Assistance with Home Network Mesh setup
Assistance with Home Network Mesh setup
By late October 2024 I switched my ISP to T-Mobile since its speed was much better (750MBPS vs 6MBPS from the local provider). I received the TMO-G4SE 5G Gateway together with their mesh access point. Before this upgrade, I was using an ASUS RT-AX82U. Can I connect the mesh access point directly to my router instead of the gateway? This is important because my Plex server isn’t working well on T-Mobile Wi-Fi. When everything is set up on the home network, I can’t stream local content unless remote access is turned on. I also prefer using the ASUS router myself since I bought the Gundam-themed model. My goal is to keep the network reliable and useful for as long as possible.
Likely not. From my experience, mesh networks usually consist of devices from the same brand or ecosystem. I use a set of Amazon Eero devices and have a Netgear PoE WAP on the same network for my garden. It functions as an access point but isn’t part of the mesh itself—it’s just a wired backhaul device. Personally, I wouldn’t notice much difference between switching between my Eero devices and the Netgear. While there should be experts here with more insight, I’ve always kept the ISP router as the primary gateway, turned off its Wi-Fi features, and added a third-party mesh system (like Orbi, Eero, Deco, etc.).