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Add a 2nd Google Nest Router to my system

gimelwald
Community Member

I currently have a google nest router and 3 access points but still have areas of house with slow speeds.  Can i add a 2nd Google Nest router to my system?  If so, does it need to be hardwired to 1st router via ethernet?  What is the procedure for adding it to my existing network

Thanks for the help

1 Recommended Answer

gimelwald
Community Member

Thank you for the response. My house and location of cable modem does allow me to centralize the router. It is probably in very unideal location on one end of my 3000 ft2 house. I have problems on other side of house with good signal and was thinking I could run Ethernet cable to a second router and maybe help better than a point.  Again thanks for the response

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12 REPLIES 12

MichaelP
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

Hello @gimelwald 

Yes, you can add another Nest WiFi Router unit to your existing system. It does not need to be wired to the existing primary Nest WiFi Router (though that can be a good thing to do). You just add it as if it was another Nest WiFi Point in the Google Home app.

That said, I don't want to give the impression this would necessarily improve your system. More points isn't always better, and can even make things worse. The real key to solid coverage is following the placement advice: primary Nest WiFi Router as close to the center of your home as possible with the secondaries (Nest WiFi Point units and any additional Nest WiFi Router units) placed around the primary, close enough to get a solid 5GHz connection to it. Since 5GHz doesn't go as far as 2.4GHz, that means one or two rooms (in any direction). From there, they will provide both 2.4GHz and 5GHz coverage to more distant clients.

If you place the secondaries in an area where clients are already struggling to get a solid connection, that secondary will struggle at least as much (and probably more, since it can't fall back to 2.4GHz).

Also, if you have interior walls that are made from solid (e.g., brick, concrete, plaster) construction materials, you may have even bigger challenges. In that case, running Ethernet and deploying wired secondaries (not Nest WiFi Points, but either Nest WiFi Router or Google WiFi units) may be the best solution.

This is probably more than you wanted to know, but I hope it helps (especially if it means you can make things more reliable just by moving things around a bit instead of spending more money).

gimelwald
Community Member

Thank you for the response. My house and location of cable modem does allow me to centralize the router. It is probably in very unideal location on one end of my 3000 ft2 house. I have problems on other side of house with good signal and was thinking I could run Ethernet cable to a second router and maybe help better than a point.  Again thanks for the response

MichaelP
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

Hello @gimelwald 

If you can run some Ethernet, that can definitely help. You'll still want to put some thought into how best to take advantage of it. If you can use one Ethernet run to relocate the primary to a more central location, that will help for a start. But, running Ethernet from the primary to a secondary Nest WiFi Router unit (or a Google WiFi unit, which supports Ethernet but is less expensive) will also help quite a bit. I do want to make one thing clear about using Ethernet to connect secondaries, though – those secondaries will have to withdraw from the wireless mesh interconnect to avoid traffic loops. So, they can't act like "remote base stations" for more distant wireless-only secondaries. So, if you want to use a mixture of wired and wireless secondaries, make sure you place the wireless/mesh secondaries close enough to the primary that they can get a strong 5GHz connection to it. Then, your wired secondaries can be just about anywhere, since they'll be using Ethernet to connect.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hey, jborchel.

Thanks for letting us know what worked for you. I just want to follow up and be sure that you have this resolved and that everything is working for you now. If anything is still not working right, just let us know. Thanks, as always, to MichaelP for jumping in with excellent info and advice.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi, everyone.
As we haven't had any activity here recently I'm going to go ahead and close the thread. If you have more to add, feel free to start a new discussion.
Thanks

jborchel
Community Member

MichaelP,

In a similar situation I would like to run two independent Google mesh networks(Called Net1 and Net2) from the same modem? I would run one lane cable from the modem to a switch and one each lane cable to my Mesh Wi-Fi router and to my older Google Wi-Fi designated host. I would use my phone Home app to set each one up independently as Net1 and Net2. Will this work?

MichaelP
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

Hey @jborchel 

See my reply in the other thread. But, to add some more procedural detail, assuming you have a combination device and really want to try this, you will need to create a new (empty) "home" in the Google Home app to put the new network in, since each "home" can only have one Google/Nest WiFi system in it.

MichaelP,

I think you answered. I not sure I want to create a new empty home as that may be beyond my expertise. I guess my option is to bring down my existing and bring up the new network using my old Google Wi-Fi. That leaves me without my Ooma Voip phone for awhile and could leave me stranded on the internet if I screw it up. 

I sure wish they would get with it and fix this dropout problem with the new Nest Wi-Fi. Which brings me to this question. My Google Help person said that my ISP line was dropping out constantly and he thought that could be my problem. He suggested calling my ISP on the problem. Could the ISP dropout be caused by this Nest problem or does it have to be caused by my ISP?

 

MichaelP
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

Hello @jborchel 

Sorry for the delay – my day job has been busy. You asked whether an ISP dropout could be caused by Nest issues, and I guess I'd say that's unlikely. However, Nest WiFi issues could make it look like there's an ISP issue. I'd want to know exactly what the Google support representative was seeing that led them to believe there was an ISP issue. If they're right, then you'll have problems with Nest WiFi, since most things you do end up depending on the internet connection being reliable. If they were seeing Ethernet resets, for example, I'd definitely investigate the cable between the Nest WiFi Router and your internet connection, for example.

Michael,

WiFi Care specialist at Google Help was able to read my prime router and said their were timeouts coming from the ISP. Here is his email text:

"Thanks for reaching out to the Google Nest Customer Care Team.
Please show this information below as the signal from the modem is timing out: 
  • WAN DHCP timeout 15 /var/log/net.log 2021-05-30T05:02:33 119 days, 19:15:59"
I haven't called the ISP yet because they wouldn't talk to me the last time I called on a different issue because I own my modem and don't pay their $10/mo. for the same modem.

MichaelP
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

Hello @jborchel 

That error message was from May 30. I wouldn't say that's indicative of an ongoing ISP problem unless there are a lot more recent (and frequent) messages like that. I took a quick look at my own logs, and I can see messages like that during times when my ISP is having issues last September and October. But, the last time it happened for me was in April, and it resolved after a few minutes (probably a cable modem reboot). So, in this case, I think the Google support team may need better training to interpret those logs.

Wow! That's interesting. There is a tech coming on Tuesday to check the line.

I think you are right about the tech support level of knowledge at Google. When I first installed the new Nest Wi-Fi I needed help and that is the tech that sent me that message about time outs. After some thought on my own I figured out I just had to create a new Wan with a different name and it came right up. The tech should have gone to that first thing. Seems elementary.