Linksys Velop - WiFi that sets you free

[whitesofa]

If I want to use velop as the only wifi/ssid, that means can I connect modem -> primary velop node -> asus router -> wired data point. Then in another room’s wired data point -> second node. Anyone knows, does it work like that? Thanks

 

[renfred89]

If I want to use velop as the only wifi/ssid, that means can I connect modem -> primary velop node -> asus router -> wired data point. Then in another room’s wired data point -> second node. Anyone knows, does it work like that? Thanks

if you set velop to bridged mode, then it doesn't matter what in-between you connect the devices by. the concern here is your asus router, which strictly must be set to AP mode with wifi turned off. your second node will work via ethernet backhaul in such configuration. second node does not necessarily need to connect to primary node directly.

 

[whitesofa]

if you set velop to bridged mode, then it doesn't matter what in-between you connect the devices by. the concern here is your asus router, which strictly must be set to AP mode with wifi turned off. your second node will work via ethernet backhaul in such configuration. second node does not necessarily need to connect to primary node directly.

Thanks renfred89. with my router set as AP mode, do I connect the modem to the router first or velop primary node?

modem -> router OR
modem -> primary node

 

[Boon Sim]

Hi, seeking some guidance here. I am non-techie so bear with the simple questions please. This is my set up I did around 2 years back when I move into my new place.

Hardware: 3x Velop (WHW03v1) and EA8100 (old Starhub router for LAN)
ISP: M1, 1GB plan
Setup:

• In DB box: M1 modem connect to Velop master (Node 1), and Node 1 connect to EA8100 (set to bridge mode)
• 4 ethernet ports in apartment rooms connected to the EA8100
• Velop Node 2 and Node 3 in apartment rooms (without wired backhaul, because LAN points connected to PCs)

Issues:

• Speed check within Linksys app is around 800mbps, so should be ok
• Desktop (LAN connected) speedtest speed can only achieve around 200 - 400 mbps download. Acceptable for "direct" connection to the EA8100 (through home LAN)? Seems to be a lot of loss but I am not sure how to improve it
• Wifi (older model iPhone) speedtest speed when very near the nodes is ok, 100mbps - 300mbps, but further away (not in same room, through 2 closed door) as low as 30mbps - 50mbps. Is this wifi fall out normal / acceptable?

Questions:

• Can I connect the M1 modem direct to EA8100 (run as normal router function without wifi), and then connect the 3 Velops to the EA8100 for my home network wifi?
  • I previously tried this but it didn't work, so I gave up and ran the M1 modem to the master Velop node first, then to EA8100 (in bridge mode). This works, but I "burn" one Velop node in DB box
  • Added question: Will this setup always be inferior to using the EA8100 as a normal router (LAN + wifi), and the 3 Velops in bridge mode?
• Is EA8100 an acceptable router to use for my setup?
  • I saw another HWZ post mentioning that it doesn't support mesh, but not 100% sure if this means it cannot operate a single wifi SSID for my home network
• If I upgrade the EA8100 to a newer Linksys router with min. 4 LAN port, will it improve my connectivity issues, and also free up 1 node to use outside of the DB box?
• Added question: Will my networking issues be solved if I just use the EA8100 in "router mode" (M1 modem connect direct to EA8100) for both issuing the home network WIFI SSID and to connect the room LAN points, and instead the 3x Velop just run in "bridge mode"?

Thanks in advance.

 

[xonix]

Node 2 and 3 got 2 ports each, right ?
Why don't connect LAN point > Node > PC ?

 

[Boon Sim]

Node 2 and 3 got 2 ports each, right ?
Why don't connect LAN point > Node > PC ?

Thanks. I know this is in theory better. I tried this before for one of the PC (actually Surface Pro tablet) but the wired speed not much better. Might be because that device has office VPN connected automatically during startup so naturally slower. I will try this again.

 

[renfred89]

your setup like so complicated.

i suggest you don't put your velop inside the DB box, a bit wasted.

Since you are using M1, you shall just put the EA8100 aside first and use it as an ethernet switch rather than a router or as a wireless access point.

You can just think of where to put the master velop node first, then connect the ONT to the master velop node through the DB box. The rest of the nodes can be connected to the wall lan ports and the mesh will form itself. If you need extra lan ports, u can just set up the EA8100 as an AP with wifi turned off, then it will work as an ethernet switch and you won't get the wifi interference too.

 

[GrizzlyBear]

I'm facing issues with the Linksys mobile app, it's unable to sign in with both my Linksys account (email + password) as well as router password.
Screen shows "Getting router settings..." then returns back to the login page again.

Anyone else facing this or knows how to resolve?
Thanks!

 

[renfred89]

I'm facing issues with the Linksys mobile app, it's unable to sign in with both my Linksys account (email + password) as well as router password.
Screen shows "Getting router settings..." then returns back to the login page again.

Anyone else facing this or knows how to resolve?
Thanks!

arm not sure on friday, but now i have no issue using the app. sometimes could be the corrupted cache of the app.

if you are using android, you might wanna clear cache. if you are using iPhone, then probably you need to end app from background and reboot phone?

 

[GrizzlyBear]

arm not sure on friday, but now i have no issue using the app. sometimes could be the corrupted cache of the app.

if you are using android, you might wanna clear cache. if you are using iPhone, then probably you need to end app from background and reboot phone?

Thanks!
I attempted to reinstall the app on iOS but to no avail, had a support chat with Linksys and ended up factory resetting my three Velop nodes and setting up my network again. Thankfully using back the same SSID and password when re-setting up the network, I didn't need to reconnect all my devices.

 

[xiaofan]

Hello! Anyone upgraded from an EA7500 to MX4200 single router? If so, how's the speed and coverage performance?

I have the EA7500 v2 but not a user of MX4200.

I think you may see not much improvement in terms of coverage if just for a single MX4200. As for speed you will see improvement if you have AX devices.

2* MX4200 will be good for majority of the Singapore household.

SG user review of MX4200 dual pack versus Google wifi dual pack. He has a 1600 sqf condo unit.

 

[rdreamer]

Hi, I just bought a used set of Velop WHW03 to improve coverage as there are a couple of corners in my apartment that there are bare signal. I use Singtel fibre and after googling how to setup the Velop with Singtel, I found out that some people had posted that Singtel uses VLAN and Velop doesn't support VLAN. So does that mean that I can't use Velop with Singtel Fibre?

I have an older DLINK DIR882 wireless router that I was originally using. I read that one possible way is to use the DIR882 as a router, then connect the Velop master node to DIR882 as an access point? Is this workable?

Anyway to setup Velop to work with Singtel Fibre or any better ways to salvage the situation? Thanks!

 

[xiaofan]

Are you using Singtel ONR or Singtel ONT? If using Singtel ONR (Huawei or Nokia brand), no need VLAN. The ONR will be the main router, so you need to set up the Velop in AP mode.
https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=243548
If you use Singtel ONT (ZTE, Ericsson, or Alcatel Lucent), then you need VLAN. In that case, you can use the DIR882 as main router, and set up the Velop in AP mode.

 

[xiaofan]

BTW, DIR-882 seems to be supported by OpenWRT. So actually it may be not too bad as a router (but it only has 128MB RAM).
https://openwrt.org/toh/d-link/dir-882_a1

 

[xiaofan]

In case, you use Singtel ONT, the other way is to get the TP-Link TL-SG105E.
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/working-singtel-vlan-settings-with-tplink-sg108e.5746952/

 

[rdreamer]

Thank you for sharing. Yes, I on using Singtel ONT.

I think I will try the first suggestion to set the Velop main node to be bridge mode. Or can I do it the other way, i.e. set the main router DIR882 to be in bridge mode (and disable wifi - i.e. use it as a modem), then connect to the Velop via ethernet cable and use the Velop as a normal wireless router instead? Any pros or cons to either setup?

The 2nd suggestion of adding another switch seems to add further device and complexity to the setup which I think I'll try to avoid.

 

[xiaofan]

Thank you for sharing. Yes, I on using Singtel ONT.
I think I will try the first suggestion to set the Velop main node to be bridge mode. Or can I do it the other way, i.e. set the main router DIR882 to be in bridge mode (and disable wifi - i.e. use it as a modem), then connect to the Velop via ethernet cable and use the Velop as a normal wireless router instead? Any pros or cons to either setup?
The 2nd suggestion of adding another switch seems to add further device and complexity to the setup which I think I'll try to avoid.

If you do not want to use the VLAN enabled switch, then you have to have one VLAN enabled router after the ONT. So your D-Link must be the main router (you can disable its wifi). And then you need to set the Velop in AP mode, to avoid Double NAT.

 

[GrizzlyBear]

I'm facing issues with the Linksys mobile app, it's unable to sign in with both my Linksys account (email + password) as well as router password.
Screen shows "Getting router settings..." then returns back to the login page again.

Anyone else facing this or knows how to resolve?
Thanks!

Facing this issue again, I think it's happens every time there's an iOS Linksys app update. I'm using the WHW0303 tri-pack

 

[uRiZEn]

Are you using Singtel ONR or Singtel ONT? If using Singtel ONR (Huawei or Nokia brand), no need VLAN. The ONR will be the main router, so you need to set up the Velop in AP mode.
https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=243548
If you use Singtel ONT (ZTE, Ericsson, or Alcatel Lucent), then you need VLAN. In that case, you can use the DIR882 as main router, and set up the Velop in AP mode.

Sorry to hijack original post starter. I recently just changed my ont as it died. Got replacement and it says onr but ZTE brand. Like this can connect the onr directly to the velop?

Thanks

 

[xiaofan]

Sorry to hijack original post starter. I recently just changed my ont as it died. Got replacement and it says onr but ZTE brand. Like this can connect the onr directly to the velop?

Thanks

ZTE brand is configured as ONT even though it may have "Singtel Optical Network Router" printed on the top cover . My Singtel ONT is also ZTE brand (replacement in Sept 2018 for my old Ericsson ONT).

Therefore you can not directly connect Velop to the ZTE.

If you do not want to use the Singtel issued router as the main router, you can buy TP-Link TL-SG105E smart switch and then use the following configuration. Take note it is TL-SG105E (smart switch) and not TL-SG105 (dumb switch).
ZTE ONT -- TP-Link TL-SG105E Port 1
TP-Link TL-SG105E Port 2 or Port 3 -- Velop WAN port
TP-Link TL-SG105E Port 4 -- Singtel TV box if you have any
TP-Link TL-SG105E Port 5 -- backup use

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...-singtel-asus-rt-ax86u.6564040/post-137498724

Summary Post. Thanks for everyone helping me out with my setup.

Here's what I learned:
1. 802.1Q VLAN tagging allows traffic of multiple VLANs egress out of respective member ports. For eg. if a port is a member of VLAN 10 and VLAN 20, traffic on both VLANs will go through that port.
2. A port can be a member of a port by being marked as tagged or untagged for that VLAN.
3. Tagging a port for a VLAN is the common way of having the port be the member for that specific VLAN
4. A port can also be marked as untagged. Untagged member ports have the tag information for traffic egressing out of the port removed. This is usually for Tag-unaware devices like printers.
5. PVID is to provide tagging information for ingress traffic that do not already have tagging information. For eg, printers (being tag-unwaware devices) will not put tagging information for traffic egressing out of the printer. The port on the switch hence receives traffic without tagging information. The switch then assisgns the PVID as tagging information to traffic ingressing into that port.

With that basic networking knowledge, I gathered from the various gurus here that:
Singtel Router requires VLAN 10 traffic.
Singtel Mio TV STB required untagged VLAN 20 traffic
Asus routers required untagged VLAN 10 traffic.

Hence I have configured my network as such:
Singtel ONT -> TL-SG105E Port 1
TL-SG105E Port 2 -> Asus XT8 Router WAN Port
TL-SG105E Port 3 -> Singtel AC Elite Router
TL-SG105E Port 4 -> Singtel MIO TV STB
TL-SG105E Port 5 -> Asus XT8 Router LAN Port (to access the switch's management UI)

Here are some configs that have been set as well. Including them as I'm unsure if they contribute to having things work for me.






Im not sure how long Imgur will host the photos for, but I can't upload photos normally cause of my new account. The Shifus here may want to repost this summary (if the knowledge sharing was accurate) so that the photos last longer.