As an actual network engineer who builds "pro grade" networks-- if you're already spending a ton of money, I highly suggest hiring someone who builds networks, not your electrician. 9/10 times you're going to get trumped up junk at an insane markup, installed poorly.
Also a good idea is to have electrician cert in low-voltage that can do the backhaul pull/wiring throughout the home so that APs can be PoE and also lines for security. Its an entire additional planning layer. I wired my home so each room has Cat6e along with growth expansion at the hub/patch panel...aka data closet.
you are right. The last person I would want touching such an important design would be the electrician. They typically put in junk and are not going to be there to support it.
If you're wondering what to look for, someone who installs network cables in the pro-space is a "Structured or Network Cabling Installer". TBH a lot of this you can do yourself, buy a couple boxes of CAT6 and get to work, 568-B isn't hard to term. I may/may not be an Network Engineer, but I am not an electrician or cable installer, and I wired my whole home with the help of a friend.
As a network engineer, this was painful to watch. First, this script should have been run by a subject matter expect before filming for fact checking. But most importantly, we are missing the “why” that makes sense to the average home owner. Additionally, architecture matters even more than equipment as “pro-grade” equipment can still underperform compared to properly configured consumer grade”.
You took all of the words out of my mouth. I strongly suspected that's how this video would play out, and it didn't fail to disappoint. When I see the words "pro-grade", I know what's coming next is grossly over-priced and probably not any better than I could do myself, with just a TINY amount of research.
Im not a network engineer. I'm an IT guy that works for a living. The end user doesn't care how smart you are. They care if the network works or not. This dates back to when I was designing networks in the late 90s. Mind you the presenter is explaining this to a common end user.
While calling the Cat-6 cable RG6 was hard to listen to, getting into dB attenuation would go over the head of the typical audience. Likewise, showing drops terminated in plugs isn't what I would consider a professional installation, but it is common for residential. I'm not a network engineer, but I do have 60 hard-wired drops in my home and over half a dozen AP's all DIY. Almost all Ubiquiti.
1) Walls significantly impact Wifi performance. Ubiquity has a fantastic tool to see wifi performance with the impacts of interior walls, exterior walls, windows, etc. 2) 2.4GHz will have longer reach, but significantly slower performance than 5GHz and the new 6GHz bands. 3) While doing your ethernet wiring consider of now is the time for outside security cameras. 4) You mentioned that a spa is example of wifi connected devices, but so many more… Ovens, Fridge/Freezer, Washer/Dryers even your car in the garage. 5) Access points are a bit unsightly so planning where to put them is important. 6) Consider adding a conduit to the demarc location. My new home the cable provider ran fiber right to the house. Pretty amazing. 7) Consider adding a UPS to the network rack. I saw powerwalls in your video… They will glitch the power when power drops out. 8) Don’t forget that the equipment makes heat. If it is in a small room it will get warm. Good start and keep going!
Please don't let CJ do another video about networking, he is not knowledgeable enough to be teaching others on a channel that has experts explain things.
And, even the low voltage installers need to be carefully vetted. A recent install had many cables not passing a simple Cat6 continuity test, and didn't run the cable jacket into the connector. But, it was the only option the builder allowed. They completely missed one of the jack locations.
Rule number 2: insure the low voltage team is the last crew installing in your structure before mechanical inspection. I was an integrated wiring rough-in installer. My team was forced by a contractor to go in prior to the hvac installation. Then we got the privilege of redoing about 80% of the home runs of cat6 and coax, putting us behind on other jobs.
@@ThePrimananas *Who is working with a bunch of communicators. Who apparently didn't offer him any help. Someone direct him to The KISS Method! Remind him he just wants to give a simple (but thorough) explanation of some systems of transmitters and receivers. Their capabilities. Considerations for their best placement, and the benefits of hard wiring versus wireless! He actually reached most of these points, then wandered around in them. This was kind of painful. Especially when you know the guy has the knowledge in him!*
He's not explaining much, and what *is* there is vague enough to make you make the wrong choice. Tips for a solid home internet experience: 1. Run conduits everywhere for low-voltage networking. 2. Run *multiple cables* to every room via those conduits from a centralized location that's not outside the climate envelope. 1 coax, 2 ethernet (CAT6e at a minimum, CAT6A, 7 or higher to future proof), 1-2 fiber, maybe HDMI or audio if you're planning big. 2a. You can buy 1-gang network wall panels that fit 6 cables in them, so get at least 4 cables run to each location in the room. And maybe to more than one wall. 2b. It's okay if you don't use every cable you run. It will cost at least 5x to run cables later. 2c. Run conduit and cables outside for utilities so they don't have to poke holes in your nice house. Also maybe to other places for other external buildings. 2d. Have someone skilled pick a several good spots for wireless APs and run cables there, too. Don't assume your APs will run at max strength and get the full theoretical distance, and instead run lower power and overlap. 2e. Run cables to the doorbell, to the corners of the house and external alcoves for cameras. 2f. Run cables to a few places in common areas, like the living room and kitchen for smart devices: thermostats, voice assistants, multi-room audio, etc. 2g. Keep track of all the cables you run on plans and label them. If your region needs permits for low-voltage cabling, keep it to code from the start. 3. Don't use mesh wifi. It's slower in a lot of ways. It's only an okay choice if you need to tear down walls to run cables and don't want to. 4. Don't let your builder pick your networking gear. 5. You can skimp out on the switches, modems, etc at first. As long as the cables are all there, you can upgrade when ready. 5a. Don't pick enthusiast gear thinking it's professional gear. Some enthusiast hardware is comparatively expensive but far worse than professional gear. 6. Run everything wired that you can so that your wireless works well for the things that need it. 7. Putting your APs in a closet will just add more interference and reduce the range. Get used to seeing them. 8. If you're using really nice gear, you'll either need multiple small units or a lot of airflow to the switches for really high speeds. And maybe some sound isolation. 9. Get a UPS wherever your internet modem and POE switch is so if the power goes out locally, you can still have .5-2 hours of internet access. 10. Get a symmetric internet connection if you can. Upload speeds matter a lot for streaming, cloud access, etc. 11. Traditional satellite internet is slow. Go fiber if you can, then maybe cable. Then starlink and other LEO satellite services. 12. If you don't understand how to use the gear and manage a professional system, have someone skilled pick out the gear. Consider a service contract for maintenance, updates and to answer questions.
Good advice. Can recommend Ubiquiti kit and you can manage all the APs using their free software that can run in a docker container on a lot of NAS or Home Assistant.
Cat 7 was never a standard. It's an obscure design with different connectors. Get Cat 8 instead. It's shielded and will do 40 gbps. I wouldn't run any coax in 2024 but would run fiber.
I kinda feel bad for your customers. One should have coduits to every room in the house going to a technical place (be that a techical room, boiler room etc) that way when the customer talks to the electrician/technician during final face of the build that you can run the cables to what room the customer needs it. Runing a bunch of coax, cat 7.... or cat 8, or fiber to every room is pointless. And when that said, yes its nice with Cat 8 but at WHAT point do you need it? then you need to use expensive enterprice equipment cause sorry Im perhaps outdated but what consumer grade pc/routers/switches etc can use the 40GB/s limit.. Sometimes less is more, Cat 6A will work for 99,99999% of every user out there. Regarding video.. Perhaps its different in europe but wth kinda bad mesh signals do you get in NA if you a mesh device in almost every room xD? (just feel bad for future non-tech savy customers watching this) -chat warrior out.
Conduit? Really? If you are building a new home, run ethernet throughout. (I built a home in 1997 with 10 endpoints. From those endpoints, when you need multiple connections, install a switch. I now live in a Condo with several COAX connections, originally for cable TV. Using MoCA adapters, one can transmit Ethernet over Coax. The latest MoCA is 2.5 Gb. I use Ubiquiti, which is between consumer and professional, although it is not for the technically illiterate.
I love the fact he's showing off Araknis Wi-Fi system, which has a 50% markup roughly and is crazy overpriced and lack luster performance yet the demo he did in the laundry room closet probably using his own house he runs a ubiquity unifi access point that doesn't have a absurd markup on it and is reasonability priced
Ubiquiti for the win. It work well, serves both the home consumer and commercial market, offers integrated support for cameras/door access contro/etc., and is to configure and manage. I use Ubiquiti's UniFi products throughout my home and find it far better than the LinkSys Velop Pro I used previously.
I have been using Unifi for 10 years and nothing really compares to the price and performance. I have never heard of Araknis, so I can assume it is some $$$ stuff that has high markup.
I would say this video should be "Plan for pro networking" over it being wifi based. From the wires coming to the home to a command center location then from central to each individual room and perimeter roof for security cameras. When i walk a home networking is one of the first techy things i think about. I need to know if its prewired and if so how well it was done. If it isn't I need to learn where I can wire things too. minimum of 2 ethernet jacks per room. then each corner of a home for a camera. High tier pro installation - Use conduit tubes to pull ethernet to make it even easier to upgrade in the future. This would require access panels.
If you are setting up a network in a home, plan first for support. Pro-grade equipment = harder to support for the homeowner. If something breaks, who will fix it? Who will even have the skills to diagnose it? I fix over-complicated home networks on a regular basis. The builder and/or AV company that installed a pro-grade system isn't available for on-going support, so the homeowner finds somebody like me. I show up, see a closet full of separated components, each with its own (unknown) password. I have been doing this for 30 years, so I'll find some way to make it work, but sometimes I do have to replace pro-grade equipment with consumer equipment just so the homeowner can have something that is supportable. My top priorities for a home network are 1) support and 2) performance. Support always comes first. Computer networking systems will hiccup or fail. It is a matter of when, not if. Simplicity is a homeowner's friend when it comes to integrating tech into a home.
I agree with BoiseHomeWiFi in that us average homeowners just need a reliable system that performs, and for when it breaks, we can find & get support. And we need that pro support because even the simplest home network these days is beyond the average homeowner. I keep a few business cards handy in my “homeowner” rolodex: plumber, car mechanic, electrician, HVAC guy, and a network integrator (I am the carpenter). I feel like BoiseHomeWiFi’s feedback is the most useful, common-sense comment in this whole crazy comment section. So many of the commenters are clearly commercial network guys who may be technically correct about their rant (advice) but it’s overkill or simply not applicable to the majority of average homeowners who are the focus of this video. Most of us need a home network good enough to do what we are all doing right now-watching & commenting on a UA-cam video from the comfort of our Laz-E-Boy chair. We are not programming the Mars rover with telemetry instructions on deploying its thrusters to execute a safe landing on the red planet’s surface.
This is the best advice. I'd add to it that wire should be run from a utility room patch panel to any location that a stationary screen might be installed. Also, different ISPs have different levels of support and equipment.
I am a data communications architect and have been since the 90s. Not a bad intro video I guess but have to mention some things I did not care for in his mech room build out was the network cabling should NOT have went directly into the portable cabinet. The cabling should have been terminated to a patch panel on the back wall, and patch cables from there to the switch ports in the cabinet. Also, I did not see any labeling for which network cable went to what station in the house. And lastly the cabinet didn’t appear to have good ventilation which for that little equipment could be solved with a metal mesh door instead of a glass door so that cabinet does not become a hot box and cause early device failure for any of the devices in it. And I hope there is a UPS in that cabinet. Ok, I am off the soap box now 🙂
Good catch. Patch panels make it easier to terminate too. You don’t want your installer spending time putting RJ45s on cable. Punch it into the 110 blocks in the jack and buy small patch cables ( color coded by use if you really to get fancy :) )
How they did it is how it is mostly gets done. As a tech you get tired of bypassing patch pannels or keystone jaks. Everyone goes direct now. There was wire wrapped labels. The fan controller is from cool components. It has intake, exhaust, and a thermal probe. It will keep the temp you set in the cabinet. There was a power conditioner, but yes no back up battery. It could be added in OVRC and be app controlled.
@@dennis4061 That is really interesting. I don't understand that change as it would make the problem worse. I have never been in a wiring closet where we used direct connections versus a patch panel. The simplicity of punching down the jacks in the patch panel is far less error prone than someone putting RJ45s on a cable--especially CAT6A and shielded RJ45s would be really error prone.
@@ny4i I agree cat 6a is allot, probably would be best done and left alone on a patch pannel. Most people use rj45 passthrough for cat6 (no sheild), and it is fast. They leave big wire loops incase you have to re-terminate. I see it everywhere. However, commercial or telecom, it is always a patch pannel.
For any device that is going to end up in a fixed location (TVs, desktop computers, wifi repeaters, security camera, etc) hard wire those with ethernet cable. This will reduce unnecessary wifi traffic.
Yes! Dropping ethernet jacks with Cat5e or Cat6 is easy and cheap during construction and usually isn't too difficult in existing homes. Anything that is stationary (particularly devices that need to stream, PCs, and gaming consoles) should be wired.
Even enterprise grade wireless equipment doesn't beat ethernet. If you are building you should be building around getting ethernet drops everywhere you expect to need connectivity and after that consumer grade wireless hardware for the tablets, phones, or laptops should be fine unless you're talking about major square footage. If you do find that you want enhanced wireless capabilities it's an easy retrofit if you've been deliberate about your wired setup.
I understand this is supposed to be an “Explain It Like I’m 5” type of episode but I don’t feel like it’s up to the standards of a typical Matt Risinger video that were here for.
I completely disagree. It couldn't have been simpler. If the homeowner or builder wants to learn more, pay an expert or take the time to learn more. They covered all the basics from the standpoint of a homeowner. The fact that he talked about this at all is fantastic.
@@BoondockSaintRyan This is an important topic and this video did it an injustice. They didn't cover the basics properly, and they omitted a lot of information which I'd consider essential in any explanation for how to plan for good internet in your home. This is an important topic and this video did it an injustice. There are a hundred channels on UA-cam which explain this stuff, and do a much better job of it.
Thank you for this, Matt. I've been a service tech for an ISP/Telco for 15 years and can attest to the importance of properly planning a home network with a hardwired cabling/home run solution. I can't count how many times I've gone to install service to a new build and the electrician and/or home owner didn't run any wires in the home at all. It's not a great conversation to have with the homeowner when they realize they won't have strong wifi throughout their 3000 sqft house due to the lack of any useable wiring.
But it's Wireless we don't need any wires. in the process of setting up a toast POS system they were under the expectation that it was all Wireless but toast says that all devices are wired and basically give you an access point just for the handheld units. I fought with a printer physically connected to a kiosk with Wi-Fi only to find out that the USB-C cable doesn't carry data back to the printer (it acts as a docking station). so needed to get a cable to that location which thankfully was a short distance but I came back to finish and found out they want it in a different location, glad I didn't permanently install it yet. On the upside I ripped out all the old cabling and I'm starting from scratch both because the previous restaurant left it a mess and didn't respect the beauty of the historical building running blue cables against beautiful old wood.
1000%. I ripped out a fairly new Linksys Velop Pro system and replaced it with Unifi - sooooo much better to be on the Unifi platform and far more options beyond networking (e.g. video surveillance, door access control, etc.)
Highly recommend Ubiquiti’s Unifi system for whole home networking. Can combine wireless networking, video security and access control through one simple interface.
Agree. Been using unifi for residential for last 8 years. Home run to each AP. A little more expensive but generally have had great experience with my residential clients, it just works year over year. And when u need a new AP cause wifi technology has changed, it’s an easy swap out and adoption.
I don't use Unify.. But do use a ubiquity Edge Router (4) with a ruckus wireless Unleashed AP. Prior home was 4600 sqf on two levels. Thesingle Ruckus AP covered the house. No chokes even with two teenagers gaming on wifi and wife streaming on ethernet and me via wifi. Even got access into my yard.....
Second best video because I was wondering about this but no builder video has discussed this subject and this is important. Also the POE helps with security cams I think. If I remember I want to put one in the garage so that I can put a smart cheap TV out there.
As a wireless network engineer with several years of experience in design and implementation of WiFi in a wide variety of spaces, I will say this video really was lackluster compared to much of the content I find on this channel. Granted, maybe it’s because I’m a SME on this subject which isn’t the case on every single other video here 😂 Electricians are not the ones you want doing this. You want someone who knows how to take your floor plans and get them into actual design software, need to have knowledge of standard attenuation for whatever materials are being used in order to accurately model signal propagation, and obviously have knowledge with the hardware being deployed. I use Ubiquiti at home simply because I got the gear for free except for the router and switch. Plenty of prosumer/SMB level gear to accomplish the goal here though. Everyone of you in the comments saying to do a mesh network, just know that a mesh network is a lazy way to a significantly less than optimal solution. Doing that in a “high performance home” is abysmal at best.
In my new house the electricians ran wired ports to 3 drops in the house for me. Basement, first and second floor. I then hooked my ISP fiber modem into the basement, connected one of the TP link mesh routers there and used one of the ports to do a wired backhaul to the first floor while running the other free port to my PS5. I then added 2 other mesh nodes at the wired drops where the electricians put them, which are mostly centrally located in the house, one on the first and other on the second floor. All are connected thru a wired backhaul with the free ports on each node going to stationary items like TVs. The rest of my devices, maybe 50 items total, smart plugs, wifi cams, phones and tablets are wireless. All that to say I get pretty good performance from a home network, but in your opinion could I have done anything better given my use case? Keep in mind, I'm an idiot when it comes to this stuff and my setup is about the limit of how networks go.
@@mleachx1 seems to me like an MVP setup that just works. Most layman just needs to know up to that point, IMO, any further they need to do more research...
What most folks don't know is that a mesh will cut available wireless bandwidth in half unless there is a dedicated radio for running the mesh connection. This video made me facepalm so many times. I expect much better from Matt and this one just doesn't meet his usual level of excellence. Every AP should be wired back to a capable switch. Mesh is just ugly especially when you get to looking at the frequency spectrum usage, channel widths and then also account for external (neighbors) interference. I run Juniper @ home but that's just because I have been in networking for decades and can run the best. Helps that I can get it heavily discounted too :) Ubiquity is a decent lower cost solution that likely fits in the budget of home users that are willing to spend more than netgear money for wifi. Just please, do yourselves a favor and hard-wire all your APs, and avoid any kind of mesh at all costs..
The best part of this video is a builder talking about how important a "Real" network is at the pre-wire stage. Builders that use the old everything is wireless bit are really bad. Wiring is cheap if installed during construction.
I was stunned to tour a new home build recently and see that there was NO ethernet prewire. It wasn't even an option! They dropped a couple of coax connections in anticipated TV locations (one in the dining room - really?) - that's it. When I enquired about it, they sales people simply said that wireless had come so far that 'no one wants/needs ethernet drops anymore.' That was obviously code for they didn't want another vendor slowing down the build process.
As someone that runs full UniFi at work and home. It is more involved than most can understand. I don't know brand but I know some are now allowing their mesh units to wire back to the base or be meshed all while giving you a basic cell phone app for setup. That is the way most people need to go. For anyone that reads this. More wireless jumps is bad.
Yeah, all WAPs should have wired home runs. Wireless-wireless mess setups are never going to perform well, especially in densely packed environments like condos, other multifamily homes, and cookie-cutter residential neighborhoods where each house is built 4 feet from the next.
The one issue I find with WAPs is the signal overlay. Sometimes, the overlap causes a device to switch sources improperly. The same issue exists in mesh networks, but it is something to be aware of.
I installed unifi pro6 ap's connected to a dream machine pro. Epic setup. Vlan isolated iot on its own, home appliances on its own isolated vlan, and a few other isolated vlans for other things. Definitely do not let an electrician make the choice or perform the install. They have no idea what they're doing
I have a 2.5 Gbps wired connection between all of my WiFi 6E and 7 access points. Just TP-Link stuff. Super easy to do and I can seamlessly switch between them if I move around.
yep spot on comment. unifi dream machine or Cloud Gateway Max, Pro max or enterprise 24 or 48 port switch with hard wired unifi pro/enterprise access points is the way to go, and if your building new you may as well install the wiring for unifi access on all the doors/garage door for key-less entry along with their protect poe cameras and doorbell. its not really full enterprise but its bl00dy good and very cost effective for how advanced it is, its probably the most user friendly setup anyone can select that can work in an office or home environment. wire the whole house for cat 6e, at least two ports to every room, ports for all your cameras, door access, wifi access points, thermostat, solar, irrigation, lighting, smart switches and other iot gadgets, try and hard wire every device you can other than phones and laptops. separate the iot stuff on a seperate vlan, put the kids on a vlan, guests on a vlan and then one for sensitive stuff.
When I did a remodel, I did a system somewhat in between pro and consumer grade. I went with the consumer routers and wireless access points, and wired my entire house with coax, and several drops of Ethernet in each room. I routed everything to closet, installed coax and Ethernet patch panels, 24 port smart Cisco switch, and my WiFi router. In the further rooms, I connected a WiFi access point to extend the WiFi. All the fixed devices like TVs, printers, NAS, IP cameras, etc all use the Ethernet drops I ran. In your video, I’d also recommend installing a patch panel which allows repurposing or rerouting ports.
I believe his point was simply, "If you don't want to look at it, this is an option." Some people, myself included, don't particularly like the LEDs on WAPs, so if I can get most of the performance without having to see the LEDs by finding a less visible place to put the WAP, I'm probably going to seriously consider it.
@ i understand his point, and my point is you don’t put access points where the signal can be obstructed…you can do whatever you want but if you get weaker signal that’s my point…
@@HyPex808-2 Except that 2.4GHz passes through two layers of sheet rock like it isn't even there and there's only marginally more impact to 5GHz propagation. If the choice is between an obvious spot on the ceiling in the main area, or a spot in a closet a few feet away, you will not notice a difference in the signal quality. Now, if you have to move the thing 20 feet to put it in the closet, you might notice that difference. But that's just distance, not passing through a regular residential wall.
@@chaseweeks2708 Yes, WiFi can go through walls, but the signal strength will be significantly weakened depending on the wall material and thickness; generally, lower frequency 2.4GHz WiFi signals penetrate walls better than higher frequency 5GHz signals which offer faster speeds but struggle with obstacles like walls. Again I would avoid obstructions if at all possible…
As a DIY'r who is building our home and a 25 year IT pro, dedicated Ethernet runs when possible and a system like Ubiquiti are all a high end residential setup should need. There are design and config considerations, but this will work in most situations.
IEEE fellow here.. A little science lesson: WiFi signals are electromagnetic waves, which can be described (and predicted) using Maxwell’s equations: Gauss’s Law (Electric Fields) Gauss’s Law (Magnetic Fields), Faraday’s Law of Induction, and Ampère-Maxwell Law. When WiFi signals encounter boundaries (like the transition from air to wood or drywall etc), certain portions are reflected, some are transmitted, and some may be absorbed (converted to heat through conduction losses).. The ratio of these depends on differences in the impedance at the boundary. eg: - Relative Permittivity In wood or drywall: typical values range from 2 to near ~6, which can slow down and bend (refract) the waves compared to air - Even small conductive materials (wiring, foil-backed insulation, steel joists in some modern buildings) can cause partial reflections and phase shifts. - Wood and insulation can absorb moisture, changing their effective dielectric constant and conductivity. Wet/damp materials can absorb more RF energy, further attenuating signals. Typical home; 2×4 Studs (1.5"×3.5" actual): Typically less insulation thickness, simpler wiring paths. 2×6 Studs (1.5"×5.5" actual): Thicker insulation cavity (fiberglass, cellulose, or foam), often additional reflective barriers or vapor barriers. Each layer changes the dielectric properties encountered by the wave. Denser Insulation (eg: Rockwool) : Increases the effective dielectric constant, causing more attenuation. Foil layers can act as partial mirrors, reflecting WiFi signals and leading to complex multi-path fading. Going with 'Pro-Grade' vs 'Consumer' doesn't mean anything nowadays; WiFi transmit power is capped by law. You can’t simply crank power indefinitely without violating FCC/ETSI regulations. Even if the AP can transmit strongly, a phone or laptop must reply with its limited transmitter and antenna. Also, what's the point of 4x4 MIMO on the AP if the client device doesn't have but 1x1.. More advanced APs might beamform signals more effectively or attempt to use reflective paths, but if the structural environment is highly absorptive, fundamental losses cannot be avoided. The takeaway; Don't go with 'pro-grade' for your home unless you know your client devices can support the features.. Small Rant about WiFI in general: - The necessity for backward compatibility in 802.11 standards has become a major barrier to advancing WiFi performance and scalability. - Since it was designed nearly 3 decades ago (mid-1990s) to replicate layer 2 wired networks, 802.11 has inadequately addressed wireless-specific issues such as higher packet loss rates/fluctuating channel conditions. - Link-layer acknowledgements required for reliable TCP operations introduce additional latency and complicate retransmission mechanisms (at higher layers) - Multicast traffic handling remains VERY inefficient (operating without acknowledgements and fixed at low data rates (eg; 1 Mbps on 2.4 GHz and 6 Mbps on 5 GHz)) - the inherent half-duplex TXOP (Transmit Opportunity) overhead continues to constrain throughput, even with advancements in 802.11ax/WiFi 6 and 802.11be/WiFi 7 w/ OFDMA and MU-MIMO And lastly: Proprietary firmware in modern Wireless chipsets (Intel IWL, Qualcomm QCN, Broadcom) limits the implementation of advanced flow queuing and power control optimizations... A vendor (say, TP-Link ) obtains the binary blob (firmware) for a QCN device directly from Qualcomm for their wireless AP. There's no telling what this binary blob does - if it's doing incorrect things to the radios/device (non standard things).
What you say about WiFi signals themselves is true, but there's alot more to professional level equipment than stuff like RADIUS (which you probably don't need on a home network and is kinda niche anyway) and MIMO. Pro grade APs are often better at stuff like maintaining good coverage or keeping good performance even with many connected devices. They are also usually more stable and reliable. And no reason not to have support for stuff like MIMO. Your client devices may not have it now, but your next generation ones might. A little future proofing can be helpful. And, when building a house, having the wires for APs is really key, even if you plan to upgrade equipment down the road. I'd much rather have wired backhauls than use WiFi mesh.
Mesh Wi-Fi can look elegant in theory, but once electromagnetic wave propagation and half-duplex CSMA overhead come into play, real-world throughput and stability often plummet.. hence the mismatch between marketing and actual performance. With WiFi 7 here - I am actually excited for WiFi's future (even though I hated the AC and AX specs) - However, consumer stuff will probably not implement MLO (Multi Link Operation) and MRU (Mult RU) like their enterprise counterparts - even though they are in the 802.11 spec.
Also the prosumer pricing can be somewhat the same or even cheaper while actually being supported by the manufacturer for longer than 6 months . Prime example is the banning of TP Link.
@@sturmbreakers7817 TP-Link isn't banned (at least, not yet..) You have Broadcomm/Marvell/Intel/Qualcomm/Realtek (and maybe a few others). TP-Link, literally uses the same WiFI radios as countless other devices. The only difference is some OEM crap stuff into the bootloader with the same binary blob for the radios.. See: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5415877
There is little reason to not go with a Ubiquiti Unifi solution in homes of any meaningful size. A unifi system adjusts the power output levels per access point automatically to optimize the network, as well as the channel and bandwidth adjustments. You receive alerts if the AP density needs improvements, you having mapping tools to analyze access point placement and related signal propagation superimposed over a floorplan. So yes, pro makes a difference over consumer-grade. As for MIMO, I think even the iPhone 10 supported 2x2, so it doesn't take many WiFi devices in a home to tap more advanced WiFi capabilities.
One of the best things about PoE is that you can have more than just cameras, security sensors, or environmental controlls. There's lighting and A/V that can adjust the areas of the building/home based on preference and rights. So you can have LED lights that only authorized users can control. Or have music follow you around the house. Open / close window blinds, water plants and the list goes on… It's also more energy efficient to have DC provided from one high efficiency power supply than multiple wall worts all over the place.
he lost me immediately when he says CLOSET is a great location for WIFI access points, sorry, but those walls will kill the signals immediately, the focus should be quality of the signal, not hiding the device. that installation shown was terrible in my standards. I have CAT6 drops everywhere in the house with fiber to main panel, wish I put fiber to some rooms as well, but that will next.
A closet isn't generally considered a great place. The lower frequency 2.4 GHz older WiFi will not be affected significantly by that location, but higher-frequencies will get attenuated more. With all of the options for access points nowadays (table-top, wall mounted, ceiling mounted, etc.), there really is no need to hide access points in a closet.
Saw a dryer there as well. Last I checked they produce a lot of heat as a side effect of their intended function. So yeah. Not predicting a great lifespan for that access point.
I want to thank you for all of you tips and experiences you with us. This show many should do for their new construction home. I always tell people hard wire is faster than Wifi
I bought a 1970s house that has foil backed drywall. Not only a signal stopper, but the reflection causes issues even if you're a few feet away from the Access Point.
The one thing i noticed with my build is every company had either data network people or audio/video people. Neither had a good understanding of the other. It ahould all be thought of as data. I brought back all network, audio and video to my mechanical room. Installed cat6 for data to wifi and utilized 2.5Gb APs and then fiber hdmi + 2 fiber patches to every TV location for current and future 4K and 8K transmission that requires 40Gbs consistant connection. The coat was maybe 5% more and sets me up for the future in 10 years.
The most important thing for good WiFi signal, which is often overlooked (briefly mentioned in this video), are the material the house is made. Materials drastically affect the consistency of (line-of-sight) WiFi coverage throughout the home and more importantly the placement of the wireless Access Points. The best way to visualize wireless signals are to think of them like a laser pointer. Grab a 6ft ladder and sweep 360 degrees from the location where you think the AP should be located, then ask yourself what materials or appliances that light need to travel through to be received at the device, let's say on the living room couch? Most installers, including professional installers, place WiFi access points where convenient, where pre-wired, which often means behind glass televisions or in areas that attenuate RF signals. Kitchens, televisions, concrete walls, modern glass windows, water heaters, refrigerators, and bathroom showers, all attenuate signals at various frequencies and AP's should not be placed near or behind them if possible. Great topic though Matt! Love your videos!
My home lighting automation is all done through a bluetooth mesh network linked to my digital assistant (not using brand name, here.) The system has good reliability as long as the internet is up and everything works by normal wall switches when the internet is down. The commands don't have to go all the way to China and back, so lag is minimal. The system tends to fix itself when there are anomalies like individual devices temporarily failing to respond. I realize this is different from the WiFi mesh you're describing, but the concept is similar.
Put all your data cables in conduit so it will be easy to change them out. Data standards get upgraded a lot more frequently than the average person gets their electrical rewired! Have a data socket plate wired in everywhere you think you might one day want to put a device that wants internet. Bedrooms, studies, a convenient nook that could become a study .. don't forget that small children grow up and teens and young adults need places to use a computer at the same time you're using yours. Also, we know that all the experts on sleep are telling us not to use the computer in bed, but disabilities and fatigue disorders are getting more common and for a lot of people, if they have to get out of bed to use a computer, that's not happening. Include data connections at every place you might put a bed. While you're at it, think about wired-in speakers in every room for high quality audio, and wired-in CO2, VOC, hygrometer, and thermostat sensors in every room to automate control of your HVAC. It isn't only internet data that travels better through cables than through the air.
I'm a builder and your talking hundreds of dollars of installs that will never be touched because 99% of data now goes wireless and one good modem will cover typical homes
Cat 5e can handle 10 Gbs for shorter runs and it's been around since 2001. Cat 6 can handle longer runs for that 10 Gbs. There are not many homes that going to max out that network connection.
Conduit runs are unnecessary except for providing a path for the ISP to upgrade their lines. Cat6a will be more than sufficient for the home until the home needs to be remodeled in 50 years. Cat6a has been around for over 20 years and we are only now considering 2.5 GbE for our consumer grade networking equipment. So it will be a long time until the individual branches of a network need something beyond 10GbE. Correct on running lots of individual drops of ethernet, anything that has an ethernet port should have a wired connection. But save the time and money and don't bother with the conduit.
I have eero mesh but I also have a switch that feeds all the Apple TVs in the house(5) and the two office computers. The eero handle the WiFi amazingly with great coverage that is almost plug and play and I can upgrade at the WiFi tech changes/improves without spending “pro” money. I just checked and I have 38 items on my WiFi network currently and I do have fiber straight to the house.
I use my home as a test bed for studying handicap and elderly (low income) access to virtual assistants. It is wired with cat 6 to run all the TVs, computer, printer and cameras (cat 5 for voip phones in each room). The network equipment I use includes an Orbi router with one satellite (with a separate 18 port switch), and a small router for 2.4 WiFi dedicated devices. I have full voice control with Alexa and about 43+ active WiFi devices (Echos, switches, sensors, light bulbs...). My home is only 1,500 sqft and the incoming signal from the cable company is 300mbps (down from 800mbps). No problem with streaming on three TVs at once and still have enough WiFi bandwidth for all devices and cell phones. I slowly built my system over a 4 year period. I discovered building routines with the Amazon Echo system was the best way to evaluate my needs (equipment purchases) as I am physically handicapped. Something to think about as I have also isolated part of my house with minimal technology so guests can visit without being overwhelmed by the technology. If you do plan out a house with access to technology, it is important to realize that you will have to deal with changes, but also cost. I avoided fiber optic as the cost is still prohibited and my provider's signal is poor anyways. Yes, my house is more high tech than most. However, I evaluate devices on cost and suitability for low income users (the cheaper the better). I purchase each device myself and do not accept equipment from manufacturers. I use the information I gather to support short courses with two universities. I do have a Master's degree in Human Factors and a good understanding of technology (30 years of being an electronic technician on large systems - very minimal network background).
2:40 correction correction technically it's 3 devices. a modem which converts whatever medium that is coming in > then goes to a router which acts as a barrier between you and the Internet > and an access point AP that provides Wi-Fi. You can skip the Wi-Fi and only use ethernet and faster more reliable but requires cabling throughout the house which is useful for many other things (like getting a good quality signal on the fourth floor with another AP). And ethernet is so much better for fixed appliances that don't move.
In most cases the modem is made irrelevant if the connection is fiber optic. Effectively you are just hooking up to a dedicated Ethernet connection which supplies a single IP address (or two if you get both a public IPv4 and IPv6 address) via DHCP. If you only had one device you could run this without a router. If you get television over the same cable things may get a bit more complicated as the TV may be latching on to a hidden VLAN, but that's kind of besides the point as you are still just using Ethernet here.
Power over Ethernet is the way to go for sure. The key is to have a good antenna and Modem that gets a strong stable signal from the towers/ISP(s). If you can hardwire at some key points in the house, all the better.
“Enterprise”, not pro grade and then “Prosumer”. Get a UniFi Dream Machine and AP’s and they will be super happy, no extra cloud access costs and a great support network. All of the pleasure and none of the Meraki fees.
So, you are saying in the most convoluted way possible, the consumer grade equipment does the same thing more expensive equipment does if the network is designed and built the same. The switch and ethernet cable can be added to consumer grade routing equipment, and you get the same expanded capabilities without paying more. Get a good switch and run ethernet cable throughout the house before the walls are closed. If this is done right, the rest is easy, and you should do the easy part yourself.
What he said at the beginning is important. No fiber optic to the property and you are compromised no matter what you do. A better location for the rj45 jack is your main audiovisual location so as many as possible devices may be hardwired.
1) Have a wired first approach, if your devices have an ethernet port use that instead of WiFi. This is especially important for security cameras and critical automation devices. Install "smurftube" or other fishible conduit for long-term future proofing. 2) No mesh, just don't. Access points are always wired and do not use "extenders". 3) Access points don't go in closets. Fire your architect/interior designer/network guy, if they can't integrate an AP into the design. If your AP has lights you can't disable, you bought the wrong brand. 4) Design for at least dual AP signal coverage. 20mhz channel width in 2.4ghz, 40/80mhz in 5ghz, 160mhz in 6ghz. Avoid DFS channels. 5) Use firewalled VLANs/SSIDs to segment your different networks. IoT, Security Cameras, TVs, Gaming Consoles, Guests etc. 7) If you are going to buy smarthome devices, zigbee, zwave, matter, thread are generally all better options than Bluetooth or Wi-Fi based devices with few exceptions.
All good advice -- simple and straight forward... stressing the security aspect. Residential networks are key choices for adversaries trying to steal identities. Always have an active security IPS/IDP gateway in blocking mode.
As someone who is running their initial low voltage wiring for a new home construction, just make sure you get smurf tubing to a central location and do an initial site survey using Ubiquiti’s tools to make sure your AP placement has enough coverage. Learn how to tune your own system or just hire someone after your home is complete. Also, hard wire as much as possible to keep things simple, like to TV locations and bedrooms/offices. Flex tubing will cover most of your other scenarios. I have fiber for my 100Gbps runs being pulled after close, but having smurf tubing gives you the flexibility to future proof. Fiber use cases for home are very limited though. I have them between my two garages and my second building structure as backhaul and unless you are doing a home lab, doesn’t make much sense. Also, why does everyone throw in their years of experience in comments. 😂
I have my fiber line running into the middle room of my upstairs... The local network only allows for one of their combo systems which is pretty robust to be fair and covers the upstairs and all the rooms below... Even allows for 4K streaming in the basement albeit out of 20 times reduction in speed... So I ran four cat 8s up into the attic and hardwired the three TVs upstairs to take them off the Wi-Fi, ran one of the cat8s to the basement and hooked up the entertainment center closet with the raxs 120 that I used to have upstairs... Hardwired the entertainment systems in the basement, and ran hardwire up to the primary TV on the mid level... I have six TVs hardwired and one gaming system... Link speed anywhere in the house is about 860 Mbps over WiFi on any of the 3 (⁵g bands) that are all free because the TVs are hardwired... I'm only paying 65 bucks a month for 1 gig fiber... Getting 950 up 950 down 3 milliseconds of latency... I have smart lights outside & inside, camera systems, printers exct... I can carry about 128 Wi-Fi devices on my network..... The raxs 120 honestly is the best coverage I've seen on the market for its 2.4G I could connect at the end of my block five houses away; only about 200 bucks these days; seems like everybody went for mesh systems but those are trash... My routers are about 60 ft away from each other... There are zero dead zones on my entire property...
I have done some work designing around the limitations of crowded CSMA networks, at the protocol layers. So I have dealt with this set of problems over my career. The main problem with a mesh network is that when you have videos running in three or four different rooms, there are going to be a lot of collisions between wi-fi streams. This gets really bad if you have neighbors running their own wi-fi in adjacent apartments or condos. Hardwired CAT6 ethernet cable is the way to go for every location you plan to use the internet, if you are still building your house. In a lot of situations, it's not that difficult to add that wiring even after a house is built, through a crawlspace. Cable installers come and staple coax to the outside of your house. You can do the same with outdoor-compatible ethernet cable. You can buy a multi-port switch for very little money on Amazon. The length of an ethernet cable is limited to 100 meters, so your switch should be central while your modem needs to be within 100 meters of your switch. This way a 500 MBPS cable or fiber connection could support five 100 MBPS ethernet connections with no interference at all.
if you have home run Ethernet, you can do a simple mesh network like eero and create a wired backhaul. much cheaper than unifi with similar results. You have also left out MoCA technology, which will allow a wired backhaul on a homes existing coax cabling eliminating the need install cat6 home runs. MoCA also has the advantage of gigabit WAN and LAN on a single coax which is equivalent to 2 cat6 cables. basically, wired backhaul is the way to go for a mesh network
MoCa is the best kept secret for retrofitting... Even the big name builders are skipping CAT5e/CAT6/a pulls. I had to "retrofit" my brother's 2021-built house because the number of access panels we would have had to use to appropriately wire with Ethernet was comedic. Coax was close to everywhere we needed, even though everyone nowadays consumes programming over WiFi. These builders are stuck in the 1990s and 2000s. IMO Everywhere coax is pulled should have 2 CAT6a minimum.
The theoretical bandwidth of coax is incredibly high, higher than any CAT or consumer fiber option. Even dated RG59 can theoretically outperform CAT. But it has to be done right with home runs and needs an in between device to create the correct signal and to receive the signal. Then it would need to go from Coax to Ethernet anyway defeating the point of all those devices in between.
When I had my house built I asked for Cat6a cable into each bedroom, living room, and other room that I wanted a hard wire connection. When the isp came in I had them turned off wifi. He did not want to do it but when he saw my unifi system he agreed to it. I also built a a copper mesh cage for the isp router. I have 10gb around the house and only needed 2 AP.
lol, kind of the same here. I couldn't get around using the ISP's router because it also provides cable tv (that I don't actually use), so I have my own router behind it and all other services turned off on the ISP's box. I really do love Ubiquiti's stuff though. I've built basic home networks and full campus networks with it. It's surprisingly scalable and easy to use.
If you are going to the trouble of building a new house then why stop at WiFi when you can also wire CAT6 or even fiber. It's far more reliable and doesn't drop speeds the further from the transmitter you go. Also I find that electricians have no idea of network cabling as I have spent hours cleaning up the electrical lines running parallel for +20 feet near network lines. Proper grounding of network equipment is necessary for signal integrity to eliminate data drops.
I really believe this should have been broken down into a good, better, best. But mainly point out the downfalls of each. Like the actual wireless APs, cost more, but you are going to have better WiFi calling, less latency etc. Mesh as the "better" option, cheaper than dedicated pro-sumer access points (as nothing network related was actually "pro-grade") better coverage but still has the downfalls of latency and potentially roaming issues (moving from 1 mesh AP/repeater to another). Then the good really is only applicable to 1000 sq ft or smaller. It is definitely good to get the information out there. But if you want a truly awesome WiFi experience, hire a professional with the equipment. Not only to design what should be put in, but also follow up with an Ekahau (or similar) survey to actually see how the installed Access Points are doing. Matt, i love your videos. I have learned tons about better and tighter building. This one just urked me, as it is my profession and could have been better presented.
Something I ended up figuring out and correcting for in Friends apartment, was accounting for and eliminating as much interference, which meant relocating the components a little differently in the room to account for wiring in walls, mirrors, and even metal filing shelf that the router was sitting by in a cramped corner. I ended up fixing the issues in living room and bedroom that they were having of Wi-Fi dropping out. AT&T came out multiple times and couldn't figure it out LOL. Funniest of the corrections was him having the desktop comp on Wi-Fi with the router etc right at his feet..
Okay, remember CJ is speaking to the trades-not to the geeks or nerds. I use UniFi or Ubiquiti equipment. One access point per floor with inter spatial spacing you need to think in 3 dimensions the wave length warps but basically the mesh works for 75 feet. Also bring cat7 to all streaming devices. Wired access is always better than wifi
If building, run ethernet to all rooms. Build a networking closet. Buy your own modem/router/wifi AP; DO NOT RENT. Pro grade or consumer grade does not matter. If you need better coverage, get another wifi router and set to access point. This more than covers 99% of the population. If this does not meet your needs, then hire someone or DIY. Do not spend lots of money.
At the minium, just get a Wi-Fi router with more Ethernet port (4+) then get addition AP for around the house Wi-Fi (can wire the Ethernet around the house for better speeds, but powerline extender could used even if it's slightly worse)
As a corporate server guy, I spend an undue amount of time explaining why users’ files transfer so slowly even though they just upgraded to the latest and greatest from their cable provider. As the guy said, planning IS the most important thing. What does the user need, where are they doing it from? If you are not going DIY, use: 1-a low voltage vendor, 2- a network vendor, 3-an AV vendor, 4-an electrician only if they are qualified for networking. None of the stuff shown was pro grade. The base level isp equipment is good enough for many. The next step up should be something like a ubiquity setup. Skip the TP link stuff as they may be banned from the US due to poor security. Make sure the mesh system is WIRED back to the internet connection. From a cost perspective use cat 6a through cat 7a. Cat 8 is much more difficult to work with for the marginal improvement. Even cat 5e can deliver 10 gigabit over short distances. For an isp, get one delivering fiber, only get cable or starlink if fiber is not available. Again, planning is key for doing what you want and at the speed you want.
A lot of good advice,, for me would put a nic/mini-computer in each closet using fiber, and each has a WiFi network, the tv, Apple TV, sound system, & cameras would be hard wired. Also this would make a great cluster for VMs, video, AI, etc.
I dumped consumer brands for commercial brands (Unifi on particular) and the improvement in performance and reliability is fantastic. 4 years so far and ZERO issues, unlike the flakey Linksys mesh network which was nothing but trouble from day one.
I feel like you should have gotten someone more knowledgeable to speak on this. I mean pro tip 1. Don't put your darn wireless access points in a closet.
All my wifi access points are in closets, but they have intentionally radio-transparent materials in them and are located well. You can get wifi through a couple layers of drywall no problem if there's no foil faced insulation or chickenwire in the way.
@@andrewbrowning6357 What do you mean by "radio-transparent"? Some materials cause less interference than others, but even studs and bog standard drywall can diminish radio signal performance. Pile on screws/nails, electrical wiring, and any other metallic items commonly found in walls and you are unnecessarily hampering your signal and forcing the access point to work harder than it needs to. So, yes, you are correct that the WiFi signal will pass through drywall, but it is not without a penalty. If you prioritize aesthetics above raw performance, then I can see wanting to hide the access point in a closet. Personally, I'd rather stick an already very low key device in a hallway or in the middle of a large room where it will perform optimally.
@@JordanDahmen OK cool, but I can still max out my gigabit fiber over wifi while sitting on my couch like a slob so like... I'm not sure any of that matters you know? You know what I mean by radio transparent. Radio. Transparent. Windows don't let all the light through either but nobody's like "oh no my view sucks because of this piece of glass :( :( ".
"Wire is for performance, Wireless is for convenience." - Biggest lessons I learned in custom electronic training. So planning for wi-fi is only is already planning for a lack of performance...
even though you kept this basic, this explainer was a little TOO basic to be usefully informative. The fact someone clicked on this video to learn there could have been more technical information here.
I agree. I would avoid any pro-grade or professional IT solutions discussed in this video. They are overkill for most home users' needs and must be configured and updated. Many consumer routers and gateways are easier to manage, and your ISP will ensure you have the latest software or equipment if any exploits occur. Unifi is much easier to manage and configure, but you must still manage the network.
I think that the information could have been focused and better supported with more visuals. For example, showing a clear diagram of the difference between a wired and wireless backbone for access points. People buy these mesh systems as the advertise the effortless extension of internet throughout the home ("no deadspots"), but they are a horrible solution for anything that requires even moderate bandwidth and low latency. People don't understand what they are buying and this would have been a good place to touch on that.
This is a great topic and worth making videos about, but you need to bring in someone who does this for a living, not an electrician. Doing this for a living means someone who ONLY installs home networks, and not electrical wires/systems at all. Or someone who works for an Amazon, google, Microsoft etc data center on the physical side of installing/upgrading/maintaining network equipment.
so, you mentioned interference at the beginning of the video but the very first WAP location is inside of a closet with interference right next to a vent and the washer and dryer?
I have 20+ years in IT and Network Engineering. This was not a professional level discussion. Get Crosstalk solutions to talk about this with you Matt. Aracnis and Luxul gear are dubiously pro grade.
We have a local small internet company in the Viroqua Wisconsin area called Vernon Cooperative that is cream of the crop! They install, hands down, the best setup in Southwestern Wisconsin!
I was skeptical when Google WiFi mesh came out but now after 5+years of use in a 3500ft house I have full confidence in this simple solution. So this "pro grade" is unnecessary for residential use. Our family runs 2 or 3 zoom calls simultaneously every day with zero issues. Obviously everything else is fine too. The "beauty" of this setup is that I don't need anything "specialized" and control all settings via Google Home and I have full freedom to upgrade/expand at any point
As a datacenter engineer this isn't a bad overview. I think people would like to know more detailed specifics as to why the professional or pro-sumer such as Unifi are worth their value i.e some of the configuration items you can achieve in your home network
I'll give a good plug for the UniFi. I was reworking my network from a jumbled mess in the original structured panel in our master closet into a 6" deep 19" x 24" rack mounted over it. I put a nice managed switch mounted vertically, the patch panel, and mounts for a compact PC for firewall, power strips, VOIP, and modem. I stuck a UPS behind it in the original structured box. Finally, I picked up a Ubiquiti UniFi Pro AP, expecting to use it to locate about three locations to cover our two story, 3700 SqFt home. I chose one central location on a high loft area with line of site down a couple of halls. I then went around doing signal testing and found it was so good I didn't need another device. The only exception was to a carriage garage to service our EV. The biggest reason for me to use commercial, or at least pro-sumer, quality gear is to isolate devices. I don't allow cheap WiFi devices or appliances to see any other device on our network, except the other crappy WiFi devices. Phones get their own network that has holes to use printers and televisions, which are also separate from our primary computers. Computers are hard wired only and protected by a commercial open source dedicated firewall with paid support.
Unifi is the "Apple" experience of home networking. Everything just works. Their integration of their "Protect" (camera surveillance) is very slick. Pop in a $100 hard drive and never pay another dime to Nest, Ring, or whoever for video storage. App is way more responsive too with some great features such as loitering detection, ability to search by specific detection (want to search for people? animals? car? truck? SUV? search by vehicle color, license plate recognition)... it all just works. It's worth the premium.
@@alldecentnamestaken The main reason I subscribe to Ring is for the alerts I receive on my cell phone if I am not at home. Can a unifi home network system do the same thing?
@@csmorris66 yes and it works very well. Very easy to set up alerts that filter out false positives. For example you can set the alerts to only be for people and not for animals, only for certain cameras, only for certain times of day. Whatever you want really. It's the best system on the market IMO.
Reading the comments is very interesting. Feels like a lot of people are very online. I'm doing a renovation to my home and networking is at the bottom of my list of concerns. I'm still giving it some thought - every bedroom and the living room gets an ethernet jack that goes back to a central hallways cabinet where I'll put the modem, router and switch. But that's about it. I currently have a mesh network that I have no problems with. I can't help but feel the whole "smart home" thing is just another trap of the tech companies to monetize our lives. I don't want all my stuff to require an app and spending time futzing with settings and updates 😠.
As someone who knows this stuff… I agree with this other comments that you should have gotten someone a bit more knowledgeable about the subject. This was an entry level video with a lot of random info and some bad advice mixed in. Liked talking about mesh networks a bit too much too. Professional level networks do all of it…. Not sure why you have an electrician explaining IT level stuff to people. Get a channel like Crosstalk Solutions with people who actually know their stuff and how to explain it. This was very bleh…
For new build homes, the ONLY option I would recommend is UniFi. 1. Put a small to medium rack (6U min up to 18U) in the basement or utility area. This will house your UniFi controller and PoE switch 2. Run CAT6/CAT6A wires up to the roof area to each corner of the house (for cameras) 3. Run CAT6/CAT6A to doorbell so it's wired, not wireless 4. Run 4+ drops to any "family room" type place (for Xbox, PS, Nintendo, Roku, etc) or office. It might seem like overkill, but you'll run out of ports quickly with PCs, printers, etc! 5. Run 2 drops to any other wall-mounted TV (1 for TV, 1 for Roku or whatever other possible device you might need) 6. Run drops to main hallways for all your access points. They'll blend in with your smoke detectors if you turn off the LEDs! 7. Run conduit from utility area/basement to any major access areas (such as attic, garage, etc) for future wiring! 8. If you need to handle any out-buildings, you can run pre-terminated 10Gbit fiber cables or use the wireless UniFi device bridge pro or building bridge to link up the out-buildings. Wired is always 1000% better than wireless! For nearly all of your runs in a normal-sized house (
I thought this was a great overview of this concept. I built my home in 1992, my builder wired the home for a phone in the kitchen and one in Master bedroom. Remember this was before even dial up. I just politely asked the builder if he would mind if I added some phone connection lines and he said I could. I wired each room for cable, with coax , and phone lines to each room. Then found out we did not even have cable Tv in my area. All was good as the coax cable worked fine for my antena based system. First there was dial up, then I had satellite Internet (remember no cable). Then the FCC stepped in and bought the frequency we were using for the satellite connection, but cable was now here(yea). Problem was they wired with a new better Coaxial cable 😢. When I asked about installing new cable, I had to buy new cable from the installer and do it myself, I guess they did not like attic work. So that is what I have done. Have gone through two upgrades to the modem and have a few network repeats in the house now. As with all of life things change I'm still glad I wired the home, it gave years of service.
There is an "option 2.5" (of his stated three options). Mesh network with copper/fiber backbone. All of the equipment is now available to the general consumer (imported from China, via Amazon, at least in 2024...) to run 10 Gb multimode fiber backbone between switches in the home. From there, the same switches are all 2.5 Gb RJ45 copper ports for plugging in various devices, including the mesh WiFi hubs he refers to. In this way, you get wired internet (not just wireless) everywhere you need it AND you can easily upgrade it later on (when it inevitably breaks or gets outdated). As others have stated, though: Make sure your builder / installer doesn't cheap out and run Cat5 or Cat5E for the copper runs. Cat6 is minimum, Cat6A is better, preferably Cat8 now (NOT Cat7). Even better... do like I described and run fiber and Cat8 (as the rooms need).
Cat8 is redundant and cat7 does not exist. Even cat6a is problematic given that the foil can do more harm than good in some cases. The reality is hardly anyone has adopted the 2.5 and 5 gigabit standard yet and in most homes a decent location for terminating your cat6 pulls means you will still be well within spec for using the regular cat6 for 10 gigabit if you need it. If you are paranoid run single mode fiber (4 core minimum) to the locations where you expect that you might need speeds beyond 10 gig and just hold off on terminating it as that's where the majority of the cost lies and before it's needed terminating it will add no value. Just remember to leave 2-3 feet worth of cable in each box so it's reasonably easy to weld later. Also do not have your electrician install the fiber or copper cables. Read up on requirements and do it yourself or hire somebody that specializes in low voltage networking. It's not especially difficult to do either, but do it wrong and it won't matter what cable you run.
Matt, love your content, but as an engineer in tech, please listen to the other comments. Network engineering is a rabbit hole with many nuances and so many variables. Definitely do NOT allow an electrician to take care of this. They have their lane and place, this ain’t one of them. There’s a reason we don’t hire electricians to design network infrastructure.
I still occasionally have to unplug and let my router and/or modem reset, then plug it back in. (a software reset doesn't always work) are these built in devices that much more stable or are they just a nightmare to manually reset when that comes up?
This was unbelievably bad for a Build Show content. Most of Matt's content discusses the technology of building and the decision points to the different technologies. On a brand-new house above $500k, a home network solution that is designed to grow with technology and the occupants needs is a good starting place. Adding in automation is certainly another factor, but there was not one mention of security -- which is appalling. A home network gateway firewall with IDP/IPS protection is not expensive and should be a part of any new or retrofit build. Using CAT6 in a new build is fairly short sighted. I was building with CAT6 20+ years ago. If you think that going with CAT8 shielded cable is overkill today, just remember that there will be improvements in demand as well as technology in the next 20 years of the house that you are building or retrofitting. A solid home network setup will withstand this inevitable change. Ubiquiti Unifi or Cisco Meraki are solid designed network solutions for equipment in switching, security, and wireless that can be easily centrally managed or remotely managed by a preferred support technician.
You do not need more than cat6 unless you plan on moving lots of data very quickly between devices on the local network. And if you have some rooms that may be subject to this requirement installing a single mode fiber cable in a hidden box you can use later is a much better option than cat8. The thing you have to remember is that the main growth factor for most homes is not your needs but rather the needs of online services. If everyone in the world were to suddenly stream gigabit bitrate videos that would produce a load way beyond 10x on the network infrastructure. There is no way that will happen anytime soon. Heck even since the first streaming providers came into existence we haven't even reached 100 mbit streams yet. Cloud storage may drive things a bit higher but even there the providers can't just open the floodgates and give each user unlimited bandwith for the very same reasons that you won't see gigabit bitrates on streaming anytime soon.
my friend renovated their old (40 year) house, i helped him, we did put in CAT 7 cables (10Gbps into every room) and he has also WiFi for phone, laptop and tablet coverage. he has a 2Gbps Internet, and 2.5Gbps switches (cos 10Gbps switches are to expensive, but will be at the same price as 2.5Gbps switches are now but in 10 years, at which point they will be replaced with 10Gbps switches)
Mesh wireless should be a last resort. You are halving throughput with each hop away from the main AP. Should at least talked about frequencies and channels.
And the 802.11 standard did not get all the bandwidth they wanted when drawing up the standard. By the 4 color theorem: you can not avoid mutual interference with 20Mhz channels.
A common network where the nodes talk via wired connections is still a mesh network. And while I agree with the sentiment that WiFi mesh networks are garbage I feel like he should have pointed this out as soon as he mentioned the fact that some of the mesh solutions allowed you to use a wired connection and not just WiFi.
The man said a hundred times this a basic overview and will get into more details in another video, yet here come the "expert" trolls. Has he ever tried to put everything for home building in one video, no. So relax
I have a hybrid of the two, TP link mesh network, switches plug into the main node, the other nodes plugged into the switch. It costs way less than a professional access point set up.
I started an isp with a ladder truck a few poles, fiber and some radios. Now have 1/3 market in my town in 3 years. Hundreds of fiber drops and radio hookups. Ubiquity…UniFi. NANOs for ftth or pon. Hundreds of apartments
A pro network installer provides a printable report (Fluke LinkWare) when the job is done showing where the Ethernet cables run and that they all meet the spec after install. I've been supporting networks for over 20 years in the enterprise and I've never heard of Arkanis, so I looked them up and they seem to be in the niche for Smart Home / Control4 with installers that can do a turnkey install & offer remote monitoring - with a steep mark-up. It was nice to see plywood backboard in the "mechanical" room ... until I saw that there wasn't any backboard or cable supports for the long run of cables going into the half rack on wheels. I was also surprised to see no apparent treatment on the bare concrete and behind that half rack a short 2x4 that didn't seem to be attached to anything. Good points are to label all cable runs, but I'm not sure if that was done at both ends. Pretty sure I saw a Ubiquiti UniFi AP in the closet and that may work if that closet is centered on a work area and the walls have wood studs. Cat 6 is good, but I'd go Cat 6A after seeing this house. And always purchase pure bare copper network cabling, never CCA. I am looking forward to a whole home network setup done on this channel with a low voltage wired and wi-fi designer at the beginning. Find out the ISP provider that services the home and find out where they'd run the line in - typically the corner of the house closest to their lines in the utility easement. After most trades are done, run all the low voltage infrastructure. Typically, low voltage needs to be 1' away from high voltage lines, so just run it one bay over before the drywall goes in. I'd rather see a fire rated backboard 4' x 4' x 3/4" and a #6 ground to land the patch panel and other equipment than a wheeled rack on the ground. Find out from the authority having jurisdiction if they require ENT, riser and plenum rated low voltage cabling, and take it from there. Looking forward to a deeper dive on a future video!
As an actual network engineer who builds "pro grade" networks-- if you're already spending a ton of money, I highly suggest hiring someone who builds networks, not your electrician. 9/10 times you're going to get trumped up junk at an insane markup, installed poorly.
Also a good idea is to have electrician cert in low-voltage that can do the backhaul pull/wiring throughout the home so that APs can be PoE and also lines for security. Its an entire additional planning layer. I wired my home so each room has Cat6e along with growth expansion at the hub/patch panel...aka data closet.
you are right. The last person I would want touching such an important design would be the electrician. They typically put in junk and are not going to be there to support it.
As a fellow network engineer, I came to say exactly this upon hearing "electrician" in the intro
If you're wondering what to look for, someone who installs network cables in the pro-space is a "Structured or Network Cabling Installer". TBH a lot of this you can do yourself, buy a couple boxes of CAT6 and get to work, 568-B isn't hard to term. I may/may not be an Network Engineer, but I am not an electrician or cable installer, and I wired my whole home with the help of a friend.
As a commercial electrician, i agree 😂 house mouse is not the right man for this particular job.
As a network engineer, this was painful to watch. First, this script should have been run by a subject matter expect before filming for fact checking. But most importantly, we are missing the “why” that makes sense to the average home owner. Additionally, architecture matters even more than equipment as “pro-grade” equipment can still underperform compared to properly configured consumer grade”.
You took all of the words out of my mouth. I strongly suspected that's how this video would play out, and it didn't fail to disappoint. When I see the words "pro-grade", I know what's coming next is grossly over-priced and probably not any better than I could do myself, with just a TINY amount of research.
Im not a network engineer. I'm an IT guy that works for a living. The end user doesn't care how smart you are. They care if the network works or not. This dates back to when I was designing networks in the late 90s. Mind you the presenter is explaining this to a common end user.
@@jasonbroom7147 I DID find a pro grade wired router was less prone to overheating than a consumer grade one.
While calling the Cat-6 cable RG6 was hard to listen to, getting into dB attenuation would go over the head of the typical audience. Likewise, showing drops terminated in plugs isn't what I would consider a professional installation, but it is common for residential.
I'm not a network engineer, but I do have 60 hard-wired drops in my home and over half a dozen AP's all DIY. Almost all Ubiquiti.
I have a TP Link mesh setup with three nodes, BUT, I have CAT5 running to the two slave nodes, and that works better than trying to do it with wifi.
1) Walls significantly impact Wifi performance. Ubiquity has a fantastic tool to see wifi performance with the impacts of interior walls, exterior walls, windows, etc.
2) 2.4GHz will have longer reach, but significantly slower performance than 5GHz and the new 6GHz bands.
3) While doing your ethernet wiring consider of now is the time for outside security cameras.
4) You mentioned that a spa is example of wifi connected devices, but so many more… Ovens, Fridge/Freezer, Washer/Dryers even your car in the garage.
5) Access points are a bit unsightly so planning where to put them is important.
6) Consider adding a conduit to the demarc location. My new home the cable provider ran fiber right to the house. Pretty amazing.
7) Consider adding a UPS to the network rack. I saw powerwalls in your video… They will glitch the power when power drops out.
8) Don’t forget that the equipment makes heat. If it is in a small room it will get warm.
Good start and keep going!
I think the wattbox that was mentioned in the video is an UPS.
Putting the access point in the laundry room, with walls so close to it, will really hurt it's performance
Please don't let CJ do another video about networking, he is not knowledgeable enough to be teaching others on a channel that has experts explain things.
Rule number 1: don't let an electrician do your low voltage
And, even the low voltage installers need to be carefully vetted. A recent install had many cables not passing a simple Cat6 continuity test, and didn't run the cable jacket into the connector. But, it was the only option the builder allowed. They completely missed one of the jack locations.
Rule number 2: insure the low voltage team is the last crew installing in your structure before mechanical inspection. I was an integrated wiring rough-in installer. My team was forced by a contractor to go in prior to the hvac installation. Then we got the privilege of redoing about 80% of the home runs of cat6 and coax, putting us behind on other jobs.
@@lukeoforcas Excellent point to bring up
He is an expert at cramming 6 minutes of content into 20 minutes.
Yeah this is way longer than it needed to be.
That’s why they give us the option to watch videos at 2x. LOL
@@gothducks I bumped him up to 1.25 after a minute and then up to 1.5 a minute later.
He is a technical specialist, not a speaker.
@@ThePrimananas
*Who is working with a bunch of communicators. Who apparently didn't offer him any help. Someone direct him to The KISS Method! Remind him he just wants to give a simple (but thorough) explanation of some systems of transmitters and receivers. Their capabilities. Considerations for their best placement, and the benefits of hard wiring versus wireless! He actually reached most of these points, then wandered around in them. This was kind of painful. Especially when you know the guy has the knowledge in him!*
He's not explaining much, and what *is* there is vague enough to make you make the wrong choice. Tips for a solid home internet experience:
1. Run conduits everywhere for low-voltage networking.
2. Run *multiple cables* to every room via those conduits from a centralized location that's not outside the climate envelope. 1 coax, 2 ethernet (CAT6e at a minimum, CAT6A, 7 or higher to future proof), 1-2 fiber, maybe HDMI or audio if you're planning big.
2a. You can buy 1-gang network wall panels that fit 6 cables in them, so get at least 4 cables run to each location in the room. And maybe to more than one wall.
2b. It's okay if you don't use every cable you run. It will cost at least 5x to run cables later.
2c. Run conduit and cables outside for utilities so they don't have to poke holes in your nice house. Also maybe to other places for other external buildings.
2d. Have someone skilled pick a several good spots for wireless APs and run cables there, too. Don't assume your APs will run at max strength and get the full theoretical distance, and instead run lower power and overlap.
2e. Run cables to the doorbell, to the corners of the house and external alcoves for cameras.
2f. Run cables to a few places in common areas, like the living room and kitchen for smart devices: thermostats, voice assistants, multi-room audio, etc.
2g. Keep track of all the cables you run on plans and label them. If your region needs permits for low-voltage cabling, keep it to code from the start.
3. Don't use mesh wifi. It's slower in a lot of ways. It's only an okay choice if you need to tear down walls to run cables and don't want to.
4. Don't let your builder pick your networking gear.
5. You can skimp out on the switches, modems, etc at first. As long as the cables are all there, you can upgrade when ready.
5a. Don't pick enthusiast gear thinking it's professional gear. Some enthusiast hardware is comparatively expensive but far worse than professional gear.
6. Run everything wired that you can so that your wireless works well for the things that need it.
7. Putting your APs in a closet will just add more interference and reduce the range. Get used to seeing them.
8. If you're using really nice gear, you'll either need multiple small units or a lot of airflow to the switches for really high speeds. And maybe some sound isolation.
9. Get a UPS wherever your internet modem and POE switch is so if the power goes out locally, you can still have .5-2 hours of internet access.
10. Get a symmetric internet connection if you can. Upload speeds matter a lot for streaming, cloud access, etc.
11. Traditional satellite internet is slow. Go fiber if you can, then maybe cable. Then starlink and other LEO satellite services.
12. If you don't understand how to use the gear and manage a professional system, have someone skilled pick out the gear. Consider a service contract for maintenance, updates and to answer questions.
This should have been in the video.
Good advice. Can recommend Ubiquiti kit and you can manage all the APs using their free software that can run in a docker container on a lot of NAS or Home Assistant.
Cat 7 was never a standard. It's an obscure design with different connectors. Get Cat 8 instead. It's shielded and will do 40 gbps. I wouldn't run any coax in 2024 but would run fiber.
I kinda feel bad for your customers.
One should have coduits to every room in the house going to a technical place (be that a techical room, boiler room etc) that way when the customer talks to the electrician/technician during final face of the build that you can run the cables to what room the customer needs it.
Runing a bunch of coax, cat 7.... or cat 8, or fiber to every room is pointless.
And when that said, yes its nice with Cat 8 but at WHAT point do you need it? then you need to use expensive enterprice equipment cause sorry Im perhaps outdated but what consumer grade pc/routers/switches etc can use the 40GB/s limit..
Sometimes less is more, Cat 6A will work for 99,99999% of every user out there.
Regarding video.. Perhaps its different in europe but wth kinda bad mesh signals do you get in NA if you a mesh device in almost every room xD? (just feel bad for future non-tech savy customers watching this)
-chat warrior out.
Conduit? Really? If you are building a new home, run ethernet throughout. (I built a home in 1997 with 10 endpoints. From those endpoints, when you need multiple connections, install a switch. I now live in a Condo with several COAX connections, originally for cable TV. Using MoCA adapters, one can transmit Ethernet over Coax. The latest MoCA is 2.5 Gb. I use Ubiquiti, which is between consumer and professional, although it is not for the technically illiterate.
I love the fact he's showing off Araknis Wi-Fi system, which has a 50% markup roughly and is crazy overpriced and lack luster performance yet the demo he did in the laundry room closet probably using his own house he runs a ubiquity unifi access point that doesn't have a absurd markup on it and is reasonability priced
Ubiquiti for the win. It work well, serves both the home consumer and commercial market, offers integrated support for cameras/door access contro/etc., and is to configure and manage. I use Ubiquiti's UniFi products throughout my home and find it far better than the LinkSys Velop Pro I used previously.
And there's a Ubiquiti Cloud Key in the rack for remote management and possibly CCTV.
@ I would have just gone with a dream machine pro or pro max, depending on the POE need.
I have been using Unifi for 10 years and nothing really compares to the price and performance. I have never heard of Araknis, so I can assume it is some $$$ stuff that has high markup.
I would say this video should be "Plan for pro networking" over it being wifi based. From the wires coming to the home to a command center location then from central to each individual room and perimeter roof for security cameras.
When i walk a home networking is one of the first techy things i think about. I need to know if its prewired and if so how well it was done. If it isn't I need to learn where I can wire things too.
minimum of 2 ethernet jacks per room. then each corner of a home for a camera.
High tier pro installation - Use conduit tubes to pull ethernet to make it even easier to upgrade in the future. This would require access panels.
If you are setting up a network in a home, plan first for support. Pro-grade equipment = harder to support for the homeowner. If something breaks, who will fix it? Who will even have the skills to diagnose it?
I fix over-complicated home networks on a regular basis. The builder and/or AV company that installed a pro-grade system isn't available for on-going support, so the homeowner finds somebody like me. I show up, see a closet full of separated components, each with its own (unknown) password. I have been doing this for 30 years, so I'll find some way to make it work, but sometimes I do have to replace pro-grade equipment with consumer equipment just so the homeowner can have something that is supportable.
My top priorities for a home network are 1) support and 2) performance. Support always comes first. Computer networking systems will hiccup or fail. It is a matter of when, not if. Simplicity is a homeowner's friend when it comes to integrating tech into a home.
I agree with BoiseHomeWiFi in that us average homeowners just need a reliable system that performs, and for when it breaks, we can find & get support. And we need that pro support because even the simplest home network these days is beyond the average homeowner. I keep a few business cards handy in my “homeowner” rolodex: plumber, car mechanic, electrician, HVAC guy, and a network integrator (I am the carpenter).
I feel like BoiseHomeWiFi’s feedback is the most useful, common-sense comment in this whole crazy comment section. So many of the commenters are clearly commercial network guys who may be technically correct about their rant (advice) but it’s overkill or simply not applicable to the majority of average homeowners who are the focus of this video. Most of us need a home network good enough to do what we are all doing right now-watching & commenting on a UA-cam video from the comfort of our Laz-E-Boy chair. We are not programming the Mars rover with telemetry instructions on deploying its thrusters to execute a safe landing on the red planet’s surface.
This is the best advice. I'd add to it that wire should be run from a utility room patch panel to any location that a stationary screen might be installed. Also, different ISPs have different levels of support and equipment.
I am a data communications architect and have been since the 90s. Not a bad intro video I guess but have to mention some things I did not care for in his mech room build out was the network cabling should NOT have went directly into the portable cabinet. The cabling should have been terminated to a patch panel on the back wall, and patch cables from there to the switch ports in the cabinet. Also, I did not see any labeling for which network cable went to what station in the house. And lastly the cabinet didn’t appear to have good ventilation which for that little equipment could be solved with a metal mesh door instead of a glass door so that cabinet does not become a hot box and cause early device failure for any of the devices in it. And I hope there is a UPS in that cabinet. Ok, I am off the soap box now 🙂
Good catch.
Patch panels make it easier to terminate too. You don’t want your installer spending time putting RJ45s on cable. Punch it into the 110 blocks in the jack and buy small patch cables ( color coded by use if you really to get fancy :) )
How they did it is how it is mostly gets done. As a tech you get tired of bypassing patch pannels or keystone jaks. Everyone goes direct now.
There was wire wrapped labels.
The fan controller is from cool components. It has intake, exhaust, and a thermal probe. It will keep the temp you set in the cabinet.
There was a power conditioner, but yes no back up battery. It could be added in OVRC and be app controlled.
@@dennis4061 That is really interesting. I don't understand that change as it would make the problem worse. I have never been in a wiring closet where we used direct connections versus a patch panel. The simplicity of punching down the jacks in the patch panel is far less error prone than someone putting RJ45s on a cable--especially CAT6A and shielded RJ45s would be really error prone.
@@ny4i I agree cat 6a is allot, probably would be best done and left alone on a patch pannel. Most people use rj45 passthrough for cat6 (no sheild), and it is fast. They leave big wire loops incase you have to re-terminate. I see it everywhere. However, commercial or telecom, it is always a patch pannel.
Lol patch panel.. that's going to be a real useful expense for that home owner
For any device that is going to end up in a fixed location (TVs, desktop computers, wifi repeaters, security camera, etc) hard wire those with ethernet cable. This will reduce unnecessary wifi traffic.
Yes! Dropping ethernet jacks with Cat5e or Cat6 is easy and cheap during construction and usually isn't too difficult in existing homes. Anything that is stationary (particularly devices that need to stream, PCs, and gaming consoles) should be wired.
They finally mention that around 17:00
Even enterprise grade wireless equipment doesn't beat ethernet. If you are building you should be building around getting ethernet drops everywhere you expect to need connectivity and after that consumer grade wireless hardware for the tablets, phones, or laptops should be fine unless you're talking about major square footage. If you do find that you want enhanced wireless capabilities it's an easy retrofit if you've been deliberate about your wired setup.
There is nothing like hard-wired in my opinion.
Every device you get on ethernet is another device not hogging wifi bandwidth.
I think wifi 7 is as fast as traditional wired but 10 gb will still beat it wireless.
I understand this is supposed to be an “Explain It Like I’m 5” type of episode but I don’t feel like it’s up to the standards of a typical Matt Risinger video that were here for.
It would have worked better as a five minute video. But this is YT, so we get what we pay for :)
I completely disagree. It couldn't have been simpler. If the homeowner or builder wants to learn more, pay an expert or take the time to learn more. They covered all the basics from the standpoint of a homeowner.
The fact that he talked about this at all is fantastic.
@@BoondockSaintRyan This is an important topic and this video did it an injustice. They didn't cover the basics properly, and they omitted a lot of information which I'd consider essential in any explanation for how to plan for good internet in your home. This is an important topic and this video did it an injustice. There are a hundred channels on UA-cam which explain this stuff, and do a much better job of it.
True he didn’t fluctuate the pitch of his voice enough to be a Matt video.
Thank you for this, Matt. I've been a service tech for an ISP/Telco for 15 years and can attest to the importance of properly planning a home network with a hardwired cabling/home run solution. I can't count how many times I've gone to install service to a new build and the electrician and/or home owner didn't run any wires in the home at all. It's not a great conversation to have with the homeowner when they realize they won't have strong wifi throughout their 3000 sqft house due to the lack of any useable wiring.
But it's Wireless we don't need any wires.
in the process of setting up a toast POS system they were under the expectation that it was all Wireless but toast says that all devices are wired and basically give you an access point just for the handheld units. I fought with a printer physically connected to a kiosk with Wi-Fi only to find out that the USB-C cable doesn't carry data back to the printer (it acts as a docking station). so needed to get a cable to that location which thankfully was a short distance but I came back to finish and found out they want it in a different location, glad I didn't permanently install it yet. On the upside I ripped out all the old cabling and I'm starting from scratch both because the previous restaurant left it a mess and didn't respect the beauty of the historical building running blue cables against beautiful old wood.
ubiquiti for new installs
Ubiquiti ecosystem flat out. Cameras, NAS, APs, all of it.
Any video not saying that isn't serious
@RandomUserName92840 any links to the products? Thanks
1000%. I ripped out a fairly new Linksys Velop Pro system and replaced it with Unifi - sooooo much better to be on the Unifi platform and far more options beyond networking (e.g. video surveillance, door access control, etc.)
@@SirTannerah you just can't beat the software working together and the constant software updates
@@RandomUserName92840 Same. Never heard of this brand before.
Highly recommend Ubiquiti’s Unifi system for whole home networking. Can combine wireless networking, video security and access control through one simple interface.
That is what I have - it's great
Agree. Been using unifi for residential for last 8 years. Home run to each AP. A little more expensive but generally have had great experience with my residential clients, it just works year over year. And when u need a new AP cause wifi technology has changed, it’s an easy swap out and adoption.
I don't use Unify..
But do use a ubiquity Edge Router (4) with a ruckus wireless Unleashed AP. Prior home was 4600 sqf on two levels. Thesingle Ruckus AP covered the house. No chokes even with two teenagers gaming on wifi and wife streaming on ethernet and me via wifi. Even got access into my yard.....
How many of total ports can unifi system take? Or you just connect switch to the unifi system? Do you have the link to the product? Thanks
Second best video because I was wondering about this but no builder video has discussed this subject and this is important. Also the POE helps with security cams I think. If I remember I want to put one in the garage so that I can put a smart cheap TV out there.
As a wireless network engineer with several years of experience in design and implementation of WiFi in a wide variety of spaces, I will say this video really was lackluster compared to much of the content I find on this channel. Granted, maybe it’s because I’m a SME on this subject which isn’t the case on every single other video here 😂
Electricians are not the ones you want doing this. You want someone who knows how to take your floor plans and get them into actual design software, need to have knowledge of standard attenuation for whatever materials are being used in order to accurately model signal propagation, and obviously have knowledge with the hardware being deployed.
I use Ubiquiti at home simply because I got the gear for free except for the router and switch. Plenty of prosumer/SMB level gear to accomplish the goal here though.
Everyone of you in the comments saying to do a mesh network, just know that a mesh network is a lazy way to a significantly less than optimal solution. Doing that in a “high performance home” is abysmal at best.
In my new house the electricians ran wired ports to 3 drops in the house for me. Basement, first and second floor. I then hooked my ISP fiber modem into the basement, connected one of the TP link mesh routers there and used one of the ports to do a wired backhaul to the first floor while running the other free port to my PS5.
I then added 2 other mesh nodes at the wired drops where the electricians put them, which are mostly centrally located in the house, one on the first and other on the second floor. All are connected thru a wired backhaul with the free ports on each node going to stationary items like TVs. The rest of my devices, maybe 50 items total, smart plugs, wifi cams, phones and tablets are wireless. All that to say I get pretty good performance from a home network, but in your opinion could I have done anything better given my use case? Keep in mind, I'm an idiot when it comes to this stuff and my setup is about the limit of how networks go.
@@mleachx1 seems to me like an MVP setup that just works. Most layman just needs to know up to that point, IMO, any further they need to do more research...
@@mleachx1 The wired backbone you are using probably helps a lot.
What most folks don't know is that a mesh will cut available wireless bandwidth in half unless there is a dedicated radio for running the mesh connection.
This video made me facepalm so many times. I expect much better from Matt and this one just doesn't meet his usual level of excellence.
Every AP should be wired back to a capable switch. Mesh is just ugly especially when you get to looking at the frequency spectrum usage, channel widths and then also account for external (neighbors) interference.
I run Juniper @ home but that's just because I have been in networking for decades and can run the best. Helps that I can get it heavily discounted too :)
Ubiquity is a decent lower cost solution that likely fits in the budget of home users that are willing to spend more than netgear money for wifi.
Just please, do yourselves a favor and hard-wire all your APs, and avoid any kind of mesh at all costs..
@@faymTX yep exactly! I actually have two AP45’s sitting here from well before they were available to the public 😂
The best part of this video is a builder talking about how important a "Real" network is at the pre-wire stage. Builders that use the old everything is wireless bit are really bad. Wiring is cheap if installed during construction.
I was stunned to tour a new home build recently and see that there was NO ethernet prewire. It wasn't even an option! They dropped a couple of coax connections in anticipated TV locations (one in the dining room - really?) - that's it. When I enquired about it, they sales people simply said that wireless had come so far that 'no one wants/needs ethernet drops anymore.' That was obviously code for they didn't want another vendor slowing down the build process.
As someone that runs full UniFi at work and home. It is more involved than most can understand. I don't know brand but I know some are now allowing their mesh units to wire back to the base or be meshed all while giving you a basic cell phone app for setup. That is the way most people need to go.
For anyone that reads this. More wireless jumps is bad.
Yeah, all WAPs should have wired home runs. Wireless-wireless mess setups are never going to perform well, especially in densely packed environments like condos, other multifamily homes, and cookie-cutter residential neighborhoods where each house is built 4 feet from the next.
The one issue I find with WAPs is the signal overlay. Sometimes, the overlap causes a device to switch sources improperly. The same issue exists in mesh networks, but it is something to be aware of.
I installed unifi pro6 ap's connected to a dream machine pro. Epic setup. Vlan isolated iot on its own, home appliances on its own isolated vlan, and a few other isolated vlans for other things.
Definitely do not let an electrician make the choice or perform the install. They have no idea what they're doing
I have a 2.5 Gbps wired connection between all of my WiFi 6E and 7 access points. Just TP-Link stuff. Super easy to do and I can seamlessly switch between them if I move around.
yep spot on comment. unifi dream machine or Cloud Gateway Max, Pro max or enterprise 24 or 48 port switch with hard wired unifi pro/enterprise access points is the way to go, and if your building new you may as well install the wiring for unifi access on all the doors/garage door for key-less entry along with their protect poe cameras and doorbell. its not really full enterprise but its bl00dy good and very cost effective for how advanced it is, its probably the most user friendly setup anyone can select that can work in an office or home environment. wire the whole house for cat 6e, at least two ports to every room, ports for all your cameras, door access, wifi access points, thermostat, solar, irrigation, lighting, smart switches and other iot gadgets, try and hard wire every device you can other than phones and laptops. separate the iot stuff on a seperate vlan, put the kids on a vlan, guests on a vlan and then one for sensitive stuff.
When I did a remodel, I did a system somewhat in between pro and consumer grade. I went with the consumer routers and wireless access points, and wired my entire house with coax, and several drops of Ethernet in each room. I routed everything to closet, installed coax and Ethernet patch panels, 24 port smart Cisco switch, and my WiFi router. In the further rooms, I connected a WiFi access point to extend the WiFi. All the fixed devices like TVs, printers, NAS, IP cameras, etc all use the Ethernet drops I ran.
In your video, I’d also recommend installing a patch panel which allows repurposing or rerouting ports.
I wouldn’t put access points in closets…it would be better served in an open hallway…we never install access points at work like that…
I believe his point was simply, "If you don't want to look at it, this is an option." Some people, myself included, don't particularly like the LEDs on WAPs, so if I can get most of the performance without having to see the LEDs by finding a less visible place to put the WAP, I'm probably going to seriously consider it.
@@chaseweeks2708most APs have an option to turn off the LEDs. Unifi is one such brand.
@ i understand his point, and my point is you don’t put access points where the signal can be obstructed…you can do whatever you want but if you get weaker signal that’s my point…
@@HyPex808-2 Except that 2.4GHz passes through two layers of sheet rock like it isn't even there and there's only marginally more impact to 5GHz propagation. If the choice is between an obvious spot on the ceiling in the main area, or a spot in a closet a few feet away, you will not notice a difference in the signal quality. Now, if you have to move the thing 20 feet to put it in the closet, you might notice that difference. But that's just distance, not passing through a regular residential wall.
@@chaseweeks2708 Yes, WiFi can go through walls, but the signal strength will be significantly weakened depending on the wall material and thickness; generally, lower frequency 2.4GHz WiFi signals penetrate walls better than higher frequency 5GHz signals which offer faster speeds but struggle with obstacles like walls. Again I would avoid obstructions if at all possible…
As a DIY'r who is building our home and a 25 year IT pro, dedicated Ethernet runs when possible and a system like Ubiquiti are all a high end residential setup should need. There are design and config considerations, but this will work in most situations.
IEEE fellow here.. A little science lesson: WiFi signals are electromagnetic waves, which can be described (and predicted) using Maxwell’s equations: Gauss’s Law (Electric Fields) Gauss’s Law (Magnetic Fields), Faraday’s Law of Induction, and Ampère-Maxwell Law.
When WiFi signals encounter boundaries (like the transition from air to wood or drywall etc), certain portions are reflected, some are transmitted, and some may be absorbed (converted to heat through conduction losses).. The ratio of these depends on differences in the impedance at the boundary. eg:
- Relative Permittivity In wood or drywall: typical values range from 2 to near ~6, which can slow down and bend (refract) the waves compared to air
- Even small conductive materials (wiring, foil-backed insulation, steel joists in some modern buildings) can cause partial reflections and phase shifts.
- Wood and insulation can absorb moisture, changing their effective dielectric constant and conductivity. Wet/damp materials can absorb more RF energy, further attenuating signals.
Typical home;
2×4 Studs (1.5"×3.5" actual): Typically less insulation thickness, simpler wiring paths.
2×6 Studs (1.5"×5.5" actual): Thicker insulation cavity (fiberglass, cellulose, or foam), often additional reflective barriers or vapor barriers. Each layer changes the dielectric properties encountered by the wave.
Denser Insulation (eg: Rockwool) : Increases the effective dielectric constant, causing more attenuation. Foil layers can act as partial mirrors, reflecting WiFi signals and leading to complex multi-path fading.
Going with 'Pro-Grade' vs 'Consumer' doesn't mean anything nowadays; WiFi transmit power is capped by law. You can’t simply crank power indefinitely without violating FCC/ETSI regulations. Even if the AP can transmit strongly, a phone or laptop must reply with its limited transmitter and antenna. Also, what's the point of 4x4 MIMO on the AP if the client device doesn't
have but 1x1..
More advanced APs might beamform signals more effectively or attempt to use reflective paths, but if the structural environment is highly absorptive, fundamental losses cannot be avoided.
The takeaway; Don't go with 'pro-grade' for your home unless you know your client devices can support the features..
Small Rant about WiFI in general:
- The necessity for backward compatibility in 802.11 standards has become a major barrier to advancing WiFi performance and scalability.
- Since it was designed nearly 3 decades ago (mid-1990s) to replicate layer 2 wired networks, 802.11 has inadequately addressed wireless-specific issues such as higher packet loss rates/fluctuating channel conditions.
- Link-layer acknowledgements required for reliable TCP operations introduce additional latency and complicate retransmission mechanisms (at higher layers)
- Multicast traffic handling remains VERY inefficient (operating without acknowledgements and fixed at low data rates (eg; 1 Mbps on 2.4 GHz and 6 Mbps on 5 GHz))
- the inherent half-duplex TXOP (Transmit Opportunity) overhead continues to constrain throughput, even with advancements in 802.11ax/WiFi 6 and 802.11be/WiFi 7 w/ OFDMA and MU-MIMO
And lastly: Proprietary firmware in modern Wireless chipsets (Intel IWL, Qualcomm QCN, Broadcom) limits the implementation of advanced flow queuing and power control optimizations... A vendor (say, TP-Link ) obtains the binary blob (firmware) for a QCN device directly from Qualcomm for their wireless AP. There's no telling what this binary blob does - if it's doing incorrect things to the radios/device (non standard things).
What you say about WiFi signals themselves is true, but there's alot more to professional level equipment than stuff like RADIUS (which you probably don't need on a home network and is kinda niche anyway) and MIMO. Pro grade APs are often better at stuff like maintaining good coverage or keeping good performance even with many connected devices. They are also usually more stable and reliable. And no reason not to have support for stuff like MIMO. Your client devices may not have it now, but your next generation ones might. A little future proofing can be helpful. And, when building a house, having the wires for APs is really key, even if you plan to upgrade equipment down the road. I'd much rather have wired backhauls than use WiFi mesh.
Mesh Wi-Fi can look elegant in theory, but once electromagnetic wave propagation and half-duplex CSMA overhead come into play, real-world throughput and stability often plummet.. hence the mismatch between marketing and actual performance.
With WiFi 7 here - I am actually excited for WiFi's future (even though I hated the AC and AX specs) - However, consumer stuff will probably not implement MLO (Multi Link Operation) and MRU (Mult RU) like their enterprise counterparts - even though they are in the 802.11 spec.
Also the prosumer pricing can be somewhat the same or even cheaper while actually being supported by the manufacturer for longer than 6 months . Prime example is the banning of TP Link.
@@sturmbreakers7817 TP-Link isn't banned (at least, not yet..)
You have Broadcomm/Marvell/Intel/Qualcomm/Realtek (and maybe a few others). TP-Link, literally uses the same WiFI radios as countless other devices. The only difference is some OEM crap stuff into the bootloader with the same binary blob for the radios..
See:
ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5415877
There is little reason to not go with a Ubiquiti Unifi solution in homes of any meaningful size. A unifi system adjusts the power output levels per access point automatically to optimize the network, as well as the channel and bandwidth adjustments. You receive alerts if the AP density needs improvements, you having mapping tools to analyze access point placement and related signal propagation superimposed over a floorplan. So yes, pro makes a difference over consumer-grade.
As for MIMO, I think even the iPhone 10 supported 2x2, so it doesn't take many WiFi devices in a home to tap more advanced WiFi capabilities.
Looking forward to more in-depth videos on Smart home/ networking/ low voltage stuff
One of the best things about PoE is that you can have more than just cameras, security sensors, or environmental controlls. There's lighting and A/V that can adjust the areas of the building/home based on preference and rights. So you can have LED lights that only authorized users can control. Or have music follow you around the house. Open / close window blinds, water plants and the list goes on…
It's also more energy efficient to have DC provided from one high efficiency power supply than multiple wall worts all over the place.
the best wifi is wired ethernet. use wired as the primary (computers and stationary streaming devices) and wifi as the secondary (anything mobile)
he lost me immediately when he says CLOSET is a great location for WIFI access points, sorry, but those walls will kill the signals immediately, the focus should be quality of the signal, not hiding the device. that installation shown was terrible in my standards. I have CAT6 drops everywhere in the house with fiber to main panel, wish I put fiber to some rooms as well, but that will next.
A closet isn't generally considered a great place. The lower frequency 2.4 GHz older WiFi will not be affected significantly by that location, but higher-frequencies will get attenuated more. With all of the options for access points nowadays (table-top, wall mounted, ceiling mounted, etc.), there really is no need to hide access points in a closet.
Saw a dryer there as well. Last I checked they produce a lot of heat as a side effect of their intended function. So yeah. Not predicting a great lifespan for that access point.
I want to thank you for all of you tips and experiences you with us. This show many should do for their new construction home. I always tell people hard wire is faster than Wifi
I bought a 1970s house that has foil backed drywall. Not only a signal stopper, but the reflection causes issues even if you're a few feet away from the Access Point.
The one thing i noticed with my build is every company had either data network people or audio/video people. Neither had a good understanding of the other. It ahould all be thought of as data. I brought back all network, audio and video to my mechanical room. Installed cat6 for data to wifi and utilized 2.5Gb APs and then fiber hdmi + 2 fiber patches to every TV location for current and future 4K and 8K transmission that requires 40Gbs consistant connection. The coat was maybe 5% more and sets me up for the future in 10 years.
The most important thing for good WiFi signal, which is often overlooked (briefly mentioned in this video), are the material the house is made. Materials drastically affect the consistency of (line-of-sight) WiFi coverage throughout the home and more importantly the placement of the wireless Access Points. The best way to visualize wireless signals are to think of them like a laser pointer. Grab a 6ft ladder and sweep 360 degrees from the location where you think the AP should be located, then ask yourself what materials or appliances that light need to travel through to be received at the device, let's say on the living room couch? Most installers, including professional installers, place WiFi access points where convenient, where pre-wired, which often means behind glass televisions or in areas that attenuate RF signals. Kitchens, televisions, concrete walls, modern glass windows, water heaters, refrigerators, and bathroom showers, all attenuate signals at various frequencies and AP's should not be placed near or behind them if possible. Great topic though Matt! Love your videos!
Finally some NorCal love
Hard wiring accesspoints is more relevant than mesh to this channel. Ubiquiti equipment for the win.
My home lighting automation is all done through a bluetooth mesh network linked to my digital assistant (not using brand name, here.) The system has good reliability as long as the internet is up and everything works by normal wall switches when the internet is down. The commands don't have to go all the way to China and back, so lag is minimal. The system tends to fix itself when there are anomalies like individual devices temporarily failing to respond. I realize this is different from the WiFi mesh you're describing, but the concept is similar.
Put all your data cables in conduit so it will be easy to change them out. Data standards get upgraded a lot more frequently than the average person gets their electrical rewired!
Have a data socket plate wired in everywhere you think you might one day want to put a device that wants internet. Bedrooms, studies, a convenient nook that could become a study .. don't forget that small children grow up and teens and young adults need places to use a computer at the same time you're using yours.
Also, we know that all the experts on sleep are telling us not to use the computer in bed, but disabilities and fatigue disorders are getting more common and for a lot of people, if they have to get out of bed to use a computer, that's not happening. Include data connections at every place you might put a bed.
While you're at it, think about wired-in speakers in every room for high quality audio, and wired-in CO2, VOC, hygrometer, and thermostat sensors in every room to automate control of your HVAC. It isn't only internet data that travels better through cables than through the air.
I'm a builder and your talking hundreds of dollars of installs that will never be touched because 99% of data now goes wireless and one good modem will cover typical homes
@@sparksmcgee6641 So less than 1% of the cost of a new house?
Cat 5e can handle 10 Gbs for shorter runs and it's been around since 2001. Cat 6 can handle longer runs for that 10 Gbs. There are not many homes that going to max out that network connection.
Conduit runs are unnecessary except for providing a path for the ISP to upgrade their lines. Cat6a will be more than sufficient for the home until the home needs to be remodeled in 50 years.
Cat6a has been around for over 20 years and we are only now considering 2.5 GbE for our consumer grade networking equipment. So it will be a long time until the individual branches of a network need something beyond 10GbE.
Correct on running lots of individual drops of ethernet, anything that has an ethernet port should have a wired connection. But save the time and money and don't bother with the conduit.
@@economicprisoner What is 1%???
I have eero mesh but I also have a switch that feeds all the Apple TVs in the house(5) and the two office computers. The eero handle the WiFi amazingly with great coverage that is almost plug and play and I can upgrade at the WiFi tech changes/improves without spending “pro” money. I just checked and I have 38 items on my WiFi network currently and I do have fiber straight to the house.
I use my home as a test bed for studying handicap and elderly (low income) access to virtual assistants. It is wired with cat 6 to run all the TVs, computer, printer and cameras (cat 5 for voip phones in each room). The network equipment I use includes an Orbi router with one satellite (with a separate 18 port switch), and a small router for 2.4 WiFi dedicated devices. I have full voice control with Alexa and about 43+ active WiFi devices (Echos, switches, sensors, light bulbs...). My home is only 1,500 sqft and the incoming signal from the cable company is 300mbps (down from 800mbps). No problem with streaming on three TVs at once and still have enough WiFi bandwidth for all devices and cell phones.
I slowly built my system over a 4 year period. I discovered building routines with the Amazon Echo system was the best way to evaluate my needs (equipment purchases) as I am physically handicapped.
Something to think about as I have also isolated part of my house with minimal technology so guests can visit without being overwhelmed by the technology.
If you do plan out a house with access to technology, it is important to realize that you will have to deal with changes, but also cost. I avoided fiber optic as the cost is still prohibited and my provider's signal is poor anyways.
Yes, my house is more high tech than most. However, I evaluate devices on cost and suitability for low income users (the cheaper the better). I purchase each device myself and do not accept equipment from manufacturers. I use the information I gather to support short courses with two universities. I do have a Master's degree in Human Factors and a good understanding of technology (30 years of being an electronic technician on large systems - very minimal network background).
2:40 correction correction technically it's 3 devices. a modem which converts whatever medium that is coming in > then goes to a router which acts as a barrier between you and the Internet > and an access point AP that provides Wi-Fi. You can skip the Wi-Fi and only use ethernet and faster more reliable but requires cabling throughout the house which is useful for many other things (like getting a good quality signal on the fourth floor with another AP). And ethernet is so much better for fixed appliances that don't move.
Technically 5 devices. Modem, router, firewall, WAP, & switch.
In most cases the modem is made irrelevant if the connection is fiber optic. Effectively you are just hooking up to a dedicated Ethernet connection which supplies a single IP address (or two if you get both a public IPv4 and IPv6 address) via DHCP. If you only had one device you could run this without a router. If you get television over the same cable things may get a bit more complicated as the TV may be latching on to a hidden VLAN, but that's kind of besides the point as you are still just using Ethernet here.
@@aBoogivogi still have a modem (of sorts) called an ONT.
Power over Ethernet is the way to go for sure. The key is to have a good antenna and Modem that gets a strong stable signal from the towers/ISP(s). If you can hardwire at some key points in the house, all the better.
“Enterprise”, not pro grade and then “Prosumer”. Get a UniFi Dream Machine and AP’s and they will be super happy, no extra cloud access costs and a great support network. All of the pleasure and none of the Meraki fees.
So, you are saying in the most convoluted way possible, the consumer grade equipment does the same thing more expensive equipment does if the network is designed and built the same. The switch and ethernet cable can be added to consumer grade routing equipment, and you get the same expanded capabilities without paying more. Get a good switch and run ethernet cable throughout the house before the walls are closed. If this is done right, the rest is easy, and you should do the easy part yourself.
Sorry Matt - I support all the negative comments. He's knowledge basically stopped at get someones else to install pro-grade.
What he said at the beginning is important. No fiber optic to the property and you are compromised no matter what you do. A better location for the rj45 jack is your main audiovisual location so as many as possible devices may be hardwired.
1) Have a wired first approach, if your devices have an ethernet port use that instead of WiFi. This is especially important for security cameras and critical automation devices. Install "smurftube" or other fishible conduit for long-term future proofing.
2) No mesh, just don't. Access points are always wired and do not use "extenders".
3) Access points don't go in closets. Fire your architect/interior designer/network guy, if they can't integrate an AP into the design. If your AP has lights you can't disable, you bought the wrong brand.
4) Design for at least dual AP signal coverage. 20mhz channel width in 2.4ghz, 40/80mhz in 5ghz, 160mhz in 6ghz. Avoid DFS channels.
5) Use firewalled VLANs/SSIDs to segment your different networks. IoT, Security Cameras, TVs, Gaming Consoles, Guests etc.
7) If you are going to buy smarthome devices, zigbee, zwave, matter, thread are generally all better options than Bluetooth or Wi-Fi based devices with few exceptions.
All good advice -- simple and straight forward... stressing the security aspect. Residential networks are key choices for adversaries trying to steal identities. Always have an active security IPS/IDP gateway in blocking mode.
As someone who is running their initial low voltage wiring for a new home construction, just make sure you get smurf tubing to a central location and do an initial site survey using Ubiquiti’s tools to make sure your AP placement has enough coverage. Learn how to tune your own system or just hire someone after your home is complete. Also, hard wire as much as possible to keep things simple, like to TV locations and bedrooms/offices. Flex tubing will cover most of your other scenarios. I have fiber for my 100Gbps runs being pulled after close, but having smurf tubing gives you the flexibility to future proof. Fiber use cases for home are very limited though. I have them between my two garages and my second building structure as backhaul and unless you are doing a home lab, doesn’t make much sense. Also, why does everyone throw in their years of experience in comments. 😂
I have my fiber line running into the middle room of my upstairs... The local network only allows for one of their combo systems which is pretty robust to be fair and covers the upstairs and all the rooms below... Even allows for 4K streaming in the basement albeit out of 20 times reduction in speed... So I ran four cat 8s up into the attic and hardwired the three TVs upstairs to take them off the Wi-Fi, ran one of the cat8s to the basement and hooked up the entertainment center closet with the raxs 120 that I used to have upstairs... Hardwired the entertainment systems in the basement, and ran hardwire up to the primary TV on the mid level... I have six TVs hardwired and one gaming system... Link speed anywhere in the house is about 860 Mbps over WiFi on any of the 3 (⁵g bands) that are all free because the TVs are hardwired... I'm only paying 65 bucks a month for 1 gig fiber... Getting 950 up 950 down 3 milliseconds of latency... I have smart lights outside & inside, camera systems, printers exct... I can carry about 128 Wi-Fi devices on my network..... The raxs 120 honestly is the best coverage I've seen on the market for its 2.4G I could connect at the end of my block five houses away; only about 200 bucks these days; seems like everybody went for mesh systems but those are trash... My routers are about 60 ft away from each other... There are zero dead zones on my entire property...
I have done some work designing around the limitations of crowded CSMA networks, at the protocol layers. So I have dealt with this set of problems over my career. The main problem with a mesh network is that when you have videos running in three or four different rooms, there are going to be a lot of collisions between wi-fi streams. This gets really bad if you have neighbors running their own wi-fi in adjacent apartments or condos. Hardwired CAT6 ethernet cable is the way to go for every location you plan to use the internet, if you are still building your house. In a lot of situations, it's not that difficult to add that wiring even after a house is built, through a crawlspace. Cable installers come and staple coax to the outside of your house. You can do the same with outdoor-compatible ethernet cable. You can buy a multi-port switch for very little money on Amazon. The length of an ethernet cable is limited to 100 meters, so your switch should be central while your modem needs to be within 100 meters of your switch. This way a 500 MBPS cable or fiber connection could support five 100 MBPS ethernet connections with no interference at all.
if you have home run Ethernet, you can do a simple mesh network like eero and create a wired backhaul. much cheaper than unifi with similar results. You have also left out MoCA technology, which will allow a wired backhaul on a homes existing coax cabling eliminating the need install cat6 home runs. MoCA also has the advantage of gigabit WAN and LAN on a single coax which is equivalent to 2 cat6 cables.
basically, wired backhaul is the way to go for a mesh network
MoCa is the best kept secret for retrofitting... Even the big name builders are skipping CAT5e/CAT6/a pulls. I had to "retrofit" my brother's 2021-built house because the number of access panels we would have had to use to appropriately wire with Ethernet was comedic. Coax was close to everywhere we needed, even though everyone nowadays consumes programming over WiFi. These builders are stuck in the 1990s and 2000s.
IMO Everywhere coax is pulled should have 2 CAT6a minimum.
The theoretical bandwidth of coax is incredibly high, higher than any CAT or consumer fiber option. Even dated RG59 can theoretically outperform CAT. But it has to be done right with home runs and needs an in between device to create the correct signal and to receive the signal. Then it would need to go from Coax to Ethernet anyway defeating the point of all those devices in between.
When I had my house built I asked for Cat6a cable into each bedroom, living room, and other room that I wanted a hard wire connection. When the isp came in I had them turned off wifi. He did not want to do it but when he saw my unifi system he agreed to it. I also built a a copper mesh cage for the isp router. I have 10gb around the house and only needed 2 AP.
lol, kind of the same here. I couldn't get around using the ISP's router because it also provides cable tv (that I don't actually use), so I have my own router behind it and all other services turned off on the ISP's box. I really do love Ubiquiti's stuff though. I've built basic home networks and full campus networks with it. It's surprisingly scalable and easy to use.
Being smart with the AP is key. In general, it's getting it high enough so it is not obstructed by appliances, walls, glass, mirrors, etc.
Every house I have had. I tell the cable guy run your line to here, here’s my modem. Don’t do anything else hahaha
Sweet!!
If you are going to the trouble of building a new house then why stop at WiFi when you can also wire CAT6 or even fiber. It's far more reliable and doesn't drop speeds the further from the transmitter you go. Also I find that electricians have no idea of network cabling as I have spent hours cleaning up the electrical lines running parallel for +20 feet near network lines. Proper grounding of network equipment is necessary for signal integrity to eliminate data drops.
I really believe this should have been broken down into a good, better, best. But mainly point out the downfalls of each. Like the actual wireless APs, cost more, but you are going to have better WiFi calling, less latency etc. Mesh as the "better" option, cheaper than dedicated pro-sumer access points (as nothing network related was actually "pro-grade") better coverage but still has the downfalls of latency and potentially roaming issues (moving from 1 mesh AP/repeater to another). Then the good really is only applicable to 1000 sq ft or smaller.
It is definitely good to get the information out there. But if you want a truly awesome WiFi experience, hire a professional with the equipment. Not only to design what should be put in, but also follow up with an Ekahau (or similar) survey to actually see how the installed Access Points are doing.
Matt, i love your videos. I have learned tons about better and tighter building. This one just urked me, as it is my profession and could have been better presented.
Something I ended up figuring out and correcting for in Friends apartment, was accounting for and eliminating as much interference, which meant relocating the components a little differently in the room to account for wiring in walls, mirrors, and even metal filing shelf that the router was sitting by in a cramped corner. I ended up fixing the issues in living room and bedroom that they were having of Wi-Fi dropping out. AT&T came out multiple times and couldn't figure it out LOL. Funniest of the corrections was him having the desktop comp on Wi-Fi with the router etc right at his feet..
Okay, remember CJ is speaking to the trades-not to the geeks or nerds. I use UniFi or Ubiquiti equipment. One access point per floor with inter spatial spacing you need to think in 3 dimensions the wave length warps but basically the mesh works for 75 feet. Also bring cat7 to all streaming devices. Wired access is always better than wifi
CAT7 isn't a standard and is nothing more than a way to make fools spend money. CAT6A is a standard and should be recommended....
I have the same Ubiquity APs that were in the wlaundry closet and they work very well.
If building, run ethernet to all rooms. Build a networking closet.
Buy your own modem/router/wifi AP; DO NOT RENT. Pro grade or consumer grade does not matter. If you need better coverage, get another wifi router and set to access point.
This more than covers 99% of the population. If this does not meet your needs, then hire someone or DIY.
Do not spend lots of money.
At the minium, just get a Wi-Fi router with more Ethernet port (4+) then get addition AP for around the house Wi-Fi (can wire the Ethernet around the house for better speeds, but powerline extender could used even if it's slightly worse)
As a corporate server guy, I spend an undue amount of time explaining why users’ files transfer so slowly even though they just upgraded to the latest and greatest from their cable provider.
As the guy said, planning IS the most important thing. What does the user need, where are they doing it from?
If you are not going DIY, use: 1-a low voltage vendor, 2- a network vendor, 3-an AV vendor, 4-an electrician only if they are qualified for networking.
None of the stuff shown was pro grade. The base level isp equipment is good enough for many. The next step up should be something like a ubiquity setup. Skip the TP link stuff as they may be banned from the US due to poor security. Make sure the mesh system is WIRED back to the internet connection.
From a cost perspective use cat 6a through cat 7a. Cat 8 is much more difficult to work with for the marginal improvement. Even cat 5e can deliver 10 gigabit over short distances.
For an isp, get one delivering fiber, only get cable or starlink if fiber is not available.
Again, planning is key for doing what you want and at the speed you want.
A lot of good advice,, for me would put a nic/mini-computer in each closet using fiber, and each has a WiFi network, the tv, Apple TV, sound system, & cameras would be hard wired. Also this would make a great cluster for VMs, video, AI, etc.
Thanks, I really wish I had this video before I built my studio! Time to go back and reevaluate my setup!
One word. Unifi
I dumped consumer brands for commercial brands (Unifi on particular) and the improvement in performance and reliability is fantastic. 4 years so far and ZERO issues, unlike the flakey Linksys mesh network which was nothing but trouble from day one.
Great video. I like that you stayed away from brands and just talked about features that people may need.
I use unifi system network I have 2 long range u6s with security gateway super reliable system very easy to install and control
I feel like you should have gotten someone more knowledgeable to speak on this. I mean pro tip 1. Don't put your darn wireless access points in a closet.
All my wifi access points are in closets, but they have intentionally radio-transparent materials in them and are located well. You can get wifi through a couple layers of drywall no problem if there's no foil faced insulation or chickenwire in the way.
@@andrewbrowning6357 What do you mean by "radio-transparent"? Some materials cause less interference than others, but even studs and bog standard drywall can diminish radio signal performance. Pile on screws/nails, electrical wiring, and any other metallic items commonly found in walls and you are unnecessarily hampering your signal and forcing the access point to work harder than it needs to. So, yes, you are correct that the WiFi signal will pass through drywall, but it is not without a penalty. If you prioritize aesthetics above raw performance, then I can see wanting to hide the access point in a closet. Personally, I'd rather stick an already very low key device in a hallway or in the middle of a large room where it will perform optimally.
@@JordanDahmen OK cool, but I can still max out my gigabit fiber over wifi while sitting on my couch like a slob so like... I'm not sure any of that matters you know?
You know what I mean by radio transparent. Radio. Transparent. Windows don't let all the light through either but nobody's like "oh no my view sucks because of this piece of glass :( :( ".
Thanks for sharing your journey Matt and all the best for the year ahead!
Not a bad introduction for understanding. I was surprised of no mention of air flow considerations for the rack.
I was surprised it took 17 minutes to mention physical wiring for appliances that don't move much.
FYI rigid foam insulation board with aluminum foil facing does affect WiFi RF signal
Matt I love your content... please don't have anyone on talking about mesh networks....
"Wire is for performance, Wireless is for convenience." - Biggest lessons I learned in custom electronic training. So planning for wi-fi is only is already planning for a lack of performance...
even though you kept this basic, this explainer was a little TOO basic to be usefully informative. The fact someone clicked on this video to learn there could have been more technical information here.
I agree. I would avoid any pro-grade or professional IT solutions discussed in this video. They are overkill for most home users' needs and must be configured and updated. Many consumer routers and gateways are easier to manage, and your ISP will ensure you have the latest software or equipment if any exploits occur. Unifi is much easier to manage and configure, but you must still manage the network.
@@malakite321 prosumer stuff is getting easier than ever. Once networking hardware is configured it generally is pretty stable.
I disagree. I felt to says that the right level for the average Joe and Jane public.
I think that the information could have been focused and better supported with more visuals. For example, showing a clear diagram of the difference between a wired and wireless backbone for access points. People buy these mesh systems as the advertise the effortless extension of internet throughout the home ("no deadspots"), but they are a horrible solution for anything that requires even moderate bandwidth and low latency. People don't understand what they are buying and this would have been a good place to touch on that.
This is a great topic and worth making videos about, but you need to bring in someone who does this for a living, not an electrician. Doing this for a living means someone who ONLY installs home networks, and not electrical wires/systems at all. Or someone who works for an Amazon, google, Microsoft etc data center on the physical side of installing/upgrading/maintaining network equipment.
so, you mentioned interference at the beginning of the video but the very first WAP location is inside of a closet with interference right next to a vent and the washer and dryer?
I have 20+ years in IT and Network Engineering. This was not a professional level discussion. Get Crosstalk solutions to talk about this with you Matt. Aracnis and Luxul gear are dubiously pro grade.
Faux-grade.
We have a local small internet company in the Viroqua Wisconsin area called Vernon Cooperative that is cream of the crop! They install, hands down, the best setup in Southwestern Wisconsin!
I was skeptical when Google WiFi mesh came out but now after 5+years of use in a 3500ft house I have full confidence in this simple solution. So this "pro grade" is unnecessary for residential use.
Our family runs 2 or 3 zoom calls simultaneously every day with zero issues. Obviously everything else is fine too.
The "beauty" of this setup is that I don't need anything "specialized" and control all settings via Google Home and I have full freedom to upgrade/expand at any point
As a datacenter engineer this isn't a bad overview. I think people would like to know more detailed specifics as to why the professional or pro-sumer such as Unifi are worth their value i.e some of the configuration items you can achieve in your home network
I'll give a good plug for the UniFi. I was reworking my network from a jumbled mess in the original structured panel in our master closet into a 6" deep 19" x 24" rack mounted over it. I put a nice managed switch mounted vertically, the patch panel, and mounts for a compact PC for firewall, power strips, VOIP, and modem. I stuck a UPS behind it in the original structured box. Finally, I picked up a Ubiquiti UniFi Pro AP, expecting to use it to locate about three locations to cover our two story, 3700 SqFt home. I chose one central location on a high loft area with line of site down a couple of halls. I then went around doing signal testing and found it was so good I didn't need another device. The only exception was to a carriage garage to service our EV.
The biggest reason for me to use commercial, or at least pro-sumer, quality gear is to isolate devices. I don't allow cheap WiFi devices or appliances to see any other device on our network, except the other crappy WiFi devices. Phones get their own network that has holes to use printers and televisions, which are also separate from our primary computers. Computers are hard wired only and protected by a commercial open source dedicated firewall with paid support.
Unifi is the "Apple" experience of home networking. Everything just works. Their integration of their "Protect" (camera surveillance) is very slick. Pop in a $100 hard drive and never pay another dime to Nest, Ring, or whoever for video storage. App is way more responsive too with some great features such as loitering detection, ability to search by specific detection (want to search for people? animals? car? truck? SUV? search by vehicle color, license plate recognition)... it all just works. It's worth the premium.
@@alldecentnamestaken The main reason I subscribe to Ring is for the alerts I receive on my cell phone if I am not at home. Can a unifi home network system do the same thing?
@@csmorris66 yes. UniFi Protect has a customizable alerting and detection system that can do push notifications and works with my smartwatch too.
@@csmorris66 yes and it works very well. Very easy to set up alerts that filter out false positives. For example you can set the alerts to only be for people and not for animals, only for certain cameras, only for certain times of day. Whatever you want really. It's the best system on the market IMO.
Reading the comments is very interesting. Feels like a lot of people are very online. I'm doing a renovation to my home and networking is at the bottom of my list of concerns. I'm still giving it some thought - every bedroom and the living room gets an ethernet jack that goes back to a central hallways cabinet where I'll put the modem, router and switch. But that's about it. I currently have a mesh network that I have no problems with. I can't help but feel the whole "smart home" thing is just another trap of the tech companies to monetize our lives. I don't want all my stuff to require an app and spending time futzing with settings and updates 😠.
More important than the specific cabling is conduit and pull string to allow you to pull the latest hotness in 10 years.
As someone who knows this stuff… I agree with this other comments that you should have gotten someone a bit more knowledgeable about the subject. This was an entry level video with a lot of random info and some bad advice mixed in. Liked talking about mesh networks a bit too much too. Professional level networks do all of it…. Not sure why you have an electrician explaining IT level stuff to people. Get a channel like Crosstalk Solutions with people who actually know their stuff and how to explain it. This was very bleh…
Or even just partner with LTT for some documentation advice. They know more on Wi-Fi from being the “tech guy in the family”
For new build homes, the ONLY option I would recommend is UniFi.
1. Put a small to medium rack (6U min up to 18U) in the basement or utility area. This will house your UniFi controller and PoE switch
2. Run CAT6/CAT6A wires up to the roof area to each corner of the house (for cameras)
3. Run CAT6/CAT6A to doorbell so it's wired, not wireless
4. Run 4+ drops to any "family room" type place (for Xbox, PS, Nintendo, Roku, etc) or office. It might seem like overkill, but you'll run out of ports quickly with PCs, printers, etc!
5. Run 2 drops to any other wall-mounted TV (1 for TV, 1 for Roku or whatever other possible device you might need)
6. Run drops to main hallways for all your access points. They'll blend in with your smoke detectors if you turn off the LEDs!
7. Run conduit from utility area/basement to any major access areas (such as attic, garage, etc) for future wiring!
8. If you need to handle any out-buildings, you can run pre-terminated 10Gbit fiber cables or use the wireless UniFi device bridge pro or building bridge to link up the out-buildings.
Wired is always 1000% better than wireless! For nearly all of your runs in a normal-sized house (
The APs used in the model home are Ubiquiti btw. UI.com - fantastic networking equipment, especially on the security camera side of things.
7:30 was waiting for a wired connection to get mentioned.
That is RJ45, not RG6 though.
RG6 is 75 Ohm coaxial cable, typically used in cable networks.
I thought this was a great overview of this concept.
I built my home in 1992, my builder wired the home for a phone in the kitchen and one in Master bedroom. Remember this was before even dial up.
I just politely asked the builder if he would mind if I added some phone connection lines and he said I could.
I wired each room for cable, with coax , and phone lines to each room. Then found out we did not even have cable Tv in my area. All was good as the coax cable worked fine for my antena based system.
First there was dial up, then I had satellite Internet (remember no cable). Then the FCC stepped in and bought the frequency we were using for the satellite connection, but cable was now here(yea). Problem was they wired with a new better Coaxial cable 😢. When I asked about installing new cable, I had to buy new cable from the installer and do it myself, I guess they did not like attic work. So that is what I have done. Have gone through two upgrades to the modem and have a few network repeats in the house now.
As with all of life things change I'm still glad I wired the home, it gave years of service.
There is an "option 2.5" (of his stated three options). Mesh network with copper/fiber backbone. All of the equipment is now available to the general consumer (imported from China, via Amazon, at least in 2024...) to run 10 Gb multimode fiber backbone between switches in the home. From there, the same switches are all 2.5 Gb RJ45 copper ports for plugging in various devices, including the mesh WiFi hubs he refers to.
In this way, you get wired internet (not just wireless) everywhere you need it AND you can easily upgrade it later on (when it inevitably breaks or gets outdated). As others have stated, though: Make sure your builder / installer doesn't cheap out and run Cat5 or Cat5E for the copper runs. Cat6 is minimum, Cat6A is better, preferably Cat8 now (NOT Cat7). Even better... do like I described and run fiber and Cat8 (as the rooms need).
Cat8 is redundant and cat7 does not exist. Even cat6a is problematic given that the foil can do more harm than good in some cases. The reality is hardly anyone has adopted the 2.5 and 5 gigabit standard yet and in most homes a decent location for terminating your cat6 pulls means you will still be well within spec for using the regular cat6 for 10 gigabit if you need it. If you are paranoid run single mode fiber (4 core minimum) to the locations where you expect that you might need speeds beyond 10 gig and just hold off on terminating it as that's where the majority of the cost lies and before it's needed terminating it will add no value. Just remember to leave 2-3 feet worth of cable in each box so it's reasonably easy to weld later. Also do not have your electrician install the fiber or copper cables. Read up on requirements and do it yourself or hire somebody that specializes in low voltage networking. It's not especially difficult to do either, but do it wrong and it won't matter what cable you run.
Matt, love your content, but as an engineer in tech, please listen to the other comments.
Network engineering is a rabbit hole with many nuances and so many variables. Definitely do NOT allow an electrician to take care of this. They have their lane and place, this ain’t one of them. There’s a reason we don’t hire electricians to design network infrastructure.
I still occasionally have to unplug and let my router and/or modem reset, then plug it back in. (a software reset doesn't always work) are these built in devices that much more stable or are they just a nightmare to manually reset when that comes up?
This was unbelievably bad for a Build Show content. Most of Matt's content discusses the technology of building and the decision points to the different technologies. On a brand-new house above $500k, a home network solution that is designed to grow with technology and the occupants needs is a good starting place. Adding in automation is certainly another factor, but there was not one mention of security -- which is appalling. A home network gateway firewall with IDP/IPS protection is not expensive and should be a part of any new or retrofit build. Using CAT6 in a new build is fairly short sighted. I was building with CAT6 20+ years ago. If you think that going with CAT8 shielded cable is overkill today, just remember that there will be improvements in demand as well as technology in the next 20 years of the house that you are building or retrofitting. A solid home network setup will withstand this inevitable change. Ubiquiti Unifi or Cisco Meraki are solid designed network solutions for equipment in switching, security, and wireless that can be easily centrally managed or remotely managed by a preferred support technician.
You do not need more than cat6 unless you plan on moving lots of data very quickly between devices on the local network. And if you have some rooms that may be subject to this requirement installing a single mode fiber cable in a hidden box you can use later is a much better option than cat8. The thing you have to remember is that the main growth factor for most homes is not your needs but rather the needs of online services. If everyone in the world were to suddenly stream gigabit bitrate videos that would produce a load way beyond 10x on the network infrastructure. There is no way that will happen anytime soon. Heck even since the first streaming providers came into existence we haven't even reached 100 mbit streams yet. Cloud storage may drive things a bit higher but even there the providers can't just open the floodgates and give each user unlimited bandwith for the very same reasons that you won't see gigabit bitrates on streaming anytime soon.
my friend renovated their old (40 year) house, i helped him, we did put in CAT 7 cables (10Gbps into every room) and he has also WiFi for phone, laptop and tablet coverage.
he has a 2Gbps Internet, and 2.5Gbps switches (cos 10Gbps switches are to expensive, but will be at the same price as 2.5Gbps switches are now but in 10 years, at which point they will be replaced with 10Gbps switches)
Pro grade without talking about vlans? How about keeping the firmware updated? Upgrade costs when you want the latest version of Wi-Fi?
I would like to hear more from CJ and Matt on Residental Starlink as both full time ISP solution or a redundant ISP if the local ISP goes down.
Super nice house. That place is like a dream for me.
Mesh wireless should be a last resort. You are halving throughput with each hop away from the main AP. Should at least talked about frequencies and channels.
And the 802.11 standard did not get all the bandwidth they wanted when drawing up the standard.
By the 4 color theorem: you can not avoid mutual interference with 20Mhz channels.
A common network where the nodes talk via wired connections is still a mesh network. And while I agree with the sentiment that WiFi mesh networks are garbage I feel like he should have pointed this out as soon as he mentioned the fact that some of the mesh solutions allowed you to use a wired connection and not just WiFi.
@@aBoogivogi A wired equivalent to a wireless mesh is using a series of hubs which are not commonly available anymore.
The man said a hundred times this a basic overview and will get into more details in another video, yet here come the "expert" trolls. Has he ever tried to put everything for home building in one video, no. So relax
I have a hybrid of the two, TP link mesh network, switches plug into the main node, the other nodes plugged into the switch. It costs way less than a professional access point set up.
So, where do you get this pro grade equipment? For DYI.
This is great for flooding the house hold however you should be isolating areas to be wi-fi free such as bedrooms.
I started an isp with a ladder truck a few poles, fiber and some radios. Now have 1/3 market in my town in 3 years. Hundreds of fiber drops and radio hookups. Ubiquity…UniFi. NANOs for ftth or pon. Hundreds of apartments
A pro network installer provides a printable report (Fluke LinkWare) when the job is done showing where the Ethernet cables run and that they all meet the spec after install. I've been supporting networks for over 20 years in the enterprise and I've never heard of Arkanis, so I looked them up and they seem to be in the niche for Smart Home / Control4 with installers that can do a turnkey install & offer remote monitoring - with a steep mark-up.
It was nice to see plywood backboard in the "mechanical" room ... until I saw that there wasn't any backboard or cable supports for the long run of cables going into the half rack on wheels. I was also surprised to see no apparent treatment on the bare concrete and behind that half rack a short 2x4 that didn't seem to be attached to anything.
Good points are to label all cable runs, but I'm not sure if that was done at both ends. Pretty sure I saw a Ubiquiti UniFi AP in the closet and that may work if that closet is centered on a work area and the walls have wood studs. Cat 6 is good, but I'd go Cat 6A after seeing this house. And always purchase pure bare copper network cabling, never CCA.
I am looking forward to a whole home network setup done on this channel with a low voltage wired and wi-fi designer at the beginning. Find out the ISP provider that services the home and find out where they'd run the line in - typically the corner of the house closest to their lines in the utility easement. After most trades are done, run all the low voltage infrastructure. Typically, low voltage needs to be 1' away from high voltage lines, so just run it one bay over before the drywall goes in. I'd rather see a fire rated backboard 4' x 4' x 3/4" and a #6 ground to land the patch panel and other equipment than a wheeled rack on the ground. Find out from the authority having jurisdiction if they require ENT, riser and plenum rated low voltage cabling, and take it from there.
Looking forward to a deeper dive on a future video!
You're cruisin' fer a bruisin' talkin' about my Wi-Fi like that!
I may have missed it. Is there a controller for the wifi AP’s