I mean, mesh systems are a marginally better solution than traditional range-extenders in areas in which a single router is not providing adequate coverage, but aside from that, it's kinda pointless. Right now, mesh topology is cool and trendy, and a lot of people are getting bilked for a lot of money for technology that doesn't provide them any functional advantage over a traditional central access-point.

Old tech at this point. At least get AC1900.

https://www.bayareatechpros.com/ac1900-to-ac68u/

This is the shit

Yes, it is. But it works and the price is good. I see no need for the latest tech.

What the hell are some of you folks doing on wifi that requires (or even remotely benefits from) 1.9 Gb/s throughput? Even streaming 4k at 60p, Netflix maxes out at around 16 Mb/s. Are you really watching 118 movies at the same time in 4k on your phone?

I have a gateway. I connect to it wirelessly.

Regularly updating my Perforce workspace from the patio/bedroom/dining room of nearly 80,000 files (buildscripts are updated often). Even on smaller updates the higher bandwidth is immensely helpful on not slowing down.

Previously old built-in modem/WiFi router could take as long as 20 minutes to update from the dining room. With my new connection SB8200 and AmpliFi setup I see 175mb down on the patio in the backyard, so what used to take 20 minutes now takes around 30 seconds. I like to be able to get out of my home office if I'm doing a task that doesn't require two screens.

Ping? Bandwidth? Just the new modem? Don't know, don't care. I just know now it's fast everywhere in the house like I need it to be for work.

I don't have a large house but it's kind of boomerang shaped on a corner lot. And the I need the hardline in the office (at one end of the house, and lots of interior walls on that side of the house) for when I get my sim rig setup.

The extra helps make up for what the VPN kills when at home.

What's on the other side of it, a SONET pipe?



Ok, I can see that.

Not buying the VPN argument, though. If the VPN is a bottleneck, you're never going to pump data through it faster so long as your connection into it is as least as fast as its throughput.


I guess I'm just a cheapskate. I paid about $35 for my current WiFi router, and I can easily max out my internet connection (75 Mb/s down, 10 up) with my laptop.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...de346389d5.png

Goddamn nerds! What do you have to make everything so damn difficult! I need to be able to run a Roku and a couple of cell phones one of them doing this forum and the other one doing Pinterest at the same time. That's about it. Occasionally I need to send something from my laptop to the printer over it. You know, a PDF or a Word document, small stuff. I should have known I would have ended up with enough throughput for a gamer convention. I should have asked on a car forum instead of a tech forum.

What would you recommend for somebody who is a cheapskate and does not have a wifi-enabled blender, plunger, refrigerator, or High resolution dildo?

First: Buy a high resolution dildo.

https://www.ebay.com/i/123029619542?chn=ps

(or similar)

Is there anything actually wrong with your present router, or are you just experiencing fomo?

Quite literally any router which you can purchase today will work just fine for your needs. It's actually kind of hilarious how fast wifi technology has gotten in recent years relative to the actual data transfer rates which normal people use.

This one is $15:



And, yes, consider upgrading your dildo.

Electrical engineers, I need some assistance designing this circuit.
Last year, I was planning to make a prize wheel that beeps like the Wheel of Fortune with reed switches, magnets, and a 555. I realized that if the magnet parks on the reed switch, it will just continue to beep which is no bueno. I went to "allaboutcircuits" and they recommended this:

Why do you need a 555? It seems like you could just do the following, only requiring the sensor, buzzer, an op amp, mosfet, and some passives. Get an active buzzer. Have it be controlled by a mosfet, being controlled by the hall with comparator or reed switch. Then have that signal also charge a capacitor though a large resistor. The capacitor gets quickly discharged through a low value resistor when the switch is off. If the capacitor gets charged to close to the supply voltage, which should take about a second, it pulls a comparator low, connecting a mosfet to ground.

A guy replied:
Going even farther, you don't need the opamp. The trick is to AC-couple the switch signal into the MOSFET so it doesn't stay on continuously when a magnet is parked over a switch.

2 resistors
1 capacitor
1 2N7000 MOSFET
1 magnetic reed switch
1 or more beepers

Anyone have any idea how to design this circuit? This is way beyond my understanding of circuits.

System backups over WiFi, for one. LAN bandwidth still matters even when WAN throughput is capped.

But mostly I just have found AC to be a vast improvement in terms of signal stability and reliability. I don't know if it's specifically due to the lack of interference in the 5 GHz spectrum, but I have noticed that even though the signal strength (as measured in dB) might be similar between N and AC access points, the actual performance of the AC signal is going to be much better over longer distances than the N signal.

I may not be the best source for advice on this, admittedly. I'm running an ASUS RT-AC68R wireless router just as an AP plugged into an OPNsense router/firewall running on an HP T620 Plus thin client. It's overkill for a home network, but then I don't have to worry every time some new vulnerability is discovered in SOHO wireless routers.

555 timer in monostable mode. 555 (NE555) Monostable Circuit Calculator

Basically, with your switch as a trigger, the 555 will perform an action for x amount of time. So plug in a 1 uf capacitor and 500-ish ohms resistor, and you'll get a .55 second "beep" on your output (being driven by the mosfet.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if the 555 will one shot in the situation you described above. http://www.n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/F...20Circuits.pdf is how I started with 555's though. https://m8051.blogspot.com/2013/02/r...g-circuit.html looks closer to what you want.

A 555 monostable is definitely the way to go. Very predictable and stable behavior. Use its output to drive an NPN, and sink the buzzer through the transistor.

Basically, build the circuit as described in the first link gooflophaze posted, and add the components on the right:


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2e08a34c0e.png


Edit: give me the specs on the buzzer (voltage and current) and I'll help you select an appropriate transistor.

Fair enough on the VPN, I'm not knowledgeable on network type stuff. I just the new stuff is noticeably faster than the ~4 year old router/modem combo I had before that would barely get signal into the bedroom on the other side of the house.

I guess it is a little bit of fomo. But my router is ancient and I hear about them being exploitable. Some sensitive information passes over it and I'm told to be concerned about identity theft. I guess I'll post my hardware and you guys can tell me if I'm going to benefit from an upgrade or not.