I currently have two wireless APs serving the house; the primary one in the garage (ground floor) and a secondary one in the basement. They both share an SSID and password but moving about the house necessitates manually disconnecting/reconnecting to maintain signal strength. This can get annoying if I start a video chat in the basement and walk upstairs.
Now I want to add a third AP; one on each floor because there are still too many dead spots in the house, but I also want a smooth hand-off between APs as I move about. The thing is that I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a mesh network kit with proprietary firmware. I think there's a way to extend OpenWrt to function as a mesh using the hardware I already have lying around, but I can't find any definitive guides on how to go about it. I know there's something called B.A.T.M.A.N. but I fear that figuring out some of the deeper technical stuff might be more than I can manage alone. Has anyone here succeeded in setting up something like what I'm describing? A DIY mesh network using disparate hardware running open-source firmware?
I've attached a file illustrating my proposed topology. I've indicated the currently installed firmware but that can change.
Now I want to add a third AP; one on each floor because there are still too many dead spots in the house, but I also want a smooth hand-off between APs as I move about. The thing is that I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a mesh network kit with proprietary firmware. I think there's a way to extend OpenWrt to function as a mesh using the hardware I already have lying around, but I can't find any definitive guides on how to go about it. I know there's something called B.A.T.M.A.N. but I fear that figuring out some of the deeper technical stuff might be more than I can manage alone. Has anyone here succeeded in setting up something like what I'm describing? A DIY mesh network using disparate hardware running open-source firmware?
I've attached a file illustrating my proposed topology. I've indicated the currently installed firmware but that can change.
Attachments
Last edited: