a result, it no longer matters in which room the laptop is located. It is always in a single Wi-Fi network and always at the node with the best connection. If the internet is slow, it’s actually the provider’s fault because the mesh Wi-Fi in your home operates without data loss.

Also interesting: The 6 best mesh systems

What technical requirements are needed?

A different technology also requires specific devices. To use mesh Wi-Fi in your own home, the router should be mesh-capable. The well-known Fritzbox from AVM comes with mesh Wi-Fi technology built-in. Meanwhile, there are also many other providers whose devices support mesh Wi-Fi.

Depending on the size of the area to be covered, in addition to the router, the so-called master, two or three additional mesh distributors are needed. By the way, mesh Wi-Fi works not only in your own home but also wonderfully in your own garden.

At this point, we come to a significant disadvantage: Mesh nodes cost significantly more than the usual repeaters. In most cases, however, the higher investment is worth it. Nowadays, many devices are usually connected to the Wi-Fi network in most households. A smooth movie experience or a video meeting without image dropouts quickly outweighs the higher acquisition costs.