The whole point of a mesh system is for the APs to self-assemble their own wireless backhaul connections between APs. If you have wired Ethernet drops that you can use as the backhaul for your APs, you do not need a mesh system per se.
On the other hand, even if you don't need the mesh feature itself, mesh products often happen to make it easy to administer your whole multi-AP system in a coordinated way. But there are also non-mesh systems that also do a good job of making it easy to manage all your APs in a coordinated way. So it's kind of up to you if you know of a mesh system that has features you like, you might choose to use it for those other features even if you're not using it for its mesh features.
People in your situation often buy a wired-only home gateway router to go in their wiring center next to their patch panel. So your broadband Internet link comes into your house, goes to your modem (hopefully it's purely just a modem; it just directly forwards packets between the broadband port and the Ethernet port; no NAT, no DHCP server, no Wi-Fi AP), and then from the modem to the WAN Ethernet port of the router, and then from a LAN Ethernet port of the router to a gigabit Ethernet switch with enough ports to light up all your Ethernet drops you care about. Then you buy as many APs as you need to cover your floor space, and you install the APs in good locations for APs, and connect them to the nearest Ethernet drop so they get connected to your LAN switch.
The home gateway router at the head of your network doesn't have to be wired-only, but a lot of times the closet where your patch panel is, is not a great place for an AP, so people don't want to use a wireless router in that location because it would be a waste. So they get a wired router instead, and place APs elsewhere in locations that make more sense.
So... I'm not that familiar with all of these concepts. I don't even know if this house has a patch panel anywhere, I couldn't seem to find one. I just saw some cat5 cables hanging out from the basement ceiling (maybe there's a patch panel on the ground floor in a closet that I missed?).
So what I was thinking was wherever the patch panel is (or make one in the basement) I would hook up a modem to it (I think my internet will be cable) so hook up the cable modem in the basement and then hook an AP directly into the modem for the basement, and then 1 AP per floor plugged into port on wall? – Exziled – 2020-02-27T21:13:08.603
It sounds like those cables hanging out of the basement ceiling is the "wiring center" of your house. I would recommend terminating those cables in a patch panel there on your basement wall. You want there to be one (and only one) device acting as the NAT gateway router and DHCP server for your whole home LAN; that gateway box should stand between your Internet connection and everything else on your home LAN. If your "modem" is really more than just a pure modem and actually supports NAT and DHCP service, then it can function as your gateway and you just need some AP-only APs. – Spiff – 2020-02-27T21:40:35.300
So I can definitely turn that into a patch panel, but what would you recommend using as a NAT gateway router? Or do you know of a good modem that supports NAT/DHCP?
I'd prefer to just keep it as simple as possible! – Exziled – 2020-02-28T16:27:25.690