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Introducing a new kind of Wi-Fi system

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Re: Introducing a new kind of Wi-Fi system

#11
post #3

Serious question: whose WiFi is not working, to the degree that they think, "I really need to get a modern router to make this Internet thing actually work." I'm seeing about a dozen fancy modern wifi routers all trying to solve a problem I'm not sure exists.

Disclaimer: I am employed by Google but I do not work nor have any affiliation with this product, this is just my opinion and not that of my employer.

All the experience I've always had with wifi in the last ~10 years has been abysmal. I play games and make a lot of use of internet (downloading, working through ssh sessions, etc) and the slight hiccup and packet loss is very evident in my system and frustrates me a lot. When I am playing games and there's a slight interference, I notice immediately. When I am chatting on irc through ssh and my keystrokes don't go through due to spotty wifi, I notice immediately. Sometimes it's unbearable. I think this idea is really great. I had to finetune my wifi so many times in all the apartments I've lived at. Using channel analysers to pick the correct one every once in a while (due to recurring congestion/interferences), living in a very crowded area I often have ~30 access points broadcasting and cluttering and it's really obvious in the performance of my network.

In the last apartment I was staying at (moved out a few days ago), every time my flatmate at the opposite side of the house would open the living room door to walk to the bathroom, my signal would experience a latency spike of 100-200ms (average would be 10-20). We had a pretty poor router, to be honest, and I was at the other side of the apartment, but it was simply ridiculous. At times it would just refuse to work and I couldn't browse the internet for a few minutes simply because of too much congestion.

I think this idea with multiple smart access points is simply genius and while I plan to use wired connection for my next apartment, I'm definitely looking forward to a better implementation of the currently abysmal wifi that we have in general.

Re: Introducing a new kind of Wi-Fi system

#12
post #3

Serious question: whose WiFi is not working, to the degree that they think, "I really need to get a modern router to make this Internet thing actually work." I'm seeing about a dozen fancy modern wifi routers all trying to solve a problem I'm not sure exists.

> Serious question: whose WiFi is not working, to the degree that they think, "I really need to get a modern router to make this Internet thing actually work."

With stock ISP router, I see occasional connectivity problems with several devices connected and one of them is streaming video (even though there is more than enough upstream bandwidth capacity to handle multiple devices streaming), all reasonably close to the router, and greater problems when one is farther from the router (even without any of the streaming video), in a relatively modest suburban house (Anecdotally, I've seen lots of similar complaints from other people.

Re: Introducing a new kind of Wi-Fi system

#13
post #3

Serious question: whose WiFi is not working, to the degree that they think, "I really need to get a modern router to make this Internet thing actually work." I'm seeing about a dozen fancy modern wifi routers all trying to solve a problem I'm not sure exists.

the number of networks i see living in a densely populated city (NYC) is pretty intense. Most modernish routers indiscriminately broadcast on both the 5GHZ + 2.4GHZ band, plus create an automatic (or, at least, one-click) guest network. So in a given building there maybe something like 2+ SSIDs per apartment.

that alone creates plenty of noise to wade through...

Re: Introducing a new kind of Wi-Fi system

#17
post #3

Serious question: whose WiFi is not working, to the degree that they think, "I really need to get a modern router to make this Internet thing actually work." I'm seeing about a dozen fancy modern wifi routers all trying to solve a problem I'm not sure exists.

Me. I'm in the market for a new wireless router. My N66U drops out hourly. It never had great coverage. I have tried different firmware in an effort to save it but I believe it's dead.

Re: Introducing a new kind of Wi-Fi system

#18
post #14

You can tell this product is made by people who live in suburban McMansions. In a 1 BR NYC apartment, you have no problems with wifi coverage.

> You can tell this product is made by people who live in suburban McMansions. In a 1 BR NYC apartment, you have no problems with wifi coverage.

More relevantly, for instead of by (though its quite possible both are true), but, sure, in a small urban apartment, coverage isn't going to be your big issue, and you aren't going to need a set of routers forming a mesh network.

OTOH, lots of people don't live in small urban apartments and use the internet.

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