51–60 of 327 posts
"The average US household has 21 Wi-Fi devices"... wtf?
That seems very high to me. A family of four each has 5 devices connected at the same time?
I did some experimentation with UniFi hubs and came to the conclusion that if you can give each device its own WiFi channel that would be ideal -- contention is that bad and often an uncontended channel with otherwise poor characteristics will beat a contended channel that otherwise looks good. The other bit of advice that is buried in there that no-one wants to hear for residences is the best way to speed up your Wi…
So true!
Other tips I’ve found useful:
Separate 2.4ghz network for only IoT devices. They tend to have terrible WiFi chipsets and use older WiFi standards. Slower speed = more airtime used for the same amount of data. This way the “slow” IoT devices don’t interfere with your faster devices which…
Faster devices such as laptops and phones belong on 5ghz only network, if you’re able to get enough coverage. Prefer wired backhaul and more access points, as you’re better off with a device talking on another channel to an ap closer to it rather than tieing up airtime with lots of retries to a far away ap (which impacts all the other clients also trying to talk to that ap)
WiFi is super solid at our house but it took some tweaking and wiring everything that doesn’t move.
I did some experimentation with UniFi hubs and came to the conclusion that if you can give each device its own WiFi channel that would be ideal -- contention is that bad and often an uncontended channel with otherwise poor characteristics will beat a contended channel that otherwise looks good. The other bit of advice that is buried in there that no-one wants to hear for residences is the best way to speed up your Wi…
> The other bit of advice that is buried in there that no-one wants to hear for residences is the best way to speed up your Wi-Fi is to not use it. You might think it's convenient to have your TV connect to Netflix via WiFi and it is, but it is going to make everything else that really needs the Wi-Fi slower. It's a much better answer to hook up everything on Ethernet that you possibly can than it is to follow the mo…
(We do have one internet-connected device which permanently lives about an inch away from one of the ethernet sockets, but it is, ironically, a wifi-only device with no RJ45 port.)
"The average US household has 21 Wi-Fi devices"... wtf?
I currently have 23, my parent's house has 19
People have all kinds of stuff on wifi these days - cameras, light bulbs, dishwashers, irrigation, solar, hifi..
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> The other bit of advice that is buried in there that no-one wants to hear for residences is the best way to speed up your Wi-Fi is to not use it. You might think it's convenient to have your TV connect to Netflix via WiFi and it is, but it is going to make everything else that really needs the Wi-Fi slower. It's a much better answer to hook up everything on Ethernet that you possibly can than it is to follow the mo…
The reality is that most people only have a single cord coming into the house So they would have to do quite a bit of work to run cable. Also people living in apartments that cant just start drilling through walls. I'd say most ppl use wifi because they have too, not pure convenience
It’s what you do with that cable that matters :)
Even the telco provided router/ap combo units usually have a built in switch, so you don’t even need another device in most cases.
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Ethernet pretty much sucks and has not improved substantially in consumer devices since the previous century. It also has pretty severe idle power consumption consequences for PCs, unless you are an expert who goes around fixing that.
>Ethernet [...] has not improved substantially in consumer devices since the previous century. We've gone from 100 Mbps being standard consumer level to 2.5 or 10 Gbps being standard now. That sounds substantial to me.
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If you want to transfer the contents of your old mac to your new mac, your best options in order of speed are 1) thunderbolt, 2) wifi, and 3) ethernet. You do not, in any sense, get "the best speeds" from ethernet. The market penetration of greater-than-1gb wired networks in consumer devices is practically nothing.
This is so insanely wrong that I almost feel like we're being trolled. Yes, a direct Thunderbolt connection would be best. Failing that, a guaranteed 1Gb Ethernet connection, which is ubiquitous and dirt cheap, and has latency measured in microseconds, is going to wipe the floor with real-world Wi-Fi 7 speeds. And for what you'd pay for end-to-end Wi-Fi 7 compatible gear, you could be using 10Gb Ethernet, which is in…
I see that you have never tried this. By the way, Mac Migration Assistant doesn't need Wi-Fi infrastructure at all.
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The reality is that most people only have a single cord coming into the house So they would have to do quite a bit of work to run cable. Also people living in apartments that cant just start drilling through walls. I'd say most ppl use wifi because they have too, not pure convenience
Eh flat Ethernet cables can easily be snaked all over with adhesive clips, and if you color match cable/clips/walls, it doesn’t look bad.
Yes, it’s better if your cable and clips and wall all match, but it still looks bad.
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>Ethernet [...] has not improved substantially in consumer devices since the previous century. We've gone from 100 Mbps being standard consumer level to 2.5 or 10 Gbps being standard now. That sounds substantial to me.
There is not any meaningful sense in which 2.5gb ethernet is "standard". There are no TVs with 2.5gb ethernet ports. Or even 1gb ports. Yet they all have WiFi 5 or better.
It is bizarre that they are putting 100mbps Ethernet ports on TVs though.
The thing about speed tests causing a bad experience because they hog airtime felt like a non sequitur (since performing them is rare and manual) until I saw this: > Many ISPs, device manufacturers, and consumers automate periodic, high-intensity speed tests that negatively impact the consumer internet experience as demonstrated But there’s no support for this claim presented frankly I am skeptical. What WiFi devices…