Velop, Orbi, Eero, Deco, Lyra, Plume, Google WiFi. These are just a few lines of home mesh networking equipment that are currently being sold to customers all over the world. This article will give you an introduction to the new networking sensation that's sweeping the nation, and why these networks cause issues for so many smarthome products.

Mesh networks are basically the next generation of the range extenders/boosters that many customers use today. They address many of the faults that range extenders have, but come with a new set of potential pitfalls because of that.

When a customer wants to set up a mesh network they first purchase a mesh router kit. Instead of just buying a single router as is typical, these packs usually come with one main "hub" which functions like a home router and will be connected to the internet. It will also come with 1 or more "nodes" or "pods" which look identical but do not plug into the internet connection. These nodes will wirelessly connect to the hub just like a range extender would.

A Google WiFi mesh system

While range extenders are sold standalone and can interface with any network, Mesh networks must use components from the same brand/product line. The major difference here is that while you do not want to use the same network name in a range extender, for a mesh network all of the nodes as well as the hub broadcast the same network name (SSID) - working together to create the "mesh" that fills the entire home with strong WiFi.

What this will look like to devices in the home is a single wireless network, just one name showing up in the WiFi networks list. Behind the scenes, however, this will be made up of 2 networks (2.4GHz and 5.8GHz) from each hub and pod. For example:

In this setup there are 2 networks coming from the hub and 2 from each of the 4 pods. If the network name is "WiFi network" a phone would only see one network named "WiFi network" even though there are 10 networks with that name! (note that RouteThis can show all 10 individual networks!).

To the phone and devices on the network, they will just see one, giant WiFi network - basically an at-home version of the type of WiFi you see at work, in stadiums, etc. Sadly, things don't always work as expected... (insert foreboding music here).

Mesh Problem 1

Some mesh systems will smartly move devices to the best pod, but others will leave it up to the device, which is where some of the problems with Mesh for smart devices can come in. Because all networks are showing up as one, customers do not have granular control of what device connects to which pod. 

If the mesh system doesn't smartly transition the devices they may stay connected to a node that they aren't close to, giving them a weak signal. If that happens, it can help to disconnect and reconnect the device, or unplug the node that it has become "stuck" on. In the example above, each dot circling a node is a device and there is no way in the Mesh control app to manually set what connects to what!

Mesh Problem 2

Some smart devices will only work with 2.4GHz networks and a typical troubleshooting step is to name the 2.4GHz and 5.8Ghz networks differently (known as "splitting" the networks). However, with many mesh systems customers do not have an option to rename the 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz networks individually and this can cause issues for device setup. A solution is sometimes to unplug the nodes and turn off the "smart" management on the hub, which may re-enable the ability to rename the networks individually. After this, customers can set up their device and then re-enable their nodes and smart WiFi management.