Is my modem or router not up to the task?

S

seiyafan

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 12, 2013
Messages
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I will try this sub-forum for my question:

Yesterday I installed a second Nest Cam and it greatly affected web browsing, a lot of pages would not load on the first try. I turned the camera on and off to verify it's the culprit. My upload bandwith is 10Mbps and each Nest cam uses about 1 Mbps for upload, so this is not the bottleneck either. I have a 8x4 DOCSIS 3.0 modem and a Linksys EA6500 wifi router. Which one do you think needs an upgrade?
 
How are your wireless networks setup?

How many SSIDs?
Are you using 2.4Ghz or 5.0Ghz?
 
Which one are you having issues with? It sounds like this issue would manifest on the 2.4Ghz network after implementing some new cameras.
 
I have been fighting a wifi camera fight for 2 years. I’ve tried every consumer level router configuration I could imagine plus some. The only thing left I’ve not done is professional level dual network routing.

I’m running more cameras, but it’s always a tradeoff. If you push into QoS management, you can improve network response, but the recording quality will suffer.

The cameras constantly running are just packet overloading the router. Every wifi device sees every wifi packet and has to sort through all the fluff to find the ones aimed at it. (Probably not an exact way to describe it, but that’s how I’ve come to understand it).

Short answer is, 1 or two low end wifi cameras are ok, more if they’re remote view or motion detection recording only are ok. If you want to do full 24/7 recording, skip wifi cameras.
 
According to Nest website "For optimal video quality at 1080p, working broadband internet connection with at least 2 Mbps upload speed per camera recommended (DSL may not qualify). Cameras will use more bandwidth to stream video when there is more motion in the scene."

https://nest.com/support/article/Nest-Cam-technical-system-requirements-and-specifications#section-1

Maybe there's alot of motion in one of your camera's field of view and triggering higher bandwidth usage. Just a guess.
 
The other thing to keep in mind is that you might be paying for 10Mbps up on your ISP, but they may not support that as a sustained upload rate in perpetuity for continuous 1080p streaming.
 
Put the cameras on one band and the web browsing gizmo on the other. Or use wired for the web browsing gizmo. It isn't just bandwidth. It is packet availability on the wifi router. Chances are 2 hi-def cameras are using most of the packet slots even if the bandwidth as measured by number of bits still leaves a lot of capacity.

Also, the number of wifi gizmos your nearby neighbors use has a big impact on your wifi throughput.
 
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