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jebediah's avatar
jebediah
New Contributor II
12 months ago

Cox Pods or Mesh System?

Cox came out and said at least some of the wiring in my 2500 sq. foot house needs to be redone (its only 12 years old, but apparently thats old?). Anyway they are setting up a work order to come out.  In the meantime I'm thinking of dropping cox TV entirely and going with a streaming service like Roku. I have 4 TVs currently, which are often all used at once.  There's also probably 30 other small wifi devices (cell phones, outlets, light bulbs, etc.).  I have panormaic wifi gigiblast, but I think it still needs to be boosted to get good coverage everywhere if I go entirely wireless and start streaming on all the tvs. 

I have a lot of questions:

So...I'm hoping to get out of this for maybe $300..  Is it better to buy a couple cox pods, or am I better off buying a mesh network like Nest or TP-Link or Eero? And which one?

If you suggest a non-Cox mesh system, which one, and is that something someone with *some* tech experience can hook up? 

The cox tech guy suggested I get an AV person to come out and hook up a mesh system, and he was talking about running ethernet cables, etc. between the mesh routers. From what I've seen it looks like they are mostly wireless but I don't know. I'm trying to avoid running cables everywhere, is that really necessary to get good speed and coverage? 

Any advice is appreciated. I kind of read as much as I could fin on here about Mesh wifi but I was hoping for more recent information.  Thanks. 

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  • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
    WiderMouthOpen
    Esteemed Contributor
    12 months ago

    Don't get the pods. I suggest a mesh system like ZenWifi or Eero. I like the Asus XT8 but it might be a little beyond your budget at 350$. Ethernet backhaul is better/faster but this mesh system also supports 5Ghz backhaul.

  • Darkatt's avatar
    Darkatt
    Valued Contributor III
    12 months ago

    I prefer the Actiontec Moca system, it has 4 ethernet connections and dual band WiFi, and uses the cable to talk direct to your Mocan enabled WiFi modem. You get the best of speed, wired connectivity, and you setup the wifi with the same ssid and wpa key as the main, and you have mesh wifi!

    • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
      WiderMouthOpen
      Esteemed Contributor
      12 months ago
      Actiontec Moca system

      Do you mean the WCB6200Q? If so, do they have a Wifi 6 version? If I was going to use MoCA I would buy the separate adapters like the Screenbeam ECB6250K02 or Actiontec ECB7250A and then buy separate Wifi APs.

      • Darkatt's avatar
        Darkatt
        Valued Contributor III
        12 months ago

        Not sure the numbers, but even if it's ONLY wireless AC or even wireless N,. it ould be perfect for MOST people, cause even Wireless N can stream 4K tv wifi. 

    • Lovemylab's avatar
      Lovemylab
      Contributor III
      12 months ago

      I was just looking at this based on your comments. I've gone down the Moca rabbit hole before but didn't find anything I liked. An ECB6200S02 combined with one or more WCB6200Q units seems like a simple and cost effective approach to solve a number of challenges. 

      ECB6200S02

      WCB6200Q MoCA 2.0 WiFi

      • WiderMouthOpen's avatar
        WiderMouthOpen
        Esteemed Contributor
        12 months ago

        Is Screenbeam the new name for Actiontec? I notice the unit says Actiontec but the description says Screenbeam. That would explain why their model numbers are so similar. 

        ::edit:: Or I think Screenbeam is Actiontec's name for their MoCA line?

  • Lovemylab's avatar
    Lovemylab
    Contributor III
    12 months ago

    The first gen Google wifi 3 pack is on sale at the Google Store for $139 right now. That's an outstanding value. Easy to set up and use. If you can use ethernet backhaul you will get excellent performance. That's what I've done. Some of mine runs up through the attic, some runs through the utility room in the basement and through the floor joists. I've used a pair of small switches to make it easy to "hard-wire" my most critical devices/high usage devices. If ethernet is not an option, then MOCA may be an option for backhaul. None of this is terribly complicated, it just takes a little time to learn the basics and get accustomed to some measurements. The nice thing about the Google setup is how well it integrates with Google Home. I still prefer to run some of the tests on the old Google WiFi app which is no longer distributed.