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Google Nest Mesh with two routers and two Access Points

aravindr
Community Member

I have a mesh system with two nest wifi routers and two nest access points with the below setup / placement

1. Router1 connected to the modem using ethernet cable in the front living room

2. Router 2 connected to router using ethernet cable (wired backhaul) in bedroom 1

3. One access point placed in each of the bedrooms, bedroom 2 and bedroom 3.

4. Bedroom 1 is in the middle of bedrooms 2 and 3, so router 2 is closest to the access points.

 

The issue I face is that both the access points seem to connect to router 1, which is at the front of the house and not to router 2, which is the closest router. The speed I get in bedrooms 1 and 2 are much slower than the throughput in the living room and bedroom 1. How do I ensure that the access points connect to the router 2?

3 REPLIES 3

David_K
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

What you've created is known as 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 Google recommends placing your primary Wifi point as close as possible to the centre of your home.

The best advice I can give you is to do one or the other, not both. Either build a pure mesh topology (i.e. don't hardwire any of the points via ethernet) and follow Google's placement guidelines. Or, build a full ethernet backhaul setup where all your Wi-Fi points are hardwired.

MichaelP
Diamond Product Expert
Diamond Product Expert

In addition to the useful information from @David_K, I would just add that a wired secondary (your "Router 2") does not extend the wireless mesh in any useful way. Since you have an Ethernet connection from Router 1 to Router 2 already, I would consider using that to put Router 1 where Router 2 is and using that Ethernet cable to connect it to the modem. That way, your primary unit is close to the center of the home, and should be within better range of both Nest WiFi Point units. You can then place Router 2 one or two rooms away from Router 1, perhaps including (and somewhat oddly) back where Router 1 was originally. From there, it will connect to Router 1 via a wireless mesh instead of via Ethernet (unless you can run another Ethernet cable between those rooms).

aravindr
Community Member

Thank you @MichaelP and @David_K . Your alternative solutions make logical sense. Out of the two @David_K 's solution should be easily implemented. There are multiple concrete walls between both the routers' positions. So there will be signal loss by the time the wireless signal from router 1 reaches router 2, which means a loss of speed throughput. That was the original problem and why I even ran the ethernet cable from the living room to the other side of the apartment. But I will try that and see how it goes. Overall it just seems to be a poor design from Google/Nest based on my knowledge and experience with other brands.