CHEAP WI-FI MESH ALTERNATIVE with fast roaming OpenWrt Wi-Fi Access points

multiple wi-fi access points might be a cheap wi-fi mesh alternative if they are configured correctly. With openwrt wi-fi can be configured for fast roaming or fast BSS transition or 802.11r. In this HOWTO we configure a router as access point vs. mesh using OpenWrt fast roaming. This will allow us to seamlessly move between access points while we move across the house. OpenWrt fast roaming hplus the right channel configuration help to get excellent WIFI coverage in the whole house, even despite my concrete walls.

0:00 Walking through the house with iperf
1:51 Do people want MESH ?
3:30 high level architecture overview
5:00 Wi-Fi channels configuration in my house
6:43 Marc's BUNKER
7:35 Wi-Fi Roaming explained
9:04 the challenges with roaming
10:00 Configuring fast roaming on the first router
11:44 Other access points, avoid time consuming tasks
12:18 configure OpenWrt as Access point only
16:47 Success!
17:45 CALL TO ACTION
18:53 testing Wi-Fi performance with iperf3

[OneMarcFifty]

*IMPORTANT UPDATE* : If you don't see the 802.11r options in the luci Web interface then please go to system-software and *_install the package wpad-basic_* . Then you might need to reboot the device. By default OpenWrt has a light or mini version of wpad installed that doesn't have that option. Sorry I forgot to mention that step in the video.

[TheBelcherMan]

3 year old video, and still worth every second to watch. All the best.

[himeshbhatia]

From start to end.. amazing.. just amazing. Wow. I am a professional programmer and my majors is ethical hacking and network security. I really wish I had a college professor like you. Long live your YouTube channel. Thank you for all the knowledge. ❤️

[JamieBainbridge]

Absolute legend. I've been doing networking for over 20 years, provider stuff and software and support and training. Your videos are some of the best and clearest I've seen. I love your knowing grin explaining your setup then you bring us along on the journey so we can have it too.

[hahahaharada]

Hey Marc I live in São Paulo, Brazil and all houses are made of concrete (bunker hahaha). I found your tutorial and reused two cheap and old devices to do just that!
It worked! Mesh networking is still expensive around here and your help was amazing!!! Tks sir!

[Mikesco]

This video is really underrated!!!
It has so much value packed into it.

[durgeshkshirsagar]

Excellent video sir. I had done training on CCNA but now I am realising that it is just tip of the iceberg. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. Lots of respect to you.

[anilgargsfo]

A very important video and made very well. OpenWRT is an amazing product but needs champions like you to make complex feature accessible to average Joe. Well done again.

[WoMaNA]

Hi Marc, well illustrated and explained! I want to clarifiy that using different ESSIDs for APs on each floor, e. g. WLAN-0, WLAN-1, WLAN-2 (which was my original intention) disables the roaming or FT feature. So all APs for roaming must have equal ESSID, pre-shared key and mobility domain. WLAN-EG (EG in Germany means "street level" floor ) made me think that your APs would use different ESSIDs for the floors they are located at. At 05:09 when you show the WIFI analyzer we can see that it is not the case. So friends from Germany do not think too much about what "EG" could mean ... just give all APs the same ESSID :-)

[cor-janb]

Amazing good, clear and helping video. Many thanks. I moved from 6 SSIDS to one SSID, used 40 Mhz channels enabled WMM and now its more easy, faster and roaming works perfect.

[leaolp]

Great video, Marc. I am a student of Computer Engineering from Brazil and I'm loving your channel. Just subscribed!

[alexxx]

Hey, Mark, love your well made videos! Keep'em coming!

[futurecactus]

I do home mesh Wi-Fi installs as a side business and I've found Deco to be the best bang for buck but I have a Unifi network in my own home.

I'm also looking at providing rural internet solutions here in Australia where there's few options, I found a 4G router that runs Open-WRT that might be a good solution for some and that's why I'm here, I haven't configured WRT before so your channel is very helpful.

Open-WRT looks very powerful but also much harder to configure than Unifi but that may just be because I'm used to it.

[ALIENPL-fyvj]

Great video! I was looking for fast and cheap solution. Love it

[fiveangle]

Great content ! I've been frustrated by the lackluster speeds of iOS and Macintosh devices on most 3rd-party APs so have outfitted 3x of the long-discontinued TimeCapsule devices (which also allow dual-backup for all my Mac devices). The work you've done here likely provides a viable solution forward on more flexible APs. I just stumbled across your channel so look forward to enjoying your back catalog. auf Wiedersehen

[stevezphone]

I followed your steps and IT WORKS! Thank you very much for this video.

[heckyes]

What a fantastic channel. So glad I stumbled upon it.

[JosselinduPLESSIS]

Hey there, amazing course: very clear and well structured, and most importantly, to the point. Thanks Marc

[MCOrigging]

Marc, you are the MAN! These are incredible resources. Thank you for putting the time in on creating these

[bhalejos]

First of all, THANK YOU so much for your videos! Not only they’re instructional and precise, but also engaging, simple to follow, and the fact you include chapters is great for coming back to them for future reference and follow along.

Now, to the topic at hand, yes, I’ve been using a mesh since I moved from a single all-in-one modem/router/switch/WiFiAP to a Google Nest set with two satellites. Then, as I was willing to upgrade from AC to AX speeds, I swapped to TP-link Deco set, with three X60 nodes.

Their performance is OK (definitely an improvement over Google’s Nest’s) but I just HATE they can only be configured via a phone app, with just a flimsy, stripped-down web portal!

I’ll see if OpenWRT or pfsense are compatible with the Decos and let you know how it goes.

I do think I’ll try B.A.T.M.A.N. because I live in a rental property, where I simply can’t get wires in a proper fashion.