Google wifi sub-mesh connected via fiber

[JSWinNY]

The setup: 3500 sq ft old house with 6 points (thick walls), all work well and great mesh. Boathouse a 460ft schedule 80 conduit run away, and connected to LAN port of main wifi is a 150 meter multiplex fiber run through its own 2” conduit. With laptop and direct ethernet I get 200mbps download (ISP is cable not fiber). Connect a Google wifi point using the WAN port and also get great speed and mesh. I then set up two more points in the boathouse to run off the cabled one - and then all three (including the fiber-connected one) test as “weak connection,” and only get 6.5mbps download.  To review, 6 google wifi in the house, 150m fiber run, three more points in the boathouse (one conducted to fiber, others simply points) - total 9. The ones in the house are fine, the ones in the boathouse at the end of the tested fiber run are not. I have tried resets, that’s not the issue. Thoughts?

[MichaelP]

Hello @JSWinNY 

The wireless mesh protocol (802.11s) does not run over Ethernet. So, when a secondary is connected back to the primary through a wired Ethernet network, it has to essentially withdraw from the mesh network. So, it cannot act as a "base station" or "relay" for nearby wireless-only secondaries. You might consider putting an inexpensive unmanaged Ethernet switch at the end of that cable run and then connecting all three units to it via Ethernet.

In addition, keep in mind the maximum supported number of units in a single system is five. You've already exceeded that with your six units in the main house. You may be able to get away with this if more of them are wired (but it will still not be officially "supported").

[JSWinNY]

Michael- Thanks for your help, and ah, yes, was afraid it was something like that. I will pull one of the units in the house, and then wire a second unit in the boathouse (get rid of the third). I am curious about why the boathouse unit would need an unmanaged switch, rather than using the LAN port from the first wired unit. I had some doubt about using the WAN port of that first boathouse unit instead of the LAN port, and your suggestion makes this doubt return.

[MichaelP]

Technically, the second port on the unit can be used to wire one more device. They are bridged together on secondary units like this. But, they are bridged in software, so all of the traffic from the second unit will be copied between the ports using the CPU on the first unit. Does it work? Yes, absolutely. But, you mentioned having three total units out there, so having a simple unmanaged Ethernet switch at the end of the run would allow you to connect all of them to that switch without depending on software bridging on any of them. If you only have two units out there, and you really don't want to add a switch, then connecting the second one through the WAN port on the first one will be fine.

Normally, though, for outbuildings like this, I recommend putting an inexpensive unmanaged switch on each end of that long cable run just to provide some electrical isolation. Better to replace a couple of $25 Ethernet switches than a couple of $100 access points in the event of a nearby lightning strike. However, in your case, the cable run is fiber, so the electrical isolation is less important.

[JSWinNY]

Ok, have a good system running now, want to post about it incase others run into similar situations. I removed one of the house wifi points, and indeed the mesh did seem to improve (and hopefully become more stable with an extensive Nest and Chromecast audio system). In the boathouse I ran some CAT5e direct burial (even though up in the air zip-tied to EMT) cable between the point connected via fiber and a secondary point that I really do need (boathouse has 18" thick concrete walls, more of a bunker). Those points now show excellent connection, and download speeds are back up above 200mbps. Google Home still shows 7 points in the network, but 2 of those are wired connections. Everything is green and happy. Thanks again Michael, and thanks Google for this forum (since help line was hopeless, honestly - even if good-naturedly so).

[JSWinNY]

Ok, spoke too soon. Began having issues with the boathouse points going offline. Set up a Chromecast for audio only (through audio extractor) in the boathouse, then things went way south, both points eventually went offline and identified as "factory reset, remove point." And the network in the main house started behaving badly, dropping out. I suggest trying the following; use an unmanaged ethernet switch for the 2 points in the boathouse, and connect them to the LAN ports, not the WAN ports. Then restart the whole system, including the modem first. I also think deleting the Home app to clear the cache might be a good idea. Thoughts? To review, 5 points in the house, 2 points in the boathouse connected via ethernet (150m of fiber between house and boathouse), and currently connected in series, WAN port to the fiber, second point to LAN of first. Change would be unmanaged switch in boathouse to the LAN ports of the points.

Note, I find the maximum of 5 points hard to understand, and frustrating. I have good coverage now in the house with 5 points, but could do no fewer. It is very easy for me to see the use case for more points - I am the use case! I look at my (slightly unusual) situation, and think "why is this a struggle."  Anyway, staying positive, and trying to reach network nirvana (with whatever help I might get here).

[MichaelP]

Sorry to hear you're experiencing some unreliability.

I'm surprised they are showing as "factory reset". If they really are in that state, they'll need to be set up again.

I don't know what's going on with the boat house, but I'd focus on testing that cable run for reliability (I like to test things from the bottom up). To do that, I'd probably connect a laptop or a Raspberry Pi or something to it and run a long-duration test of some kind. Not a test that involves the internet, but just a local test – a flood ping would be enough, for example. Just something that tests that cable run specifically for an hour. Once you're 100% confident that cable run is solid, then I'd put one Google WiFi unit back on it and leave the others powered off out there. Then, run a similar local traffic test through that unit via WiFi.

Basically, get a slimmed down system working again and try building things up one piece at a time from there. Using an unmanaged switch on the end of that cable run is a good idea, too – you can include that as one of the steps in building things back up.

I can't answer why the maximum of 5 points exists, but from what I can tell, it applies to wireless mesh-connected points. You seem to already be at that limit in the house, though, so the system is really being pushed beyond what it was designed to support already. If there's any way to get any of those in the house connected back to the primary via Ethernet, that would help. That would just require another unmanaged Ethernet switch on the LAN port of the primary, to which local cable runs plus the adapter for the fiber run can all be connected.

[JSWinNY]

OK, have made some progress. It’s not the fiber cable – I get great speeds with a direct connection to a laptop through the cable. I made a change, which was to connect a single point in the boathouse to the LAN port (not the WAN port), and reconnect that point. For a couple of days now I have had a very fast and stable connection. Now I have to figure out if using an unmanaged switch and connecting a second point in the boathouse VIA it’s LAN port will work. Will update (have to get the unmanaged switch first, the old one in my box of cables/stuff was 10/100).