Changed the 5ghz to 80.
I stood directly underneath of it. My phone got 370MBps from fast.com
my laptop got 250mbps

Any suggestions?

Is there a configuration I should be doing?

I really feel like I should be seeing better speeds/signal strength.

I was going to have the one I currently have now, plus one in the wife's office, plus one upstairs.

Should I actually be doing more downstairs?  Maybe one in the master closet where the ATT router/Wifi is?

@Lardo5150 Hi!  I have been installing AP's for over 15 years in businesses and residential with other brands.  I am now testing the TPlink models and see how they compare.  Always wire them back to a POE switch and NEVER do the meshing....wayyyy to much data loss over 50%. I use band steering and use 1,6,11 channels on 2.4ghz and any of them on 5ghz.  I am testing on the OC200 and I always use a hardware as the controller.  You are not comparing apples to apples to a netgear single router to these business type of AP's.  Single router gives you 1 WIFI to pull from..... AP's give you many many you can add and pull from.  These type of models just like Unifi are NOT plug and play at all.  If you have very little network experience go with the ERO's and forget about it. 

Hi @Lardo5150,

Welcome!  Just to take a step back.  Can you clarify how many how many total access points you plan to install and how many floors your home is?  Are you planning to hardwire (Ethernet) all of the AP's using either the midpsan power injectors or a PoE switch?  What kind of broadband do you have?

I have 2xEAP225V3's, one EAP225-Outdoor, and an OC-200.  One of my AP's is connected via Ethernet and it serves as the root node for my 225-Outdoor unit which is connected via wireless MESH.  The final 225 is connected via MOCA 2.0 Bonded.  My home is 2 story, I have one AP on each level, and I have Fios Gigabit.

In terms of expected throughput, using a 2x2 Wifi client, or STA, like your phone, you can expect to get ~350-450 Mbit/sec of maximum application level (aka speed test) level throughput over a 5.8GHz 80MHz wide link (that's ~400Mbit usable / 866Mbit  Mbit air link speed.-- roughly 50% efficiency).  The EAP245's support up to 3x3 clients (e.g. 1300Mbit air link speeds), but most STA's are not 3x3.  Only a very small number of high end laptops, etc. have 3x3 network cards most cases.  If you test with a tool like iPerf you will see higher speeds closer (~55-65%) of the airlink speeds.

As a general rule of thumb,  if your home is a fairly large square footage per floor, you'll want to have one AP centrally located per floor.  Or some stagger from floor to floor -- 1st floor towards the front of the house, second floor towards the rear of the house, etc.  Ideally AP's would be ceiling mounted, facing down, away from large metal/glass objects.  E.g. No mirrors, TV's, duct work   I see you were intending to mount on of the AP's behind your TV -- that's not a good spot.

Assuming you're not getting a lot of interfering signals from your neighbors, you'll want to plan out how to set the channels on your AP's.  Idealy you'll want each on a separate channel.  This is fine for 2.4GHz as there are three 20MHz wide non-overlapping channels -- 1,6, and 11.  Force your 2.4GHz (b,g,n support) radios to be 20MHz wide, and manually select a different channel for each.  Now on the 5.8GHz spectrum you'll have a bit more of an issue.  Ideally you'll want to use 80Mhz wide channels for maximimum speeds (again 350-450Mbit/sec for 2x2) BUT there are only 2 non-overlapping 80MHz wide 5.8GHz channels in the USA -- e.g. 36 & 149.  This excludes the DFS range which TP-Link EAP's do not support (in the USA).

So, if you plan to proceed with three hardwired AP's, you'll want to set the channels such that the two AP's that are farthest away from one another are on the same channel.  Alternatively, you'd have to step down to 40MHz channels, in which case there would be 4 to choose from.

In terms of signal strength, most of the time the issue is the resturn signal from the STA back to the AP.  NOT the signal strength from the AP to the STA.  In general, I would recommend setting your AP's to MEDIUM at first.  You can then adjust up or down slightly (using the custom dBm scale) such that the mid point between any two AP's gives you roughly -70dBm from each.  IF your AP transmit power is too high, your STA's (wireless clients) won't roam properly.

I have multiple Nest cameras myself.  4 IQ (2 indoor, 2 outdoor) and a Doorbell.  Of these, only the doorbell is an issue.  It seems to have really crappy antennas.  I run mine on 5.8GHz (like my other Nest cams) but it tends to hover around -80 to -85 dBm (RSSI).  I'm planning to switch it to 2.4GHz to see if that helps.

So in general, what I would recommend are the following settings.

1) Disable Band Steering -- use separate SSID's for 2.4 and 5.8.  That way you can explicitly control which devices are attached to which radios.  You can have multiple SSID's (up to 8 per radio).  So if you reall want you can use 3 SSIDs -- one for 2.4 only, one for 5.8 only, and one combined with band steering.  But when you are setting everything up and testing it's much easier to do it one radio at a time.

2) Disable Airtime Fairness -- this is a buggy non-standard feature that many STA's don't support reliably.

3) Enable Fast Roaming

4) Idealy use a separate channel for each AP radio.  Don't use auto select.  Set 2.4GHz to 20Mhz wide, and 5.8GHz to 80MHz (or 40MHz) as discussed above.

5) Start with all of your transmit powers set to Medium and go from there.  

6) Make all of your changes through the OC-200 -- do not use a browser to try and connect to the IP address of each AP.

7) The EAP245's do not currently support wireless MESH.  There is a beta firmware, and in theory, this feature should be released any day now (it's been coming soon for 3 mo).  But in al cases hardwire is best.  I only mention the wireless MESH for your pool house.  You might consider an EAP225-Outdoor for this location.  But if you can use Ethernet or MOCA this would be better.  Depending on whether or not MESH support is launched for the 245's, you might need to switch one out with a 225 to serve as the wireless MESH root node for the pool house.

That should be enough to get you started,

Jonathan

Hi @Lardo5150,

I should add that -70 dBM or stonger (e.g. -65dBm) is a perfectly good signal.  Even -75 to -80 is useable.  Max signal is roughly -30 to -40 dBm.  But what really matters is the RSSI from the STAs.  You can see these return signals from the clients on the Clients page of the OC-200.  Look at your client's RSSI's and negotiated air/link rates.  Ideally all STA's would be -80 dBm or greater.  

On your OC-200, Clients tab, sort and look at the "Rate" and "Signal" for each client.  Hover your mouse over the signal bars to get the RSSI value.  Inspect the clients with the lowest RSSI and see if you can optimize this -- by moving the AP or the STA closer to one another.  Or if you have STA's that support both 2.4 and 5.8, move them to 2.4 to see if you get a better RSSI.

At any given time I have ~45 to 50 wireless clients on my network.  They are roughly split 50% on 2.4 and 50% on 5.8, and roughly 50/50 on AP1 vs AP2.  My Outdoor AP is a recent addition and I'm still working to optimize it.  But it rarely has any clients on it unless I am outside in the back yard..

Hi @Lardo5150,

Also be sure to update your OC-200 firmware and EAP245V3 firmware.

The latest versions are:

EAP245V3:

EAP245(US)_V3_200117

OC-200:

Firmware Version:1.2.2 Build 20200424 Rel.58128
Controller Version:3.2.11

-Jonathan

@JSchnee21 THANK YOU!

As the previous guy mentioned to just go with Eero, I have network knowlegde, but I can honestly admit it is nothing like what you guys have.

I know enough to be dangerous.

So I plugged the old router in, and did a comparison, one at a time.
I used Wifi Analyzer Premium, and Speedtest by Ookla
I used my Samsung Note 8 as my test subject.

Left the EAP245 on High.

The EAP245 is set on high.  I left the 2.4ghz alone.  I changed it to Channel 1, just based on neighbors signals.

The 5ghz band is set to high, but I changed the channel to 157 and 80hz.

Band Steering is off, I did not mess with that.  Mesh is enabled for some reason, I am assuming the firmware I just installed did this?

The AP is on this firmware

2.4.0 Build 20200117 Rel. 39932

These are the settings that were in place today when I did my testing and comparison.

Just an FYI, the guys at smallnetworkbuilder steered me to the enterprise class of APs.  This is why I went with Omada.  I want STABILITY and reliability.

I am sick of my wifi dropping all the time.

I am running the OC200 controller. 

Here is my home, and my PLANNED setup.

Everything will be hard wired.  I dont have cable ran to some spots (like my wife's office), but I am able to do that, and was part of the plan.

I agree with you about the AP behind the TV.  Dude, I do not have a ladder that will get me up to the ceiling where I want to put it.  I can run cable there as I have access to the attic, but actually hanging the AP there will take an act of god.

You can see here my ceiling is vaulted.  If I can find someone with a ladder to get up there, I am for sure putting it there.  But for now, I can't find one, so I am just going to put it behind the TV where the network cable is already ran.

Here is the floor plan.  I was going to have the AP either behind the TV (where it is now), or up on the ceiling like I mentioned before, with #2 in my wife's office.

Upstairs I was going to put #3 AP on the ceiling in the game room, right above my daughter's TV and Nintendo Switch.

My house is two story, 3200sqft.

I was considering either putting #2 in the wife's office, or in the garage.  I may just purchase the outdoor unit and throw that in the garage and have my two nest cameras on that, and keep the AP in the wife's office (thus ending up with four total).

Good call on the client RSSI, I will check that out as well.

For now, since I am new to the "prosumer" equipment, I just wanted to make sure my investment is the way to go.

Whole reason I did not go with Eero is I did not want to lose that performance like the first guy mentioned.  yes I can set it and go, but I want to maximize what I can get with stability also.

Let me know what you think of how I was going to set this up.

I was also under the impressiont that I would get "seemless" roaming with using the Omada controller as well.

Hi @Lardo5150,

With the exception of your outdoor pool area, you could easily cover your home with only two AP's.  One on the first floor in the hallway next to the WIC.  And one on the second floor in the game room as you suggested.  In fact, the one on the first floor may adequately cover the 2nd floor as well.

For your outdoor access.  You could potentially put an AP in the pool house (our an outdoor unit mounted on the pool house) and then either use wireless MESH, Ethernet over Powerline or MOCA (ethernet over coax) depending on what lines you have running from the main house.

-Jonathan

@JSchnee21 

So I am setup.

So far everything seems great.

I could not get my Google Mini Homes to connect to 5ghz.  Not sure what the deal was.  They connected to 2ghz no problem.

We just use them for music, or broadcasting a message inside the house, so 2ghz is fine.  Not worth the trouble to troubleshoot right now.  Maybe this weekend.

Everything seems good. 

From my previous post...

Sitting at my wife's desk:
2.5ghz 55mb download/-54dBm
5ghz 295mb download / -66dBm

Out front with my cameras
cam1 71mb download / -38dBM and 296mb download / -45dBm
cam2 35mb download / -56dBm and 340 mb download / -65dBm

with that in mind, the ONLY issue I am having right now is my furthest front Nest Camera.

I had a hard time getting it to connect to 5ghz.  I opened the garage door, and it finally connected.

Now, I am getting camera offline here and there, and pulling up the picture is taking forever.

Strange because the numbers above were from when the garage door was closed.

I did just upgrade the firmware on these final two APs, so I will monitor this camera.

But, in the case this does not work correctly, I am considering putting an EAP225-Outdoor on the other side of the house by that camera?  My fear of moving AP2 from the wall in the garage (wall closest to my wife's office) will diminish signal strength/speed/stability for my wife's work laptop in the office.  Thoughts on this?

I did have to put the AP2 in the garage.  I could not get past that wall from the attic.  Huge PIA.

Upstairs all is good (except the Google Minis on 5ghz).  Nintendo Switch during network test got like 500MB down on 5ghz, so I am happy.  I think before I was getting like 30 to 90 mb!!

I kept AP1 behind the TV.  I can't find a ladder that will put me up in the ceiling.  If I find one, I may move it.

Here is what I ended up with that seems to be working nicely for my wife's laptop in the office and all my Nest Cameras except that one, which I am monitoring after firmware upgrade.  All three are now on 2.4.0 Build 20200117 Rel. 39932

Also, red dots are my cameras, blue dot is the potential spot for the EAP225-Outdoor.

I have fast roaming enabled.  Mesh was enable for some reason, so I disabled that.

I have left the APs at default for now...

Band Steering is disabled.

After firmware update, the furthest Camera seems to be doing good.

Will keep checking it this week.