In general try to go for Asus, they can mesh and are usually reliable.
If you want something more advanced, look into Ubiquiti, though they will be more expensive, also read the reviews for the different components, some POE switches can get quite hot, so if you don’t need it try and avoid it.
I am on Asus, and have had very little issues related to my router the last few years, but have been eyeing Ubiquiti lately…
Had an asus mesh system with three different routers for a bit. Worked really well! One of them died though so bought a refurb asus mesh system off Amazon for like $100. Great speed and coverage for a year now no complaints!!
I also second this. I have an Asus router setup with mesh nodes, and it has been running smoothly, especially since I’m hosting a plex server and occasionally multiplayer servers.
Asus puts a lot of their advertised features behind accepting terms and conditions that have them harvesting and selling your data. You can not agree to it and still use the device. But many of the advertised features won’t work.
Of course it does, anyway it’s normal Linux, so it does everything desktop Linux does, you gonna be of course limited by your device hardware capabilities like RAM or storage, so maybe you won’t be able to deploy a kubernetes stack on your home router but it’ll be doable on a more capable device running OpenWRT like an RPi, PC or NAS;-)
Any WiFi 6 or 7 router in which you can install openwrt and set as a dumb AP connected to an x86 machine running OPNSense or openwrt itself. The redundancy and enhanced control are 10/10 worth it, along with security and stability.
That’s a good point. I haven’t used unifi’s combined devices. I was under the impression that the radio generally works better when not next to the router but maybe that’s old news.
I had many wifi issues due to the layout and structure of my dwelling, and Unifi was the only setup that solved them. I started with my original Orbi (Voxel firmware) mesh setup from my previous home, but performance wasn’t where I wanted it due to the age of the devices. Then I tried the TP-Link w7200 sets from Walmart, but it didn’t meet my needs connecting a remote building on the property.
Unifi are expensive, but I have no regrets. Even added their security cameras to my network when the old system needed replaced.
Any relatively large home made out of reinforced concrete will need multiple access points with cable connections.
I use UniFi myself. My parents have a grandstream setup. They are both very good. Best bang for buck right now is probably tplink omada but those acces points are hideous.
My recommendation falls squarely on the Omada series from TP-Link. It’s their SMB (small-medium business) offering and its very wallet friendly for what it is. Though WiFi 7 stuff is of course not cheap if you want the bleeding edge. I suggest going with the EAP6 series with WiFi 6E. No need to buy the physical controller, instead DIY a router with opnsense or pfsense and the Omada software for managing the APs is what I recommend. You of course need a switch with PoE like TL-SG2008P. PoE is a game changer for making wiring up the APs easy, and I do recommend wiring them because then you don’t need to think about having a strong signal between the APs.
Criteria being stability mainly, all consumer stuff is much more prone to the occasional drop and just plain wonky ness. Another criteria being upgrade path, the Omada stuff can easily be sold when you upgrade because they retain value pretty well (and you can find them used to start with as well). They also don’t ship with the bloat consumer devices come with. With features you don’t need and router+AP combo is fine if you’re in a single room apartment but it doesn’t scale to a multiroom setup well. I’ve used Asus “AI-mesh” and you really waste more money than you save in my experience.
I’m personally a fan of microtik products. It’s nice as they have a lot of built in management features. However, the downside is that there is a learning curve to their products which can feel like a vertical wall some times.
How hard is it to put openwrt on any old commodity router if it’s on the compatible devices list? Is it basically just using the old router’s firmware update page and loading the openwrt firmware image?
Thinking about gifting a new wifi access point for one of my friends with a crap router that doesn’t even support 5ghz channels
There is usually a per-router guide on installation. Sometimes you can just use the built-in firmware flashing interface, sometimes you have to do funny things like do that twice in a row, sometimes you need to access a special interface.
Before buying, look for secondhand ones, many people move to a different house where their previous system becomes obsolete, or they upgraded to a different beast.
It depends on your use case. I live in a decent sized one bedroom apartment with heavy Internet usage, so I got a 500Mbps unlimited Internet service (remember, the hardware isn’t the only part of the equation) and the wifi 6 capable tp-link AX1500.
It’s just what we call “internet” in most countries 😂 Remember the early 2000s when ISPs tried to limit how much internet we could use and so we just switched to another provider that had a better offer, and the whole ‘limit’ thing disappeared virtually overnight?
We had 56k dial-up as our first connection, but the only limiting factor was that it was a bit costly due to essentially being a phone call. No limit on the data. Then came ADSL – 1.5 Mbps speed, but no data limit. Then 100/10 Mbps in the more modern era, so of course no limit. Now as an adult living on my own, I’ve had 100/100 Mbps, 300/150 Mbps, and now 500/500 Mbps, obviously no limits.
This was all in Sweden.
But yeah, like you say, I guess most other countries don’t really have limits on the data. I find that to be insane in 2024 that an ISP would limit the amount of data you can use. It would have to be really freaking cheap and I’d have to be really freaking poor to want to choose that option.
What I do remember is being limited on how much data I can use on my phone, which is still a thing in 2024. I also find that to be rather crazy when I think about it.
For phones that infrastructure is just so much more costly since it needs near constant replacement with newer tech. 5G is far from completely rolled out and the next project looks to be dismantling GSM and 3G after that it won’t be long till 6G. Meanwhile Fiber is all but ubiquitous by now, hell several vacation homes in the extended family has fiber ny now and the cables won’t need to be switched for a long time I reckon, I’m betting 30 years at least of only needing to change the switches every 10 or so years, which is infinitely cheaper and easier than building/replacing a mobile network mast.
Some ISPs in the US added data caps to their home internet plans. I believe we used to have bans on said caps until relatively recently, and now the FCC is trying to impose a ban again.