HELP! Upgrading the router for 12 v3 cameras

I have a 10 year old TP-LINK router that has been trouble free BUT when i was testing all 12 cameras at the same time i had a lot of delays hooking up. With 3, I’m hooked in 3-4 seconds.

I’m moving to a larger house AND dealing with a lot more cameras literally spread to the four corners of the house. The farthest will be about 50 ft.

On top of that i have 2 tvs and tablets hooked up to it.

Soo…will i see a dramatic improvement with a new, modern router? I usually don’t pay attention to new tech unless i need to pay attention…and this is now important.

Has the tech improved and will i be able to cover them with one router? Do i need to get repeaters?

Any recommendations? I want to keep it within $120. I was looking at the TP-Link AX5400 WiFi 6 Router (Archer AX73) but i have no idea if it’s the right one.

HELP!

There’s been big improvements in 10 years. Ten year old router? You should really change a router that old. Features, security, improved performance. I am going to try and keep this brief. I am using TP-Link’s BE63’s a mesh system (2) WiFi 7 and a waste, overkill. The only three devices that match WiFi 7 are two desktop and a laptop, because I replaced their network modules with WiFi 7. I recommend for you the BE75’s WiFi 6e and has three bands. (I kept my BE75’s to supplement my 63’s, and spread devices to these nodes.) The backhaul connecting the nodes cable modem-router (main) to even one node will connect the two over the new 6 GHz band. That leaves your 5 GHz band for media, tv stream and such. This takes load off your camera band, the 2.4 Ghz.

Bigger house needs mesh to you are spreading your signal wider. But also making the likely distance between camera and such shorter. (That’s not going to help much, honestly.)

With TP-Link’s mesh, you can assign specific camera (IP Address) to closes node. So with 12 cameras and equal traffic on each to “a router”, you can control which camera connects to which router node. Most routers, most mesh routers are not giving you Connection Preference.

If you watch Amazon and look at warehouse/outlet deals, you likely can find a 2 set BE75 for about $80 each (so $160).

One consideration, bigger house would mean WiFi stuff spread over larger diameter, so you want 2+ nodes to cover that. Incidentally, you did not mention “age of your cameras” Some could be older than WiFi 5, so those are still only going to connect at the 'as old as/older than WiFi 5, even if the router is WiFi 6e. And no one offers replacement network cards/board for something like a camera. To get faster camera speed on the connection, means replacing the camera.

You best chance of improving camera to router, is offloading other traffic like TVs, wireless sound system, streaming, even your computer/notebook stuff like that to 5 GHz band. And the benefit of new 6 or 6e WiFi means the nodes talk to each over 6 GHz band, and are not crowding your 5 Ghz band.

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@Spartan,

You will see definite improvements but I would caution you about setting your expectations to high.

You don’t identify your existing router model, but if it is 10+ years old then it it probably wifi 5 (ac) or earlier. Asking that technology to stream 12 cameras simultaneously is pushing the envelope. I have a very good wifi 6 (ax with 6e) and my litmus test is a cam group with 10-12 cameras in the group. I expect this group to be reliable and repeatable, and it is.

But that brings up the next question. What device will be running the Wyze app? The differences can be noticeable. I have a flagship Samsung S24 ultra connecting on the 6e band. When I open my cam group (10-12 cams) it takes ~25 seconds for all the cams to load and display properly. For comparison I have a Samsung A9+ budget tablet connecting wifi 5 (ac) on the 5 band. This test takes ~45 seconds.

That is a noticeable difference (and a huge difference in cost).

I would suggest the following. Spend a bit more time characterizing your existing network. How many cameras can you simultaneously stream. You stated that 12 doesn’t work. Back off the number until you get a reliable and repeatable result. I’m guessing that number will be somewhere between 3-5.

Knowing all of this does a budget of $120 allow me to meet my expectations. Only you can answer this.

Regardless, a new router, with a decade newer technology, will be a substantial improvement.

As you look at newer routers I would suggest looking at 6e. The additional band is cool, no one is on it, and it doesn’t cost that much more. Of course the device running the Wyze app has to be compatible.

Good luck in your quest.

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I recommend that since you are adding a new router, you also keep the old one. Use one (potentially the older) for the Wyze Cams only and the other for items.

I like the idea of a separate router forbmy cams. For both Security & Bandwidth

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Since $120 is your limit, check out Woot, (which is an Amazon company). You might find a good deal on refurb gear.

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@Sam_Bam

My eyes glazed, my brain imploded…and even the wife said I look like a shrimp left in the sun too long..

For the last 2 days I’m going all over the place as to what to buy. First it was just one stand alone unit but then, if I put that unit in the den, it has to travel through a staircase, an elevator, two walls and a stone wall. So off to the world of mesh I went…but now what? Buy a full mesh system or just two unit?

But also my “keep it cheap so you can upgrade in a few years” gets smoked because it went way past my initial budget.

Here is where I am…(in CDN dollars)

2x…TP-Link Deco AX3000 Mesh WiFi 6…$160

3x…TP-Link AX1800 Mesh WiFi 6 …$200

1x… TP-Link Dual Band Wi-Fi 7 Router BE3600 (Archer BE230)..$120

1x… TP-Link AX5400 ─ Wi-Fi 6 Router (Archer AX73)…$120

1x… TP-Link AXE5400 Tri-Band WiFi 6E Router (Archer AXE75)…$150

100x…tires and smoke signals…free.

I always prefer to pay extra to get the better/best UNLESS it’s technology that can be old in a year or two. In this case, I need to cover the new house and get to those V3 cameras mounted in the roof tops.

I’m reading everything I can in the last few days but still no definitive answer. That is why I’m hoping to get lucky and someone who has gone through the process and say with some gravitas…DO THIS.

BTW, I’m running two camera security systems. The WYZE which is low power use and hackable and HikVision which is FAR superior and hard wired but it cost an arm and a leg to run it. So for every day use the V3s will be on 24/7 and backed by long range dual-tech sensors. I do that now so if someone steps on the property a muted horn goes off for a few seconds and I get alerted (as well as the prowler that he’s been exposed). In the new house, same thing but higher level. So the wifi system takes on a bigger role then just watching tv or surfing from it. It will be integral part of the security system.

GUYS…whoever can chime in with first hand knowledge, or at least give me a more definitive direction…by ALL MEANS, PLEASE DO

I have no POE yet, but went through the mesh thing.

Had a single cheapie router, moved up to old tech wifi 5 mesh, refurbished actually.

My route could have been any of those you mentioned or others.

But an Orbi RBK53, router and 2 two satellites caught my eye, at the time on sale for $200. Little more now, I and my son got the 4 port ethernet models.

They’ve both been working fine, for us for well over a year. A bit of a gamble on our parts.

15 Wyze, Pan V3, V4s, OGs, no V3s. And 7 other Simplisafe junk wifi cams.

Home Assistant, 40 Zigbee sensors, a couple Zwave keypads for the HAOS security system.

A couple wifi smoke alarms, soon to be all and CO alarms.

Phone, Tablet, a couple to 3 Linux machines wired.

Not saying go this route, but definitely Mesh whatever brand you decide on. If around 2500+ sq ft, at least two satellites. Wired ethernet where possible.

When I upgrade it’ll probably be an upper level Netgear Orbi for me in the $300-$500 dollar range. You must choose yours, Some users hate Orbi.

I used the same router SSID name and password and most things just connected up.

Spartan,

First, most us that have been here awhile enjoy helping/answering WiFi questions. So, you are welcome to ask more.

I have had about 10 different manufacture’s router in the past 5 years. I have fun doing this. I buy stuff people have good luck with and play around with it. If I have to, I figure which I like best and sell the other on ebay. yes, I loose money, but I get smarter using the product. I am likening TP-Link best. I recomment TP-Link. (Looks like you don’t need convincing.) TP-Link markets their single routers under Archer, and their Mesh under Deco. FYI, it only takes to be a mesh system.

Now, here’s the better news. With TP-Link’s mesh Decon line, you can grow your mesh system as needed. So, start with two. From your description, I think you need 3 nodes, but start with two. You will be able to pickup a third or fourth later, as need. And every few months, as we all know, prices come down as newer stuff is available. We know from experience you will be able to find a new or used node to add to your mesh later as needed.

I noticed you only mentioned looking at WiFi 6 no WiFi 6e. I am not an engineer, but from my experience, I believe you will not make better your network using 6E over 6, so go with the WiFi 6.

When you start reading multiple articles, ads, propaganda, you find that the number after the AX as in AX1800, AX3000 is a representation of the two bands speed added togehter. 2.4 and 5. BUT, remember 2.4’s speed is almost never faster than 300. Some might claim 400. The very best lab case claims to be 450 Mps, but we never see that. The other part of that number is the 5 GHz speed. Nearly all IoT devices, such as Wyze cameras only connect to 2.4. See the probem? Wyze camera with their 2.4 GHz band are only going to have a speed of about 300-400 Mps And reality is 300 or less.

That’s the reality. So, with your network and all the toys we want to run, how to we maximize our toys on the 2.4 GHz band? By moving as much stuff/toys that we can OFF 2.4 and over to the 5 GHz band. We reduce the traffic on 2.4 so 'stuff" has less traffic to contend with. Not a perfect example, but think rush hour fading to after-rush hour traffic on the highway. Our biggest gains in improving the 2.4 GHz band comes from the stuff we DON’T put on it.

You are still wondering mesh or single router. I like to use this. Think basketball court. For Reference court ends are 'north and south". Where are we going to put the singe router? Yes, in the middel. And at the north and south far boundaries of the court, the signal is going to be weakest? Yes. So, the next best thing to having tow ISP connections (paying for two) and having two single routers at the free throw line in each end. But who wants to pay for two ISP connections, just to feed an IP address to each cable modem to feed to a single router. No one. Why do manufacturers make mesh, design mesh? To sell hardware. But thank you very much, they didn’t just build a better router with mesh, they solved this two ISP issue for us before we started using it.

We can take a two node mesh router system and cover that court with a decent or strong signal, but the single router would be weak at the far ends.
Where would we put each of the two nodes? One center court and one at the “south” free throw line? No, we deprive the “north” end decent signal. Probably still works, but will be weaker. So where to we putt them? Just about the free throw line on each half. And then we discover the “south” end of your property is not able to connect for some/any reason. What to do? Get a third node and put it just past the end of the court on the south end after we join it to our mesh. Now we have three nodes “generally, signal size spaced apart and resolving our issues” But they don’t need to be perfectly physically spaced on the court. This is a lot of rambling with some silly examples, but when we post here, it reaches people that are just starting to learn about WiFi and stuff. I don’t mean to talk down to anyone, but sometimes the examples “click that light on above the head” and they get it. No offense intended to anyone.

Deco’s are all compatible. you want to future proof your investment so you don’t throw stuff out later. So, today, because of prices we buy two WiFi 6 nodes. After we have some time to live with it, we see that we need to add a node. No problem. We shop. We look, and we see its been a year and the price of a WiFi 6e Deco is the same we gave for 1 6 a year go. Do we have to buy another 6? No, we do not. So, buy the 6e, and join it to your mesh. Then ready up, look on YouTube and can see, you can promote the 6e to your primary and make the 6, a secondard node. (Remember, there’s one Main/Primary and you connect it to your cable modem. EVERY thing else becomes secondaries. You can have 4 more nodes and they are all secondaries. And you don’t have to position them physically like around an umbrella to get the coverage/connection. You join to the mesh, then you can move it so they are in a line, not circle.

The best part is the 6 and 6e mesh are 3 bands not 2 bands. 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz. These nodes talk to each other over the 6 GHz band wirelessly or can talk over wire.
Other mesh manufacturers have the same features, but gotta stay within the same manufacturers to join them together.

And some people forget this. When you get your new stuff. Shutdown your old one, unplug it, power it down. Move it to the side. And when you stand up the new one, use same SSID, same WiFi password, AND everything will reconnect automatically. It won’t even know that you swappped out the hardware, if you use same name and password. And don’t wipe the setting on the old one. If worse happens, and you needed to use it, it knows your devices, your devices know it, and they will all also reconnect just like nothing every happened.

Too little? Confusing? Too much?

@Sam_Bam

Not confusing at all.

The house is a conventional 2000ft2 per floor living space with the den, living/dinning room in the front and the kitchen, family room in the back end. The front unit picks up front outside cameras and then the central staircase cameras, at most all of them are 25 ft or less from the router, the rear modem picks up the outside cameras and all the family/kitchen/back-bedroom traffic.

The house is 70 ft long by 55 ft wide including solarium and garage.. With just two routers they actually split the house in two, about 25’ from each other. And in turn, they are at most 25ft away from any connection.

Like i said in my first post, i don’t bother keeping up with tech until i need it so was blissfully unaware of wifi mesh until now.

Now i am.

THANK YOU FOR THE HELP!

I missed something, “rear modem picks up the outside cameras” huh? Sounds like you have a cable modem/router combo? (10 years old, too)
If so, is the single router using a different SSID/network name? And you have hard wired the single modem from from the modem/router combo?

If its accurate that it;s wired, you don’t need that wire with a mesh. The connect to each other over wireless. A mesh gives you a bonus that is sometimes useful. Some situations we need a wired connection. With mesh, since you have the flexiblity to move the secondard node where you wish, you move it, the plug that wired requirement into the node’s port. Its like magic. No need to run wire all the way back to the primary router to get the wired connecton. AND even if the node does not have but one port, you pick up a $15 ethernet 100/1000 switch and plug it into the router and wired into the switch.

If I guessed correctly, and you are using a cable modem/router combo, - that’s 10 years old, you MUST also replace your cable modem. Probably 100% accurate to assume your ISP has improved your connection in those 10 years. And the old one is limiting your speed now. You likely would get faster performance with a new modem. Ten years, almost a certainty. And they will probably give you a new one. Avoid another combo, you want the mesh to plug directly and skip a combo and its own WiFi network it will be broadcasting parallel to your stuff. This make sense?

You are very welcome.

Not that it sounds like you might need it, but its a good time to remind people of this tip.

Sometimes when we are adding 2.4 GHz IoT devices to our network, the devices gets confused because the 5 GHz band is there and its stepping on the signal. Some manufacturers set the two bands up so the can be named separately. This way you know what you are connecting to. But there’s an audience of consumers that don’t understand that, so some manufacturers, “don’t do that”, they broadcast them together and it causes havoc for the folks trying to add a device. And some of these specific manufacturers put the option in their settings that allow us to disable the 2.4 or 5 GHz band, if needed. This is useful. you disable it, restart your mesh, (all of them for best results), add the items, and go back into the configuration and enable it again, and restart a second time. This time the device remains connected to the 2.4. Takes longer to say it than do it.

But there’s a Plan B if that didn’t work. You drag out the old router you have (used to use). You shutdown every bit of your new stuff, - every bit. Unplug power from every node. Plug the old router into the cable modem and power it up. All your devices reconnect, “they don’t know you switched connections” Because the old was same SSID and password everything works. Now, you add the new device, make sure its joined. Then shutdown the old router, put it away for next time, and plug the new router in, power all of them up, and the new device works.

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@Sam_Bam

To clarify…the rear router of the AX3000 system.

I do have an 10 year old modem/router and just got their new version just two days ago. It’s old one range is so limited that it’s almost useless but i cut off the net to the router when I’m on the computer. So it serves as a last resort. It’s so limited, the V3s throw up a hairball if i try to connect to it. No device is hooked on it.

I just checked how many devices and forgot the smart plugs. By the time the full systems, plural, is installed in the other house, it will be at least 40 devices.

I’m picking up two AX3000 today. I think that is all i will ever need so at $149, it’s a cost effective solution.

BTW…the old system had “guest” frequencies split into 2.4 and 5. It made the system easier to manage and should be even better with the new system. The V3s went straight to the 2.4…but still couldn’t handle 12 cameras 15-20 ft away. In a few days everything will be installed and tested. That will make life a lot simpler where I’m not debugging the system while trying to install the cameras.

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Something you need to keep in mind, the routers aimed at super high throughput are focusing all their efforts on 5 and in some cases 6ghz. If you look at the specs for 2.4, many of them are dropping it down to 2 streams/2 antennas. Some aren’t even implementing AX on 2.4, they’re staying with the old N standard for that.

If you have a lot of IOT/2.4ghz devices, it pays to look into the specs and find ones that have ideally 4 streams on 2.4ghz and are using the AX protocol there. While most of the wyze cams are single stream N devices, having 4 streams gives them more antennas and potential signal paths to latch onto, and the AX standard on the AP can help manage the spectrum better which indirectly benefits AX devices (not to mention it is a much newer chip with much better engineering than the old N stuff).

Unfortunately Ubiquiti has gone this way so if I want to upgrade my APs, I’m stuck hoping a 2 stream will be good enough for my 7 cams, or possibly using two of their APs in order to get more 2.4 coverage. TP Link Omada has several devices with 4 stream AX 2.4ghz but they’re quite pricey by comparison.

The 4 stream 2.4 does seem more common in higher end home oriented routers, like the Asus RT-AX88U Pro - but that’s a $200+ router too (was even more, starting to come down now that they’re pushing the AXE and BE ones). I’m guessing some of the higher end TP Link home routers probably have it too but I haven’t looked at those as much. Several other Asus (and I’m guessing TP Link) have 3 stream 2.4, which is still better than 2.

People with lots of IOT devices may be better served by having a mesh or multiple AP system, running at lower power, and spreading the devices out between them. But setting a system like that up is a bit of a challenge, finding the right power levels and placement so as to not have too much or too little overlap of signal.

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I really need to watch my language. I keep saying modem when i mean router.

PROBLEM? WHAT PROBLEM?

I put in a TP-Link AXE5400 6e (DECO XE75 Pro). Just used 1 of the 2 units and it covers my current house like a blanket. All 12 cameras come on within 1 or 2 seconds. The second unit is way overkill and i seriously doubt the new house will have any issues.

So yes, there is a massive change in 10 years with routers. With this mesh system i could probably run a small 10-15 people office without issues. For the house it’s a bit overkill but who cares. I’ll forget how much i paid for it ($180 USD) in a year but I’ll have hopefully trouble free use from it for a decade.

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Since you already have the second node, here’s an idea. Pair it to the main. Move the node next to you desktop/laptop and plug it in with Wire vice wifi. You might see a performance kick across the internet. Its going wire to port on the router and the two routers are talking on 6 GHz, to the main which is wired to the cable modem.

I’m running the desktop directly from the modem. No laptops.

I noticed an immidiate jump in connecting to the net. It’s hard to pinpoint a half second from a quarter second, but everything is a touch faster getting online.

The kid at best buy said i should buy triple units and sell one. I “could make” extra 50 bucks…as if 50 bucks is worth the hassle.

I want to see how one unit is going to handle 3 4k tvs in the other house. That’s were a couple of units could/would be beneficial.

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I bought a Tenda AC23 router that has been rock solid for 3 years. I added a Tenda MW6 3 node mesh 2 years ago that is dedicated to the Wyze ecosystem. The AC23 Is no longer available but the upgraded version is well within your budget..

Tenda WiFi 6 Gaming Router, AX3000 Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Router for Home, Long Range Coverage with 5 * 6dBi High-Gain Antennas, High Speed with 4 Gigabit Ports, Support WPA3, VPN(RX12Pro) Amazon.com

An IT acquaintance recommended this brand. When lists are published of routers that can be hacked, I never see Tenda on the list.