EX820V - Turn off wifi... or ditch Eero?

Hi all,

Just got the 2.3 symmetrical installed today. Recently re-wired house with cat 6A everywhere, but this install prompted me to buy some cheap Chinese 2.5Gbs switches to replace gigabit ones and my hardwired PC is getting amazing speeds/pings. Nice. 2.1Gb down, 2.2 up and ping of 4ms…

But the wifi…

So, I previously had 4 Eero 6 Pros covering the house and garage. VM SuperHub direct to first Eero which acted as a router/gateway, all others ethernet backhaul. I never had ‘great’ speeds despite VM 1Gb package, but very few drop outs or issues.

With the new setup I knew this wasn’t possible unless I limited everything to the 1Gb Eero speeds, so I went for the £99 TPLink router, and I basically have the one 2.5Gbps LAN port going to a 2.5Gbps switch, then from there to all the Eeros and another 2.5Gbps switch for eg my PC.

Everything is ‘working’ but a few questions:

  • I dont seem able to disable wifi on the TP Link… meaning I have unnecessary interference from a network nothing is connecting to?
  • The Eero speeds are ‘poor’ in that even stood next to one I am getting about 600Mb up and down… Are they just not very good? I dont expect 1Gb all the time, but I never, ever get near that, whereas I do with the TPLink wifi… I got 900Mb down and 1.3Gb up for example…
  • If I wanted to ditch the Eeros is it best to add more hardwired TPLink nodes onto the EX820V (is this possible?) or start with a new system entirely? I want/need 2.5Gbp ports to make this worthwhile, which means Wifi 6E or 7.
    Thanks and sorry its so long!!!

Ditch the TP link

Get a UCG Max (2.5gbe wan and 4x LAN ports)

A couple U7 Pros, job done

Just my opinion and it’s because it’s what I have :joy:

2 Likes

So thats approx £200 for Gateway and then £170 per AP? If so thats a little too much for me I think… I have no interest in fiddling - I just want something rock solid that does use as much of the connection as it realistically can.

A TP Link BE65 3 pack is about £560 now… or adding a few 6E nodes onto this router might be much cheaper e.g. 2 or 3 X75 Pros?

It’s expensive yes, but it’s prosumer gear, you could get a new ish “gaming router”, I just don’t have any experience with the Eero products

I need multiple access points for the house layout, so am drawn to consumer mesh systems despite the ethernet backhaul as there is so much competition/offers.

Thanks for your input!

No problem! Hopefully others will chime in

1 Like

I to have a similar set up as above, but some have the deco’s which someone night day of they are any good as a mesh.

Oh by the way, if you get chance, there’s nothing better than hard wired to a patch panel if possible, you can stick ethernet sockets on the wall where you need them to plug into

I had two Eero Pro 6’s wirelessly connected with Virgin Media 1-gig. Whilst the Wi-Fi connection was flawless, it was slow (300-400mb) due to the radio’s being saturated with the wireless mesh connection. I tried the two Eeros with Yayzi & got the same speeds - removing an Eero did improve it but it’s a similar story. I don’t think the Radios take advantage of 160Mhz channel widths despite being compatible with it.

I have since ditched the Eero’s in favour of the EX820V - it’s got extremely good Wi-Fi Range/Coverage/Speed for a single AP - I can get the full 1.2gig speed over Wi-Fi :joy:

Only problems I’m having with it are certain devices are unable to maintain a stable connection with it. It does a good job, and it’ll suffice until vendors can release WiFi 7 routers that don’t consume 40+ watts & feel like they’re cooking themselves :joy:

I’ve just logged into the TP Link GUI and it does appear possible to disable the Radio’s. Advanced > Wireless > Wireless Settings > Wireless Radio: Untick

Unfortunately the EX820v doesn’t support wired backhauling, only very few TP Link models support this.

I’ve also tried Unifi but was left unimpressed which was unfortunate so ended up returning it all.

I have also tried the Eero Pro 7 and again was unimpressed, it didn’t offer any tangible advantage over the EX820v aside from a more stable connection for certain devices. For the price it wasn’t worth it but if it drops down to £300 or something then I would likely buy it again.

It is quite the conundrum - I’d say try tinkering around with the EX820v and see if you can fully disable the radio’s and optimise the setup. At the end of the day even if you can’t get the full speeds on Wi-Fi, if it’s fast enough then it’ll do until a better solution is available.

Hope that helps in some way :+1:

Thanks - very helpful. I’m just using the TP Link app and don’t seem able to disable WiFi - will look at the web UI tomorrow.

Re: Eeros - thanks. Maybe I just stick with them as the connection is stable, just painful it’s so (relatively!) slow.

Ah yes that’ll be why. The Aginet app whilst good has limited functions. Best bet is the Web GUI :+1:

Disabling the TP Link radio’s will help free up the airways & let the Eero’s pick the optimum channel - it may help your speeds a little, especially as you have four Eero’s which have three radio’s each - there’s a whole thing with Eero & having too many of them can harm your performance… don’t have any options to try unplugging one and slightly reposition the others and see if it affects coverage.

Press the WiFi button on the back of the router, that will turn off the WiFi in our router.

I can’t comment too much on the Eero but in our testing the TPLink was a lot better, for speeds.

1 Like

I bet if you put DDWRT on it, you can then mess around with it a bit more

Thank you - this worked!!! Had to hold it down for about 3 - 5 secs.

1 Like