Hello, looking for recommendations for a router for the family. Just burned out a linksys ea2700, reverted to an old N router and need to replace. Home use, congested wavelength/competition area. Need to cover about 80-100ft linear.
The problem i’m having is overpowering the neighbors for basic bandwidth, I don’t need fancy gaming features and can configure the backend as required. I really just need raw power for my limited range and the offerings are all over the place.
I replaced a Nighthawk something or other, which ended up being garbage with a Unifi system. The router is just a router, the wifi is just wifi. If something burns out, I can replace just that part.
I went with a router and two access points, it cost less than $300. It’s was not exactly plug and play but it really works well. The Unfi APs will easily overpower consumer grade gear, and hopefully some of your equipment can jump on the much more spacious 5ghz band.
Thanks, I’ve always heard great things from that line I’m not worried about the router part of it, just overpowering the interference. I’ll check it out. My main machines are hard wired, it’s all the mobiles that are dropping off the family that causes the headache. I guess I’ll have to see how far I can run cat5e and what power I can deliver.
Again, this isn’t a far range, just kicking the local spectrum units off my ass is the goal.
Budget? well, whatever gets the job done without testing with my budget. I guess that’s why I asked on a forum:} I’d like to stay sub $200 if I can…
I’m a big fan of Synology’s NAS offerings and recently sprung for their WIFI router model RT2600ac. I picked mine up for $250. I’m surrounded by neighbour’s wifi but still get full-bars no matter where I am in the house — I really can’t praise this thing enough.
It has the standard 2.4 and 5 ghz ranges with guest networks, vpn etc. But the icing on the cake (for me) is that you can plug a spare drive into it and essentially have the added bonus of a Synology NAS product. The family can access the drive(s) , do backups, shared calendaring.
Not a bad idea, I built a freenas box a couple years ago that sits dormant with old data on it, perhaps a combo solution without a tower is a combo plan I should pitch…
Another option you can hit up is the Mesh kits.
Pick up one node now to hold you over, get another node later to boost coverage.
I only have experience with the Linksys Velop nodes and I know someone on Asus AiMesh, were pretty comfortable with it.
LTT has a good video on Asus AiMesh, but I needed some nice decorative pieces for my family to put around which ultimately led to my Linksys Velop decision.
Linksys WRT1900AC with openWRT is what I use as an accesspoint behind a system running IPFire. Pretty sure the Linksys would do it for you. There are newer models, not all of those can be flashed with open source firmware.
