Significant loss of download speed at point

[hij2001]

This is a performance issue, not a connectivity issue, as my connectivity is very stable.  This is the closest of the three issue category choices available, for which a Performance category should be added to this form. 

I am disappointed in the performance of my Nest wifi system.  Here is the summary of my experience so far, starting with the Router + 1 point two pack.

Initially placed the router in the first floor family room near the center of the house, and the point in office at the far end of the second floor.  With 7-800Mbs going into the router, the family room sees 5-600 Mbs wifi download speeds, 2-400Mbs in other rooms - good speed and coverage. 

Master bedroom is directly above the family room and sees 4############ Mbs, with two other bedrooms in the 2-350Mbs range, and the small bedroom between the MBR and office in the 1############ Mbs range.  The office was usually a weak, sometimes good mesh connect, and only saw ############ Mbs.

Thought that adding a second point between the office and MBR would enhance performance, but it in fact reduced performance.  Putting it in the MBR caused all second floor devices to connect to that point and delivered only 2-225Mbs as opposed to the 4############ Mbs when connected to the router on the floor below.   Moved the second point to the small bedroom halfway between the MBR and the office, and only saw the same 1############ Mbs speeds in that room with the point there as without.   The mesh connection to the small bedroom point was great, to the office was good. The office point only delivered ############Mbs, and when office devices connected to the small bedroom point, the performance was actually better, so I returned the second point and only have the router and the small bedroom point, which delivers 1############ Mbs to the office, a significant drop from the family room and MBR.

I spent several hours with the points on extension cords to test multiple locations within multiple rooms to optimize the mesh connectivity and download performance, and this seems to be the best I can do.  I’d really like to see at least a consistent 2-300 Mbs in the office but can’t seem to make that happen.  Any suggestions would be sincerely appreciated.

[adityakomatil · Accepted solution]

i also have a similar issue i have searched on multiple forums but it seems that this a normal behaviour of the nest wifi point. It degrades the download speed by 50% which is from my perspective quite high..

additionally if another wifi point connects in series to the router it downgrades it further to 1/3rd

my main router is in ground floor - 250 Mbps 

First floor nest wifi point - 100 Mbps

Seond floor nest wifi point - 78 Mbps

Here is a youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77NQ3B1ApLU&ab_channel=landpet

[hij2001]

I don't understand why this page is changing my speed numbers to ###.  I've tried several times to edit and every time I save it reverts.  I even tried listing the numbers here and the same thing happens.

I guess google/nest doesn't want any bad performance numbers visible in posts... 😡

[adityakomatil · Accepted solution]

i also have a similar issue i have searched on multiple forums but it seems that this a normal behaviour of the nest wifi point. It degrades the download speed by 50% which is from my perspective quite high..

additionally if another wifi point connects in series to the router it downgrades it further to 1/3rd

my main router is in ground floor - 250 Mbps 

First floor nest wifi point - 100 Mbps

Seond floor nest wifi point - 78 Mbps

Here is a youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77NQ3B1ApLU&ab_channel=landpet

[hij2001 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the confirmation.  I knew that there would be a decrease in speed through each point, but the fact that it was so significant and that the addition of another point would actually degrade overall performance was a surprise.  1############ Mbs in my office is sufficient for most things I need to do, I just wanted to see if there was any additional optimization I could do. 

Worst case, I have existing Ethernet cabling between my family room and office that I could use to connect another nest router running as an access point, but that seems to defeat the purpose of buying the mesh system...

[Jeff]

Hi, everyone.

I just wanted to jump in real fast to see if anyone still had any questions here and to see if I could help out any more or to see if you had this all worked out. If you're still needing some help, please let me know and I'll be happy to help out.

Thanks!

[hij2001]

Jeff -

Thanks for the follow up.  It sounds like this is what it is, unless in reading through my posts you have any additional suggestions.  Net of it is that after starting with the router plus one point, adding a second point to try to improve performance, and experimenting with different placements of both points, I am now operating on the router plus one point which seems to provide the best coverage but 1/3 or less the download performance through the point that I see from the router.

If this is the best that can be achieved with this system, i will probably wait for the availability of a next gen triband mesh system later this year (currently available units all seem to have their own idiosyncrasies) and upgrade then.

Regards,

Howard

[adityakomatil]

In general issue for me is not solved ;  like I pointed in my post the download speed drops significantly for each access point 

[Jeff]

Hye, adityakomatil.

We've actually been receiving a good number of reports on this and it's something we're looking at internally. As our teams look into this, I'll update the thread when I know more about news of a fix. As of now, I'm waiting to learn more.

Thanks.

[hij2001]

What's the ETA on a response and solution?  If there is no solution in a reasonable amount of time, I will scrap the nest mesh and get a 2022 triband system, since all current ones have idiosyncracies of their own.

[Jeff]

Hey, hij2001.

As of right now, I don't have any estimates on timing for a fix to roll out. I'm hoping it's soon, but I don't have any indication yet of when it might happen. And I know what you mean about each system having their own idiosyncratic perks and drawbacks. Seems like choosing a system is picking what best fits your situation most closely. When I do know more about when we could be seeing a fix, I'll update things here.

Thanks.

[Jeff]

Hey, everyone.
Just as an update, we're still looking into this issue and as of yet we don't have a solution. I just wanted to touch base so you would know that you haven't been forgotten. In the meantime if anything else changes about your situation, please feel free to update us in the thread.
Thanks!

[hij2001]

Jeff - 
Thanks for the update and for continuing to drive for improvement. Please keep it up and keep us posted. 

Regards,

Howard

[Jeff]

Hey, everyone.

It's been a while since we had any talk in here. In similar threads we're seeing lots of reports of improvement, but I haven't seen anything here. I did want to check in and see if anybody here was still having the same issues as earlier of if we've seen some improvement. Let me know where things are at and we'll pick things back up if necessary.

Thanks.

[hij2001]

Jeff -

Thanks for the followup!  I've seen no difference - is there a specific firmware version for the points and/or router that is supposed to address this issue?  My point is System Firmware Version 279716, Cast FW version 1.54.279716 and my router versions are Model H2D, SW version 13729.57.27.

The Router Speedtest  says that the download speed is 7-800Mbps and 25Mbps up though connecting another computer to the first floor router WAN port cable shows the 850-900Mbps download speed that my ISP plan is supposed to deliver.  Wifi delivered 14 ft from the router is typically 5-600 Mbps down and 24-25Mbps up.  I get 350-550Mbps down and 22-25Mbps up on the second floor in the rooms above the router, dropping to 130-150Mbps down in the second floor room with the point, and 90-130Mbps down in the farthest second floor room (one wall and closet away from the point) which is my office.  Upstream bandwidth is 22-25Mbps across the various rooms - far more consistent than the downstream speeds.

The fact that right outside the second floor room with the point the download speed is 3-4 times what I get when connected to the point is really disappointing.  And this router plus one point configuration and placement far outperformed the best configuration with two upstairs points.  Nest WiFi is clearly designed for a star or hub and spoke configuration with the router in the middle.  When I tried to have one point upstairs where it currently is and adding an additional point in my office, the speed dropped by another 50%.  When I moved the one second floor point to my office the connection with the router was weak and speeds were much slower.  If there can be no better performance achieved with this system, I will look at the next generation of mesh systems and probably move to a WiFi6 tri-band setup to achieve both better coverage and performance.

If you have "lots of reports of improved performance", please LMK the FW versions required to deliver that performance and what else I need to do to actually see that performance.

Thanks and regards,

Howard

[Jeff]

Hey, hij2001.

It's been a bit since I checked in with you. You asked about a possible firmware version being more problematic than another. Updates are pushed automatically, so it's quite uncommon to be on an older version. I did want to let you know, however, that a new firmware version is rolling out now and it should update your network soon. If issues persist after the firmware hits, please let me know and we can look at more steps.

Thanks.

[hij2001]

Jeff - 

Thanks for the follow up. I’m aware of the auto updates, but what is the timeframe and new version rolling out now so I can know when to retest?  I’m still on the versions above. 

Regards,

Howard

[Jeff]

hij2001, there are already some people receiving the update. Updates roll out in waves, and they start a little slow and then pick up pace over time. The update could arrive any day. Just keep an eye on things and it will probably roll in soon.

Thanks.

[Jeff]

Hey, hij2001.

Just as some added info, the update version for both Google WiFi and Nest WiFi will be 14150.43.80. If you are seeing a different version number when you check in Google Home, you have yet to receive the updated firmware. Let me know if you have any questions about that.

Thanks.

[hij2001]

Jeff -

Thanks for the update information.  My systems have not yet received the update, with the H2D router at 13729.57.27 and H2E point at 1.54.279716 respectively.  Looks like the version format is only for the router; is there a corresponding software update for the point or will that remain the same?

Regards,

Howard

[Jeff]

Hi, hij2001.

The points do have a different version number. The number on the point is 1.54.294928. 

Thanks.

[hij2001]

Thanks Jeff - assumed that would be the case, but surprised that the numbers seem completely unrelated.

Thought I might have had them pushed today since my network went down and claimed to have been factory reset for both the router and point. They weren’t, but it took a bit to get the router up and even more effort to get the point back online. Haven’t seen that issue in the five months I’ve been running the system, but very uncomfortable that the cause could not be determined even with a call to support, which does not enable me to do anything to prevent it from happening again. 

[Jeff]

I understand the apprehension, hij2001. Things are definitely staying on a frustrating path for you right now. I'm really hoping that update brings you back to a good space. Support is able to do some live diagnostics on your device, however, which I don't have access to. If you do choose to work with support, let me know if you get any traction there.

Thanks.

[hij2001]

Jeff - 

I did work with support and provided them access but they found nothing since it was already working again, and the system apparently doesn’t retain error logs. 

This has been my first outage - otherwise the system has been stable and reliable so far. I’m hoping that the performance of the point (and now reliability) is improved by the update so I don’t need to move to a different mesh system. 

Regards,

Howard

[hij2001]

Jeff -

The firmware update was delivered to my router and point, but unfortunately has not improved the performance.  It will hopefully prevent another outage like I just had.  

I will continue to use this system for the time being, but will most likely look for a higher performance tri-band Wifi 6 alternative this year unless the system optimizes itself further as it’s being used. 

Thanks again for all of your help on this issue!

Regards,

Howard

[Jeff]

Thanks for letting me know, hij2001.

I'll go ahead and mark this as resolved for now, but if you need anything else at all, please feel free to open up a new thread.

Thanks again!