Nest WiFi Pro overcoming 5 Device Limitation

[AaronVincent]

After extensive configuration attempts, i am turning here with an issue i was unable to fix with my Wifi Pro setup.

We have a large house with a semi-separate apartment. The tenant in the apartment needs reliable fast internet for home-office. Same as me.

Now i decided to go with a Mesh WiFi plus wired backhaul to cover the whole house. (I first tried mesh only, buying 11(!!) Access points before finding out that they essentially stop working after the 5th one, which is something that should be much more clearly communicated... but i digress)

Now, here is the setup (arrow --> indicates a wired connection).

Fiberoptic cable to the house --> modem --> Wifi Pro main Router --> switch (TP-Link TL-SG116, unmanaged) --> from here ill list the connected devices:

• --> Hue Bridge
• --> multiple PCs, Printers etc
• --> 1 Wifi Pro access point (too far from the others to get a wireless connection)

Now i have 4 Wifi Pro Access Points in the main part of the house (one of them has a wired backhaul via the switch as described above), so this is a wireless mesh which covers it just so. 

Now, here is the problem:

I want to have a Wifi Mesh in the apartment too. I already have 5 Wifi Pro Points in use. I tried just extending the mesh to 7 (which would be enough for at least most of the apartment) but the performance was terrible.

I tried to go from the switch --> Wifi Pro (this would be number 6) in the apartment, and setting it up as a separate primary router (connecting the ethernet coming from the switch to the WAN port and switching to a separate home in the google home app). However, when doing so, the network speed for my whole network dropped from 500 mb/s to around 50 mb/s. I suspect this is due to double NAT and the switch getting "confused".

My question:

how will i be able to cover the whole house with these Wifi Pro points? As i said, i got 11...

Can i overcome the 5 device limitation just by using wired backhaul ? And if so, how? because i kept getting the same issues with bad performance and regular disconnects as when i tried to do it all wireless with 7 and more devices.

Or, is there a way to set up a second Mesh on a second "home" in google home without running into double NAT and related issues?

Additional, related question:

when i connect my laptop to the LAN output of the access point that is connected to the switch via the backhaul cable, why do i only get around 50 mb/s, this is the same speed i get wirelessly. The access point should have the full wired speed, right? There is an uninterrupted wired connection between the modem and the laptop:

Fiberoptic cable to the house --> modem --> Wifi Pro main Router --> switch (TP-Link TL-SG116, unmanaged) --> Wifi Pro access point --> Laptop

This is a bit frustrating to be honest. I suspect there is an issue with the wired backhaul. But i cant figure out what i am doing wrong.

[David_K · Accepted solution]

It sounds like you have a partial ethernet backhaul and disjointed mesh setup where some of your Wifi points are hardwired, and others are not. These kinds of setups are much more likely to cause problems that are very hard to diagnose. The primary one being that if one of your non-hardwired Wifi points can establish even a weak connection back to your primary Wifi point it will do that, over connecting to an intermediate closer Wifi point, because it prefers the least hops to get back to the primary Wifi point. This is also the reason why Google doesn't recommend more than 5 Wifi points in a network (referenced in the second link below), and also why they recommend placing your primary Wifi point as close as possible to the centre of your home.

Hardwire Nest Wifi Pro, Nest Wifi, or Google Wifi with Ethernet - Google Nest Help
How many Nest Wifi Pro, Nest Wifi, or Google Wifi routers or points do I need? - Google Nest Help

It sounds like you've tried building a pure mesh topology (with none hardwired) but not sure where your primary Wifi point was positioned (it's essential it's in the centre of your home). If that didn't give you the performance you're looking for which from what you've described is largely due to the size and construction of the building you're trying to cover, the best advice I can give you is to build a full ethernet backhaul setup where all your Wifi points are hardwired. Typically, it just won't be enough if the most distant Wifi points are far away and if you really need that many Wifi points, only wiring them is going to make the performance in that kind of setup satisfactory.

For your second query, I would take the unmanaged switch out of the equation to confirm it's not that causing a problem. I'd also recommend trying with different ethernet cables to confirm it's not a cable issue.

[AaronVincent]

Thank you for the suggestions.

the problem with the non wired WiFi points connecting back to the main one is probably whats happening.

The Problem is, that the house gets its fiberoptic cable on one side, and distributing wires within the house is not an option. This is a more than 100 year old house and my dad would kill me 😉 that is why i opted for Mesh. The wires i did manage to put in were a nightmare already. So the Main router is on one side of the house. And wiring everything up is not possible.

I must say, this incredibly disappointing, i was expecting so much more from the technology.

As for the second query: this was probably caused by the same thing you described above, the wired APs apparently also kept trying to connect wirelessly.

In the unlikely case that anyone has similar issues:

i did end up setting up a second wireless Network from one of the G. WiFi Pros, that i have on a wired connection to the primary router. This apparently solves the problem of the device trying to connect to the other wireless Network. So the device is the primary router for the second mesh network, while being wired up to my actual primary router.

I did not expect this to work at all, but actually i have stable fast Wifi in the whole house now. The second Wifi consists of another 3 devices (primary router an 2 APs). So effectively i have 8 WiFi Points working in a semi-connected manner.

Thank you for trying to help, and feel free to close this thread.