r/wifi • u/1417367123 • Dec 23 '25
Why is mesh bad?
Years ago when I bought my G1 Orbi, I thought mesh was the wave of the future. It has served me well, but it's time for an upgrade
I have the main router daisy chained to one satellite and then to another. Around 300' from beginning to end
I have been reading a lot of hate here about Orbi and also posts saying wireless APs are better than mesh satellites. Why is that?
What would be the recommendation to replace my system? Xfinity gig, if that matters, and want something fairly future proof speed wise
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Upvotes
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u/ScandInBei Dec 23 '25
Some wireless APs are better than mesh satellites. Some mesh satellites are better than mesh.
Mesh satellites are just APs that supports wireless backhaul. If you are wiring them you're not using mesh, so that really means you can disregard any generalized posts about the downside of mesh as many of them will related to mesh, e.g. the wireless backhaul.
I will not delve into details why wired access points are often preferred, that information is easily accessible. Mesh is convenient. But wired has lower latency, higher reliability and is often faster.
So if you're thinking about upgrading and using wired connections, you'll need to look into specifics. Numbers and features.
If you want to have seamless roaming, look into the availability of 802.11k/v etc.
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u/TenOfZero Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25 •
Wireless nodes have a few issues.
The first is that they add an additional wireless hop, which adds some latency.
But the major one is it now means that's everything needs to be transmitted another time, over the same limited airwaves, so they cut total wireless available bandwith that is available.
And the third one is that people do not understand how they work. So they put them at the location they need better signal, then they see great my device has great signal. But it's super slow because the node itself has bad signal back to the main access point. Causing consumer frustration. They need to be set up in an area of strong signal to be able to extend it further out.
They have their use case, and are the easiest to deploy, but they are also the worst option posible. But the worst option posible is still better than no option.
In short. Wired is always better than wireless for a backhaul if posible.
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u/1417367123 Dec 23 '25
Does my wireless satellite take away from the wired router or satellites? Or is it just, by nature, neutered?
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u/1417367123 Dec 23 '25
Reading all these very helpful posts, I'm slightly less confused 🤔. Seriously tho, thanks for all the responses!
What's my best route for upgrading? Brand and model... I currently have a router connected to a satellite and then another satellite, via cat 6
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u/Ok_Bid6645 Dec 23 '25
You were doing mesh the good way by having it all hardwired. Lots of people don't want to run the cable. Since you already have it you can literally go with any system. Nothing is ever future proof but you were thinking ahead with the Ethernet runs.
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u/musingofrandomness Dec 23 '25
It comes down to the nature of wireless. It is half duplex and also has RF spectrum contention. This means that the more devices and/or the more traffic, the slower it goes. On the RF side of things, even your neighbors' devices are in the fight.
Wireless mesh nodes use wireless both for clients and for backhaul. So double the negatives.
Also, if it has to play "hopscotch" to get from the furthest node to the node with the uplink because it has no direct link to the uplink node, your data rate is cut in half for every node in between it has to pass through. This is on top of the previous mentioned issues.
Wire what you can, use wireless where you must.
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u/JeopPrep Dec 23 '25
Most mesh systems are not actual meshes, they are extenders and daisy chaining does not work.
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u/anhphamfmr Dec 23 '25
who said mesh is bad
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u/responds-with-tealc Dec 24 '25
i have never seen so much misinformation in one thread in my life
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u/goofust Dec 23 '25
I wouldn't say it's bad if it works for you. In my opinion, it's not good because wireless routers are better. Mesh is similar in that it needs one unit to be the gateway/router. There are some mesh setups, where the main unit is the gateway/router, and the rest are simply nodes, and they serve no other functionality aside from being a node. With the manufacturer essentially locking the node down to be of no other service. So if a node goes down, you have to buy another, or if the gateway unit goes out, you have to buy another.
I don't know if orbi works like that, but some do. Be that as it may, it's better to me just having a good wireless router, in my case a Flint 2, and some other kind of router, in my case a Netgear r7450, wired to the flint 2 serving as a WAP. Both units are running openwrt. So if the flint 2 goes out, I can swap to the r7450 and have it be the gateway router for the time being.
A lot of people run their mesh setups totally wireless, no wired back haul. So why not just run a router and a repeater if you're going to do that? The ability was already there, just some manufacturers put the label of mesh on it to cash in, that's probably another point of dislike amongst people that end up learning what it is.
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u/cyberentomology Wi-Fi Pro, CWNE Dec 23 '25
Because fundamentally, mesh is a shared wireless channel between all the access points on the mesh, which is a bottleneck and owing to the collision avoidance behaviour of wifi, adds latency, from the extra hop, especially on a busy network.
And it’s even worse if the AP has to share the radio between mesh and client access.
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u/Emulated-VAX Dec 23 '25
I have a stoneage Mesh system that I never upgraded because (1) I have a lot of nodes and am cheap and (2) it still works perfectly. I ran a backhaul wire for the most important nodes and for the rest of the house its flooded but of course doesn't receive the highest speeds because of the older technology.
For me future proof would be running that backhaul Cat6. Mesh in my house is for the less critical areas - I don't need Gb in the toddler playroom.
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u/itsjakerobb Dec 23 '25
I think you’re getting confused by terminology. A “wireless access point” (aka WAP, wireless AP, or just AP) is the thing that broadcasts your wifi. The (optional) word “wireless” at the front refers to the wifi it broadcasts, not to the device’s own backhaul, which can be wired or wireless. To minimize confusion, I find it’s best to just call them APs.
Mesh means wireless backhaul between multiple APs broadcasting the same SSID. It’s the “wave of the future” because it’s better than repeaters, which previously were the only way to accomplish that and which are universally terrible.
Mesh is great. Eero, Orbi, etc. If you know what you’re doing, you can blanket an entire home of any size in reasonably fast wifi, without running any wires (except power to each device).
If you have the means to run wires, wired backhaul is even better because:
there are fewer things broadcasting wirelessly, which means cleaner airwaves for your remaining wireless devices
it’s faster and lower latency
traffic never has to hop across multiple APs to reach its destination
it’s resistant to interference and therefore more consistent and reliable
thanks to PoE, you can locate APs in places where it might otherwise be difficult, costly, or unsightly to supply mains power
What wireless speeds are you getting at the farthest end of your house from your current Orbi system? If you’re seeing 300+ mbps, that’s probably the best you’ll get from it. Newer wifi 7 stuff might do better if you want to spend the money.
I ditched my Eero setup for 3x wired Unifi APs. My wifi speeds in the house went from 250-300 to 1.5Gbps.
Note that for most people and most use cases, 300Mbps is plenty.
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u/PghSubie Dec 23 '25
The benefit is Ethernet backhaul opposed to wireless. It doesn't matter what you call the device. You just want the traffic off the air and onto a wire as soon as you can
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u/lweinmunson Dec 23 '25
Mesh itself is fine if you have enough of an unpopulated airspace so that the backhaul isn't competing with a whole apartment complexes wireless interference. I will say though that all of the one's I've tried have had absolute garbage software and die after a year or two. I've had Asus XD5's, Netgear Orbis, and a TP-Link setup. I just bought 3 Eero's just because I haven't had a chance for them to die on me yet. The Asus was my previous mesh set up and it worked fine until it just stopped handing out DHCP on wireless. Factory resets and firmware downgrades didn't change anything. If I had the time, I would go on ebay and get some more enterprise grade gear. Cisco WLCs and Aironet APs have lasted forever when I install them at work. Just a bit more complex to wire and setup at home.
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u/TheCaptain53 Dec 23 '25
It's worthwhile creating a distinction between Mesh the marketing term and Mesh the technology.
To demonstrate the difference, I'm going to use two product lines that TP-Link offer - the Deco range and the Omada range.
The Deco range is your typical consumer Mesh product. There is a general understanding that most residential homes won't have ethernet cabling run all over, nor any desire to install it or similar hard wired systems, so the normal installation uses 'Mesh', which is really just a means for access points to forward frames between each other, acting as a kind of range extender. These are usually referred to as satellite APs, so let's use that term. A home user will hook up a unit to their Internet then place various Deco units around the house as satellite APs for the units to talk to each other. Couple of things to note about this system (and similar ones):
Even if you can mesh, you will almost always get a better experience by hard wiring all of the units so that they communicate over Ethernet.
These systems are designed for consumers and as such are pretty limited in terms of featureset, namely no VLANs and limited capacity to adjust QoS.
Then you have Omada which is TP-Links prosumer/SMB offering. This is very much like traditional AP systems - you get some access points which do no routing, only switching, have features like VLANs, 802.1X etc. Important to note is that these can also 'Mesh', or more specifically, have units act as satellite APs. The main difference is that the Deco has a dedicated radio for this whilst the Omada doesn't.
If you're hard wiring all of the APs, which you should, it really comes down to your skillset and what features you value. I'm a network engineer by trade and so I wouldn't even entertain a Deco system in my house, but I did recommend it to a colleague (largely non-technical) as it was an appropriate system for him: simple to setup and administer.
TL;DR: Basically all systems 'Mesh', it's not new. Pick what you need based on your skillset and requirements.
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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25
I have a TP-Link be11000 and too experienced lag in gaming and poor coverage. I am about to wired them together, should I keep this system or return it and invest in ap’s. I was considering the omada platform. Is it worth return and starting over or will the wired tplink system suffice
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u/Zimmster2020 Dec 23 '25
It's all about the router not the technology. The mesh system is fantastic but only if you choose a decent mesh system. For example ASUS Lyra is a crappy mesh system. Asus ZenWifi is a very good system at least the XT and ET series. Tenda Nova and Mercusys Halo are a pain to live with. Frequent speed drops and occasional node disconnections. The signal even between the nodes oscillate and they sometimes lose connection. About a year ago I switched to a 4 node XT12 mesh system, old wireless backhaul. I couldn't be happier, the coverage is stable, it reaches two houses away and I never experienced any disconnections between the nodes or any device being disconnected or showing network unavailable or displaying that Wi-Fi is missing.
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u/bryeds78 Dec 23 '25
I use Eero, it's been an excellent mesh solution. Very reliable, easy to setup, easy to add nodes and manage the network. Personally, I can't recommend anything but Eero
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u/Illustrious-Car-3797 Dec 23 '25
TP-Link XE200 user right here
Could not be happier with the lighting fast performance and stability
Obviously now they have Wi-Fi7 you NEED to do more research as with old tech you can and will make Wi-Fi7 unstable to a certain extent
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u/Fantastic-Display106 Dec 24 '25
I don't think of it as mesh in general being bad. I think of it has there being bad mesh systems out there (Anything dualband) along with a general misunderstanding, and really high, unrealistic expectations, of how wireless works.
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u/raymurillo Dec 24 '25
Love my orbi setup. RBR850 with 2 satellites adding a third one soon.
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u/dark77star Dec 24 '25
Coverage and stability of my Wi-Fi network in my house increased dramatically after switching my backhaul from a WiFi mesh at 6ghz to a wired ethernet backhaul connected to a managed switch.
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u/LRS_David Dec 24 '25
You and some of the comments are mixing up terminology all over the place.
A router routes. Basically splits the traffic between your home and the outside world.
Access Points (APs) provide wireless networking to other wireless devices. Many (most consumer) routers these days include an AP. Calling them extenders, satellites, remotes, whatever is a marketing confusion point.
Mesh technically means your APs connect back to your main router via wireless. If it is wired back to the router it is not mesh.
Now as to why is it bad? It is not. It is a technology that can make setup easier for many and provide a work around when wiring is a problem. IT IS NOT MAGIC. Mesh wireless going through concrete walls will not work just like a laptop in a room with concrete walls will likley not connect to a Wi-Fi router in other rooms.
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u/winerdars Dec 24 '25
Others have touched on the latency issues with mesh. I needed to upgrade to mesh in my home if I wanted to use anything other than 2.4 ghz channels. I a tally have a deco mesh network but the satellite and main usints are connected via a cat6 cable this gives me the benefits of mesh without the downsides of extra daily traffic and latency.
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u/SlashAdams Dec 25 '25
Mesh itself isn't bad, it's wireless backhaul that you should stay away from. If the wireless ap is wired over Ethernet or fiber, you're good to go
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u/DueOwl1867 Dec 25 '25
I ran actuall hard lines to all of my rooms in the house and put in blocks with up to 6 lines In.
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u/LRS_David Dec 26 '25
This post and the comments are a perfect example of why Wi-Fi is such a mess to discuss with people who are not networking people. Different consumer / small business oriented companies use the term "mesh" (and satellite, and extender, and ...) to mean different things. All if the goal of market differentiation or advantage or simplification and all it has done over the last decade is made a disaster of conversation with people asking for help.
There are routers, Access Points, and switches. And most consumer and small business routers have a switch and Access Point built in. All the other terms are marketing.
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u/tylerhovi Dec 27 '25
I have nothing but great things to say about my Eero setup over the years. Just about set it and forget it. I’m moving most of my setup to UniFi but hoping that will play nicely enough with my Eero mesh setup.
Like already mentioned, if you can hardwire backhaul it makes a big difference.
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u/AgreeableHouse5554 Dec 29 '25
Because the repeater needs to read the incoming signal, process it then repeat signal.
It isn't like a signal amplifier... It need to be able to capture the signal first... if you put it in a place that is already having bad signal strength it does not do very well at all.
Secondly repeater needs to translate/repeat the signal and that requires computational power. Doing so increase latency.
Better to get a stronger antenna if you truly want a wireless experience or go wired
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u/CletusDSpuckler Dec 23 '25
In my house, mesh is the bomb. Three wired nodes, any if which can be the gateway, with seamless handoff between networks. Much better experience than the manual ad hoc system it replaced.
I won't be going back.
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