New router needed, thoughts and options please.

valve90210 · 27 Jan 2026 at 14:31

My TPLink Archer VR200, which I've been using for about he last 12 years or so, seems to be dying me - the wifi drops out and disappears requiring a reboot, and occasionally I can't get into the webif either.

I'm looking for suggestions as to what would be a good router to replace it with but at the same time I thought I'd look to improve the wifi in my house too as I've had to bodge things a little to get reasonably decent coverage throughout the house.

My router is setup under my stairs as indicated by the red dot on the ground floor layout below:

The wifi was largely ok but dropped off in areas and upstairs was not great. The red areas on the above are roughly where the wifi was not great. I had an old BT Home Hub knocking about so I added it upstairs as an access point (shown with a red dot in the below), which helped but I feel can be improved upon while I'm sorting out a new router.

The main router will really need to stay in the cupboard under the stairs, which I know is not exactly ideal but it's the best place I have for it. I do have wired network sockets in each of the bedrooms, the lounge and the kitchen so I was wondering about one of the mesh setups but don't really know what all the different brand and versions are and the more I read up the more confused I get! As well as an upstairs access point giving decent coverage up there, if Ilocate it roughly where I put the BT Home Hub, there is a window there overlooking and hopefully it'll give me decent wifi outside too.

I've seen a few options that have simple ways of setting up an IoT vlan, this would be very handy as I do have a lot of smart devices, and I'd like to also be able to separate out 2.4 and 5 bands.

As for budget, I'd like to keep it under £150 If I can. Oh and I suppose I should mention I have a 500Mb FTTP connection.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Firegod · 27 Jan 2026 at 14:57

Sounds good if you can utilise the wired sockets to allow for wired backhaul. That way having the main node under the stairs isn't too bad given it'll be linked via cable. I would say possibly 3 nodes would suffice. Under stairs, perhaps then another on that adjoining kitchen / lounge wall. Then one upstairs in either of the bedrooms would suffice. As long as the walls are just stud and thin.

Brand wise, maybes a 3 pack TPLink Deco X55, going for £174 at the moment.

valve90210 · 27 Jan 2026 at 15:13

Thanks, that's one of the options I was looking at, wired backhaul would be fine in each of the rooms. Just not sure on how well the nodes will work as all the walls are brick.

radderfire · 27 Jan 2026 at 15:20

The Asus routers are poorly thought of here, because of poor support, so not one of them.

TP-Link Deco mesh systems are well regarded, as are Unifi/Ubiquiti products, and they do ceiling mounted Access Points.

valve90210 · 27 Jan 2026 at 19:07

I've seen a few people saying they didn't like the Decos, and complaining about only being able to set them up with an app. I've also seen some mentioned of them being unstable and needing rebooting a lot?

On Holiday · 27 Jan 2026 at 21:30

I've got a few Deco meshes up in a few properties for years, one with particularly thick walls, zero issues personally.

Snapshot · 28 Jan 2026 at 07:16

I replaced my Asus RT-AX86U with a Flint2 and was able to switch off the upstairs AP. My house is probably slightly larger than yours.

Armageus · 28 Jan 2026 at 07:24

Personally I'd get a non- WiFi router given it's placement under the stairs, and then a single access point placed centrally on the first floor landing - unless your walls and ceilings are made of something unusual this should cover the whole house

valve90210 · 28 Jan 2026 at 11:05

Armageus said:
Personally I'd get a non- WiFi router given it's placement under the stairs, and then a single access point placed centrally on the first floor landing - unless your walls and ceilings are made of something unusual this should cover the whole house

Any suggestions for router and access point?

Part of the reason I was considering the mesh with a node upstairs, was because I would be able to place it on a window sill which would hopefully give me decent wifi in the back garden too, which I'm guessing would not be the case with one central access point as you suggest?

Orcvader · 29 Jan 2026 at 13:46

I was going to suggest the same as well but since you want coverage for the garden leaving the access point/second mesh node where your current cable run goes to seems best.

Deco works fine, I didn't like it and went back to UniFi since it lacked proper advanced settings (eg manual WiFi selection, kept optimising to ch12 for 2.4GHz which some of my smart home devices were not compatible with) but for the average user who just wants an easy solution it's great.

There's always an option in the future to add a 3rd unit in the first floor landing anyway, either via ethernet backhaul or mesh, the Deco is flexible enough to use both.