Newbie seeks help deciding whether Zen WiFi mesh would be worth it

[Mke328]

Hello everyone,

I need some help, please, with my WiFi setup.

Currently, I have a Spectrum Advanced WiFi router and 1 Gig service. It meets my needs well, in that I only do video streaming, some online video and photo editing, VOIP, and other basic online tasks such as Zoom calls when I'm working from home.

I also have a workshop around 100 feet from the router. The signal passes through two walls but otherwise has a clear line of sight between the router and the shop.

In my home, an old two-story farmhouse, my signal strength is very good, averaging around -35 dBm. My WiFi speeds, measured by Ookla Speed Test, vary widely from around 750/940 Mbps (uploads higher) down to the mid 200s depending on the time of day and device.

My top-end speeds, with a wired connection straight to the fiber modem, are around 940/900.

In my workshop, the signal strength drops to around -65 dBm but I consistently get around 100/90 Mbps WiFi speeds. Latency and jitter are higher in the shop but still acceptable for my needs.

With a WiFi 6 range extender in the shop, I get signal strength of -30 dBm and speeds of around 250/250 Mbps, sometimes even higher. Jitter is around 2 ms.

Is everything shown above pretty good for WiFi or would I do much better with something like the ZenWiFi AXE7800 Tri-band mesh router with three nodes? I tried an Eero 6+, three nodes, and saw no improvement from my Spectrum router.

If the AXE7800 delivered much better results, and I would no longer have to use the range extender in the shop, I would be willing to spend the money for it.

I realize every situation is different, but I would greatly appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks very much!

[Mke328 · Accepted solution]

This weekend I decided to skip the WiFi option for my workshop and instead buried around 150 feet of CAT 6A outdoor ethernet cable to deliver service there. It was a lot of work but I am very pleased with the results; full gigabit speeds and almost no latency or jitter.  Hopefully the cable lasts a long time, but even if it's only a few years, it was a fraction of the price of a mesh system. I also learned a few things from the project, so next time it would be easier.