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Are most of you wired or using wifi?

K

Kargo

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 21, 2013
40
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Just curious really!

I bought an M4 Mac mini and initially did have it hardwired. The property I'm renting in do have cables pre laid but what I soon realised was that I was receiving faster speeds using WiFi. Couldn't work it out until I inspected the cables a bit more thoroughly and noticed they are CAT5, so only limited to 100Mbps. First thought was to ask my landlord if I can replace them all with CAT7 but can't guarantee I'll be living in this place much longer, so I've just stuck to solely using the mini's WiFi connection which almost maxes out the internet speed I pay for.

Anyone else using Wifi over ethernet?
 
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I know that feeling! Also in a rural location, moved here in 2006, nothing but dialup internet available. Got a HughesNet satellite dish and the throughput wasn't bad but the latency was really enough to drive me crazy. Couple years later I was finally able to get DSL.

But the DSL was never any faster than 600kbits and I later learned I was lucky to have gotten it at all - there were only 100 ports avaialble. In 2017 Verizon ran fiber all over my little town and I now have 500mbit FIOS, which has been great. They keep trying to get me to upgrade to gigabit but it's not worth the $20 extra (they gave me an unsolicited free trial and I honestly couldn't tell the difference for my usage).
 
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WiFi
Screenshot 2025-01-19 at 5.23.40 PM.png


Wired
Two servers Cat8 cables over gigabit ethernet.
 
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Wire whenever possible- especially when the connections are already right there and available. There are many reasons why but one simple one is this: a wired device will not take any bite out of your wifi pie. So other devices can have more bandwidth available to them. If wired is no faster than average wifi at your place, you still have a "win" in not taking that bite out of a hard-capped wifi pie. Use wired where possible and save wifi for where it's not or overly difficult.

Theoretical wifi speeds to the moon are almost certainly not what about anyone is going to achieve in actual homes. And the vast amount of things that people transfer could probably do fine inside of 25Mbps. Note for many basic computer functions, some of us used to use dial up at as slow as 56kbps (yes that is a k) and we got by just fine (and not still waiting for any transfer to complete ;) ). I even date back to 1200bps (yes there is no k there) days. :eek:
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
Wire whenever possible. A wired device will not take any bite of your wifi pie. So other devices can have more bandwidth available to them.

Theoretical wifi speeds to the moon are almost certainly not what about anyone is going to achieve in actual homes. And the vast amount of things that people transfer could probably do fine inside of 25Mbps. Note for many basic computer functions, some of us used to use dial up at as slow as 56kbps and we got by just fine (not still waiting for anything). I even date back to 1200bps days. :eek:
Click to expand...
300bps here, and acoustic couplers ;)
that all worked fine for ASCII transfers ...
 
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My Studio is in my den with the router, it's wired. My laptop, Apple TV and Streamer are in the living room, and have to use WIFI; works pretty well.
My Brother printer is also in my den, but it doesn't have an ethernet port; so it's on WIFI, and is constantly dropping off. Cycling power to the printer doesn't do anything, I have to cycle power at the router to get it back on, argh. Thank goodness I don't have to print much anymore.
 
Kargo said:
Just curious really!

I bought an M4 Mac mini and initially did have it hardwired. The property I'm renting in do have cables pre laid but what I soon realised was that I was receiving faster speeds using WiFi. Couldn't work it out until I inspected the cables a bit more thoroughly and noticed they are CAT5, so only limited to 100Mbps. First thought was to ask my landlord if I can replace them all with CAT7 but can't guarantee I'll be living in this place much longer, so I've just stuck to solely using the mini's WiFi connection which almost maxes out the internet speed I pay for.

Anyone else using Wifi over ethernet?
Click to expand...
Wifi, but I distribute across the bands.

But if it’s easy, Ethernet is better. I fill my Ethernet ports with whatever I can, and then Wifi for the rest.

Specifically wired for PS5, AppleTV, Phone adaptor, and NAS. Wifi for everything else.
 
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Over the summer, I ripped out the Cat 5e the previous owner had installed and upgraded to Cat7. I couldn't hardwire everything (a couple of devices were just in impossible places), but my mini, two Apple TVs, Raspberry Pi server, and Fire TV stick are all hardwired, leaving more wifi bandwidth for the wife and kids' iPads and laptops!
 
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I have everything wifi. We probably don't qualify as power users & wifi seems just fine for us. I work from home, and tried using ethernet a couple of times but didn't notice any difference. The main router is in the office, so that probably helps, but for what we need, the wifi is fine.
 
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mk313 said:
I have everything wifi. We probably don't qualify as power users & wifi seems just fine for us. I work from home, and tried using ethernet a couple of times but didn't notice any difference. The main router is in the office, so that probably helps, but for what we need, the wifi is fine.
Click to expand...
Good call. For the vast majority it’s perfectly fine.
 
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Everything but the portables are wired.

I've been waiting for the engineering energy to port Ethernet to the LG/Apple TV, but their WIFI connection is so good I just can't easily be arsed.

The HomePod Mini, and the other IoT thingies, are just-what-they-are.

Best things I ever did was to wire the Alarm Pad (it will never receive a WIFI update, and WPA2-only inevitably bricks it on my WPA3 WIFI).
 
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