Nest Pro with “Great Connection” but

[MaxM33]

Hello I have a split level home (enter on main level which is kitchen, laundry room, living room and on one side can go either downstairs, where the main WiFi router point is and several bedrooms or upstairs where 2 other bedrooms are). I have the main nest pro router in that downstairs family room which is our only hardwired location. I have another 2 rooms over to that end of the house to reach the pool and yard. Another at the main entry level of the house in the living room. Then another in a connected laundry room and then another in the garage connected to the laundry room.

All have reported “great connection” speed tests out at 627gb from google home app as I pay for gig speed with our provider, Spectrum. However, I find myself always having to turn off WiFi on my phone in order to do basic things such as refresh my email app, load webpages, etc. given the homes layout I am unable to hardwire all of the nest pro points. We don’t have issues with WiFi TVs or WiFi on the computer though sometimes TVs are slow loading initially. 

One thing I was told is maybe I have too many (1 + 4 points), I know it says no more than 5. Our house is 2400sq feet.  Maybe the phones are struggling to pick which one it connects too and bouncing back and forth? The main level living room and laundry room and garage points are all room to room, not 2-3 rooms apart. 

Before I start changing things I wanted to see if there was any advice. Do I just remove 1-2 of them and try remeshing? Maybe remove laundry room and try and position main level one more centrally vs tucked in a corner desk area? I figured all being great connection there wasn’t connection issues but not loading basic things and having to always turn off WiFi doesn’t seem “great”

[MichaelP]

Hello @MaxM33 

Optimizing placement can be challenging, especially in a larger home without Ethernet wiring. Optimal placement advice for Nest WiFi Pro suggests placing the primary unit as close to the center of the home as possible with secondary units no more than two rooms away – preferably one room – from the primary. Nest WiFi Pro uses the 6GHz radios for both 6GHz clients and the mesh interconnect, and those radios are currently limited to lower transmit power, so they aren't going to perform great when they are too far away from the primary. From those locations, the secondary units will provide coverage to more distant 6GHz, 5GHz, and 2.4GHz clients (the latter providing the longest range).

Note that while the units will "multi hop" in theory, the reality is, the conditions under which that actually happens are not something you want to create. So, you really want your secondaries close enough to the primary to get a "great" mesh test rating. That may mean you don't need as many, and that is something you can experiment with.

Now, if you want to support a larger reliable coverage area than simply following this placement guidance can provide, you will need to consider running some Ethernet (or using an equivalent, like MoCa adapters over an existing coaxial cable plant). You don't have to wire up all of the secondaries, but it's a bit more complicated if you don't (but only a bit). Basically, if you need an access point far from the primary – too far for it to get a strong 6GHz connection to the primary itself – that's where you want to run an Ethernet cable to. This could help you get coverage to your pool/yard, for example. If you go that route, pick up an inexpensive unmanaged Ethernet switch to connect to the primary unit's LAN Ethernet port and run your Ethernet cable/cables from that switch.

I hope this helps!

[RayBBaby]

Michael, I have *alot* of nest points across a big *very old* (parts are c.16) house and it's not viable for me to ethernet cable everything back to eg a switch. Would using something like TP Link to connect the more remote access points back to the primary via ethernet cables and the appliance ,/ power point wiring improve things?.

[MichaelP]

TP Link makes a lot of stuff, but it sounds like you're asking about using powerline adapters to create an Ethernet substitute? I've used them in the past, and they can work. But, it will really depend on the quality of the wiring in your house. It's certainly worth a try – just keep the packaging and receipts in case you decide it isn't working well enough.