Ethernet backhaul with wired and wireless access points (Nest Wi-Fi Pro 6E)

[franrruiz]

Hello,

I have a wireless mesh system (Nest Wi-Fi Pro 6E) at home and it's working well, but now I want to install a home office in the shed in the garden, which is obviously too far to reach wirelessly.

So I was thinking of using an Ethernet cable to add one additional point to the mesh. The system would look like this:

Modem [cable] Wifi router [wireless] Point [Ethernet] Additional point in the shed

So essentially, it's the same connectivity pattern described under "Use multiple Nest Wifi routers or Google Wifi points" here, except one of the links is wireless instead of wired.

Would this setup work?

I've read mixed opinions on the interner regarding combining Ethernet and Wifi on a mesh system, but given that the shed will be effectively Wifi-isolated I am hoping the system realizes that it really needs to use the Ethernet connection for that link.

Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[MichaelP]

Hello @franrruiz 

Basically, the short answer is "no". Wired secondary/point units really need to be connected to the LAN Ethernet port on the primary/router unit, not a wireless secondary/point unit (either directly, or through one or more inexpensive Ethernet switches).

Now, if you can get that existing wireless secondary/point connected to the primary via Ethernet as well, then yes – connecting the outbuilding to the (now-wired) secondary/point via Ethernet will work. It just won't work to connect two secondary/point units to each other via Ethernet when neither is connected to the primary/router via Ethernet. Hopefully, wiring that existing secondary/point isn't too difficult – and it will pay off with better performance for devices connecting to that unit as well.