I could buy a newer router with Wifi 6 and PoE out, then move the old router which has PoE in, into the network cabinet. I would disable wireless on the old router. This would achieve both of my goals with minimal investment in new gear, just a single new device and the old one still has a use.
I’m not sure if I could reconfigure the WAN/LAN port assignments, but I don’t see why I couldn’t.
In this theoretical example:
old router remains the router, but with disabled wireless and WAN reassigned to another port - I need the PoE in to be on LAN
new router configured as AP, would basically be a switch with AP bolted on and providing PoE out into the network cabinet
Alternatively I could buy seperate PoE switch and Wifi 6 AP. Instead of the combo unit. IDK the implications yet.
IMO, I’d wait until next gen. AC is still fine. Unless you have a specific problem in your home (like lack of signal or something), then I would keep everything as it is. Otherwise if you have signal issues or really want the added bandwidth of AX and you have devices that support it, then go for it (make sure to plan the wifi floor plan, for APs and their range).
IMO another AP would be useful in the corner between the room 3 and the bathroom, but if you have a single high-powered AP, like a unifi 6 LR, I’d slap it dead-center of the apt, in the room 2.
Personally (because I’m cheap), I’d just buy another AP, put it in the opposite corner and set it with the same SSID and password and call it a day.
The wall jacks are cool, but is anyone going to use them? Wifi if more convenient and not that much slow, unless you’re doing something bandwidth intensive on the LAN or something latency-intensive (idk, gaming?).
More than half of the devices are ax. I don’t specifically need it. Just a want.
The only place with spotty wifi is the bathroom itself, and who needs wifi in the bathroom?
The new ax AP going into Room 2
I don’t need multiple APs, those are only a hassle, a single AP is doing fine now. I’m not that much worried about latency because we are dirty casual single player gamers right now (look what parenthood does to people…). But I’d like to have the best experience with the Steamdeck even on wifi. That’s why I’m thinking that moving the AP to Room 2 is unnecessary, as most of the devices will still remain in Room 1. The wifi RN in Room 3 is good enough for teleconferencing and work. The only change would be going from ac to ax. The only hiccup I can imagine is, if ax is worse going through walls than ac. - Is it? In theory it shouldn’t be worse, but if it is, I would indeed go AP in Room 2.
Yeah, not worth it. And from what I know, wifi 5 and 6 aren’t really that different in terms of performance. However, wifi 6 works on 2.4GHz (replacing the mixed wifi 5 on 5GHz and 4 on 2.4GHz), which means increased range and wifi 6 does some shady business to ensure that the network edge is more stable. Also, the wifi 6 routers handle congestion better (which isn’t really something you see often in homes, but more in offices or other venues where lots of people are on the same wifi network).
I personally don’t buy anything that doesn’t run openwrt, because they’ll be obsolete and not get updates basically immediately. I have a unifi 6 LR and I’m happy with it, but you could buy just the 6 lite if your house is 115 sq m or less (1250 sq ft).
There you have it. Yes, the U6 Lite is kinda expensive too, around 412 PLN. But it should cover your space (and more). You really get what you pay for (well, with openwrt you pay for what you don’t get, i.e. the unifi ecosystem and their integrations, which you won’t use, because you’re flashing openwrt lmao, but fr fr you buy an expensive device that can run an OS that will get updates, which is not something that can be said of basically 99% of consumer APs).
Oh and I think the unifi APs don’t come with poe injectors anymore by default (I know mine didn’t and when I tried to use 1 I had laying around, it was 5W too weak and the AP would restart), so you’d need to factor in the cost.
I agree, there’s usually little win going for 11ax over 11ac unless it’s really old 11ac hardware and far from many devices support anything more then 2TR2 anyway.
Using my “old” Totolink A8000RUs (git.openwrt.org Git - openwrt/openwrt.git/commit) running OpenWrt I get about 50-60Mbyte/s sustained throughput using an old Intel AX200 client. Somewhat recent QCA phones shows similar performance. These were like 70 EUR on sale so on the cheap side.
That also serves as a wireless bridge so you can also utilize the ethernet ports for devices which improves overall performance as you can get fewer wireless clients (like TVs, Game consoles etc) if wiring isn’t possible.
Edit: Updated to a newer snapshot of OpenWrt (~5 months old) and got ~150Mbit better performance “for free” =)
Let me be clear, I’m not interested in flashing 3rd party software onto a new AP. I know that those are mostly black boxes, but I do not trust my Wifi anyway.
I had good experience with Mikrotik and my current device still receives sw updates after 5 years, so that’s also acceptable for me. The cost of going separate AP is too high for my liking, thus I have ordered the newer ver. of my router - hAP ax2 and a few short patch cables.
When they arrive I will test PoE and if I’m content I will proceed as outlined in my first post.
One box of pricing error at the same retailer.
10x 3m cat 5e outdoor cables for 15 PLN in total. Should be enough for a lifetime for me and my extended family, lol.
It all went to crap when I started, as Wendell might say, colouring outside the lines.
After wasting a lot of time on configuring and troubleshooting, the wifi on the new unit still was unusable. Frequent drop outs of 5GHz network, unable to reconnect until reboot of the unit, some devices not seeing the network at all, even when I’ve reproduced the settings of the old router.
Even the mikrotik forums are unhelpful - no solution proposed on there was able to definitively resolve my issues. Their own user base writes stuff like “mikrotik routing? ok. mikrotik wireless? look for another vendor.”
Can’t do that. I don’t have a long enough cable at hand. For now she is using 2,4GHz on the older unit and I shall not touch “the internet” until end of business.
As every other sane person in this thread
Not at all. That’s perfectly in line of what I expect of you
