Hi
I'm a long standing user of Draytek routers (2850N) and I'm thinking of upgrading it to a 2862ac. However I have challenges with wifi cover in the house and can't pull Ethernet cables from where the router is to where I would put the access points. Therefore I was planning on creating a mesh network, but wanted to stick with one manufacturer and hopefully as simplified as possible.Has anyone done this successfully? If so what hardware did you use? Are there any guides out there that takes your through it?

I love Draytek products and would like to stick with them, but I'm seeing some scary posts on here where people can't get it to work....

Advise appreciated...

Best regards,

Digitus

I can only advise you on the basis of my experience with a 2926ac. I have 3 AP903s. If I set the 2926 to be the mesh root it cannot "see" any of the AP903s in mesh setup. Hence, I set one of the AP903s to be the root and essentially switched off the 2926 wifi. If the 2862 behaves in the same way then my suggestion would be to have an AP903 in the same physical location, connected by cable, and set that as the root. (I'm assuming that at least would be possible even if you can't run cables over longer distances). The info and control provided by the AP903 "Dashboard" is much more useful than the router GUI in any event, so that's a bonus...

Of course this could be a firmware issue with the 2926 - the UK site is still not listing the 3.9.3 version which provides the Mesh option....

Digitus wrote:
Therefore I was planning on creating a mesh network, but wanted to stick with one manufacturer and hopefully as simplified as possible.Has anyone done this successfully? If so what hardware did you use?

My 'story' is here: https://forum.draytek.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=23344&p=95456#p95455 Draytek AP903 + AP802

It was originally going to be a fully-wireless 'mesh' network, but I soon changed my mind and found ways of using the existing structured cabling. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have been investigating some of the fancier power-line adaptors to implement it.

This is my take on Draytek's offering (based on the AP903/AP802 - since my Vigor 2860n can't participate in mesh networking)...

• Unless you configure Syslog, at times you'll have very little idea what is going on with your mesh network. Unlike (say) a Fritz!box, which will announce '10 minute delay required, while we search for Radar', the Draytek will just appear to be non-functional. (Hidden in the syslog verbiage, it does actually say the same thing, but it takes some spotting).


• The 5GHz channel used for the backhaul is not dedicated to the function - it comes out of the normal bandwidth.
  This is different to a lot of Draytek's competitors. Draytek publish some typical overheads in the AP903 UserGuide - though they have used an odd testing methodology to do it: [Assuming 80Mbps to internet at root node, 1st hop achieves 49Mbps, 2nd hop (if any) 41Mbps]. These are not massively better figures than using a Range Extender/Repeater (which halves the bandwidth)...
  I noted similar figures, during my initial tests, which is why I went "wired". Since then, I found an Android App (with companion server program), which lets you measure local bandwidth, without adding the vagaries of your ISP and Openreach into the mix. See: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pzolee.android.localwifispeedtester


• Although I'm using a wired up-link, my Wifi network is still in mesh mode. The inherent centralised management is on a par with that found in the Vigor 2860n, or Vigor ACS, or Vigor Connect: i.e. POOR (more accurately, INCOMPLETE - a lot of parameters don't transfer, or get reset to default values). It's much easier, just to configure the nodes manually!


• The AP903 and AP802 work much better, if they are set to auto-reboot once per day. Otherwise, I noticed that some of the Syslog'ing stopped and the hand off between nodes and 2.4GHz->5GHz bandsteering became quite lethargic after a while.

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--continued--

Of the things I do like:

• Draytek Mesh networks support VLAN tagging - if their competitors do, then their reviewers never think to mention it. (I have a 'household' LAN, a 'media' LAN (for Sky boxes, TVs etc) and an I.O.T. LAN. Since the AP802 only supports TWO networks, my I.O.T. LAN is delegated/relegated to the Vigor2860n).


• Assuming regular reboots, the transition between nodes as I move round the house is really quite good. You can see from Syslog how it works: if a client has a poor signal on one node, it (the mesh node) will ask the other(s) what they might achieve. If it would better, the client is kicked off and temporarily blocked from its current AP and so has little choice but to connect to the other. Various caches make this occur very quickly. I have no idea if this is a function of all mesh networks - but it works much better than the 'assisted roaming' function on a standalone Vigor (which can result in a client being dropped, with no better alternative available).

Apropos of hornbyp's post above, the ability to have separate VLANS was also why I decided to stick with Draytek - even though the performance of e.g. Netgear's Orbi system is likely much better. I too have 3 VLANS and being able to isolate the IOT and Guest networks gives me some peace of mind (I hope it's not illusory..)

Regarding the roaming, I think it's very dependent on the capabilities of the client. My iOS devices roam quite well (and, as an aside I no longer seem to have the problem of 5GHz connections becoming unusably slow - whether that's down to Draytek or Apple I don't know) but I have an Arlo camera in the garage which stubbornly remained connected (with a poor signal) to the mesh root in the house, even though a mesh node was two feet away from it. I had to force it to connect to the node.

Piste Basher wrote:
... but I have an Arlo camera in the garage which stubbornly remained connected (with a poor signal) to the mesh root in the house, even though a mesh node was two feet away from it. I had to force it to connect to the node.

I've definitely seen exactly that effect (with an Android phone). My perception is, that I cured it, with the scheduled auto-reboots of the AP's...

One other thing I did, was spending a lot of time piddling about with the Roaming parameters - I ended up with them set quite 'tight', ie the AP tries hard to offload the client, at the first sign of a low signal. This doesn't seem to cause any issues - if the other node doesn't agree to the move it doesn't happen.