Router recommendations?

jeffk

jeffk

jeffk

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tl;dr: What is everyone’s current favourite router if mesh networking isn’t a requirement.

I live in a town house that’s split across four floors and the house is wired with Ethernet to each room. At the moment, I’ve got a handful of aging Apple Airports on the basement, ground and 2nd floors providing WiFi to the house (the Sky broadband router’s WiFi switched off). This has been working well - each is set to the same SSID and password and devices connect to the nearest router. Easy.

I’ve been tempted to upgrade our Airports for a while as they’re ancient. However, we still don’t have fibre down our street so it seemed a little pointless to replace something that’s working fine for our needs. Sadly, it looks like one of the Airports has died and needs replacing. I guess I might as well upgrade them all in one go.

What would people recommend? What I like about the Airports is that Apple’s app is really nice. Mesh networking isn’t needed – as I can hook the routers up via Ethernet – but it sounds like most decent routers have it as standard these days. While we don’t have fibre yet, I’ll be getting it as soon as it’s available, so I was thinking of going for something that supports WiFi 6E.

I’ve been looking at Amazon’s Eero routers but I’ve heard mixed things about them.
 
Agreed - although 4 x UniFi U6-Enterprise In-wall devices will see you spending £1000 just on access points to get WiFi6E on all floors and then you would just continue to use your Sky router as the router with the built-in Wireless LAN access point switched off. To go with 4unifi access points you’ll also need some form of controller - UniFi Cloud Key or one of their own routers with built-in controllers like the UniFi Dream Machine Pro SE. That would also power the access points. So you’re looking at £1500-ish in total to get WiFi6E. That’s the price of early adoption!
 
Oof. That sounds expensive. Happy to spend the money if they’re going to last though. Thanks!
 
jeffk said:
Oof. That sounds expensive. Happy to spend the money if they’re going to last though. Thanks!
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Although it's only in early stages, WIFI7 is already starting to appear on the market - totally unnecessary of course but I'd be buying WIFI6 (non-E) products and then upgrade again in a few years again as and when needed/wanted.

I have a 4-bed Semi detached and 1x U6-Pro mounted on the landing ceiling upstairs is enough to power the whole house.
 
jeffk said:
tl;dr: What is everyone’s current favourite router if mesh networking isn’t a requirement.

I live in a town house that’s split across four floors and the house is wired with Ethernet to each room. At the moment, I’ve got a handful of aging Apple Airports on the basement, ground and 2nd floors providing WiFi to the house (the Sky broadband router’s WiFi switched off). This has been working well - each is set to the same SSID and password and devices connect to the nearest router. Easy.

I’ve been tempted to upgrade our Airports for a while as they’re ancient. However, we still don’t have fibre down our street so it seemed a little pointless to replace something that’s working fine for our needs. Sadly, it looks like one of the Airports has died and needs replacing. I guess I might as well upgrade them all in one go.

What would people recommend? What I like about the Airports is that Apple’s app is really nice. Mesh networking isn’t needed – as I can hook the routers up via Ethernet – but it sounds like most decent routers have it as standard these days. While we don’t have fibre yet, I’ll be getting it as soon as it’s available, so I was thinking of going for something that supports WiFi 6E.

I’ve been looking at Amazon’s Eero routers but I’ve heard mixed things about them.
Click to expand...

Why not consider the Mesh?
 
If you can’t get large external speeds why do you need to upgrade the internal system?

Are you constantly transferring files internally from device to device?

Do all devices support the faster speeds required?

Cheapest option is to just replace the broken device for the same model until you get faster external speeds.
 
GaryTheSnail said:
If you can’t get large external speeds why do you need to upgrade the internal system?

…

Cheapest option is to just replace the broken device for the same model until you get faster external speeds.
Click to expand...

I can’t replace the broken router with the same model. Apple discontinued it five years ago! My equipment is ancient and I thought that it would be worth upgrading everything at once in anticipation of full fibre being installed soon.
 
jeffk said:
I can’t replace the broken router with the same model. Apple discontinued it five years ago!
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Well you can. You just buy one second hand for peanuts.

jeffk said:
My equipment is ancient and I thought that it would be worth upgrading everything at once in anticipation of full fibre being installed soon.
Click to expand...


You need say a budget first then. So you are saying you are getting full fibre installed soon? As in you have already ordered it and waiting for install?
 
Why upgrade your router if it’s wireless connectivity/range that is the issue? Just add wireless points using wired backhaul.
 
TP Link Deco. They work great and support ethernet backhaul. You can nominate a main unit that behaves as a router or just have them all in AP mode.
 
Try 2 x Unifi U6-Lites on first and third floor, use current router. See how it goes if you have some coverage issues buy and extra one and move them about a bit if possible.
 
I have no idea why Unifi are so popular a choice. I have the unfortunate task of supporting them on an almost daily basis. Their interface is better than most unless you have to ssh into them, but for reliability, omg Ive never used anything as bad for either overheating or dying when too much traffic is passed through (half open tcp packets etc) Baffles me why anyone recommends them.
 
mejinks said:
I have no idea why Unifi are so popular a choice.
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Because they are enthusiast level product (or enterprise-lite) and are generally good value for money (and tend to be supported for a decent length of time, unlike most "home" brands).

mejinks said:
I have the unfortunate task of supporting them on an almost daily basis. Their interface is better than most unless you have to ssh into them, but for reliability, omg Ive never used anything as bad for either overheating or dying when too much traffic is passed through (half open tcp packets etc) Baffles me why anyone recommends them.
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We've got 26 Unifi APs at work - never had any problems, and certainly never needed to "support them". They've been set and forget since being installed :)
 
Just to annoy everyone in this thread, I went with a three-pack of Linksys Velop Pro routers as they were super cheap in the Black Friday sales. Setup was a doddle and they support Ethernet backhaul.

Will consider UniFi next time we’re having the house redecorated though as sticking everything in the ceiling is appealing.
 
jeffk said:
Just to annoy everyone in this thread, I went with a three-pack of Linksys Velop Pro routers as they were super cheap in the Black Friday sales. Setup was a doddle and they support Ethernet backhaul.

Will consider UniFi next time we’re having the house redecorated though as sticking everything in the ceiling is appealing.
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They seem decent! It's funny they used to be the absolute go-to brand for me, but not in recent years. WRT-54G FTW
 
Armageus said:
Because they are enthusiast level product (or enterprise-lite) and are generally good value for money (and tend to be supported for a decent length of time, unlike most "home" brands).


We've got 26 Unifi APs at work - never had any problems, and certainly never needed to "support them". They've been set and forget since being installed :)
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Never had any issues but I'm a mere home user.
 
Armageus said:
Because they are enthusiast level product (or enterprise-lite) and are generally good value for money (and tend to be supported for a decent length of time, unlike most "home" brands).


We've got 26 Unifi APs at work - never had any problems, and certainly never needed to "support them". They've been set and forget since being installed :)
Click to expand...
I wish I had your luck. I have the dubious pleasure of working at an MSP who support literally hundreds of companies with Unifi stuff installed. We see issue such as overheating on different customers or speeds suddenly drop to ssid suddenly disappearing.
 
My new ISP supplied a Linksys Velop MX4200 as their default router and so far I'm happy with its performance. It's a quad core chipset with 512MB/512MB ROM/RAM compared to my AC68U's dual core 256MB/128MB spec.

Armageus said:
Because they are enthusiast level product (or enterprise-lite) and are generally good value for money (and tend to be supported for a decent length of time, unlike most "home" brands).
Click to expand...

There are exceptions everywhere though. My Asus RT-AC68U is over 10 years old, yet even in 2023 has been getting firmware updates, and not too long ago got actual feature updates too.
 
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