Best home wifi router?

[yosh1993]

Okay...so from reading this forum I know many of you are techies. I don't believe this has been asked before, and I did quickly use the "search" function....so hopefully this isn't duplicative. What is the best Wifi router/mesh system out right now for a decent sized 2 story home? I have the 2020 Google Nest Mesh system with the main router and 3 "pods". I have the main router/pod downstairs in my office which is at the far corner of the house, the 2nd pod downstairs near the front door, the 3rd pod in the loft upstairs, and the 4th pod in my master bedroom. It's OKAY, but limits my gigabit fiber to 500Mbps, doesn't have a band for pod-to-pod traffic, and is only okay (with a lot of loss of speed) once upstairs. I WISH my house had ethernet throughout, but it doesn't, so I can't really use a system that allows for direct ethernet plugging into each "pod" without running cable throughout the house (which I'm not going to do).

Any suggestions?

 

[EVCar]

I'm far from being tech-savvy, but look at Orbi 960 Series Quad-Band WiFi 6E Mesh System, 10.8Gbps, Router .
Netgear apparently currently runs a sale on this.

 

[Bobby]

I'm far from being tech-savvy, but look at Orbi 960 Series Quad-Band WiFi 6E Mesh System, 10.8Gbps, Router .
Netgear apparently currently runs a sale on this.

I have the Orbi system too. It works very well, but It does not allow seeing activity per device.

 

[Unmutual]

I've been very happy with the eero Pro 6. Gateway plus two other units in 5500 sq ft house and one Eero 6 in the garage. My office is downstairs and about 75' away from the gateway, 20' from the unit in the kitchen, and I'm getting over 500 Mbps. Wife is getting 1300 in her office 10' from the gateway.

 

[Rogue]

You cannot go wrong with Netgear. However, you should carefully read the agreements, terms, etc. for the various features on a router. Father bought one about five years ago, Netgear if I remember correctly and probably longer than that. It had multi-direction focused antennas and a handful of other perks that were top of the line at the time.

He went to use said features of this top of the line router for its time. They wanted rights and usage of network history and a bunch of other data. It sat as a basic functioning router at top end prices until it eventually died...

My actual input to your problem. If you really need the full gig, then you should just run Ethernet through the walls. Even as a remote based software developer, I cannot recall a time I maxed out our gigabyte Internet by myself. Servers rarely output that much when I retrieve large chunks of data for various activities.

Even with multiple people, you would be hard pressed to max the connection. Streaming, video games, internet browsing, and any other activities may hit the 500 Mbps for an individual node, but it would be cheaper, faster, and easier if whoever is being a bandwidth hog to swap to a different point. Again, I cannot forsee many people getting anywhere close to the 1 gig limits. Even if you are, it is so fast that even half that rate is nothing to scoff at. I leave it to the reader to Google how fast a movie, album, etc. can be downloaded with gig connection.

 

[Rogue]

As a secondary post and slightly related to the first, we swapped from 1 gig to 600Mbps with no noticeable difference in one home. If there are just two of you, then you are likely overpaying for the gig. Google Fiber is cheap though, so we have gig just because at our new home. Competitors can't even come close to the bandwidth at the same price and convenience of Google Fiber.

Xfinity can go f*** themselves though. Sh******* customer experience and service we have had in two different homes. Everytime it rained the Internet would cut out. Installer was fantastic in Knoxville, TN, but the store location here in Huntsville, AL that you have to go to could care less about your business.

Don't get me started on the providers that require cable TV for Internet service... Grandparents across the country are getting royally screwed by them.

Elon's satellite internet is not a bad alternative when you don't have Google Fiber. Father has been enjoying his 33Mbps vs. 6Mbps.

I say all this to point out you may not be using or even peaking at a gig. It might be worth looking into downgrading your plan to save a few bucks.

 

[borski]

For most non-techie people, any of these mesh systems would work great: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-wi-fi-mesh-networking-kits/

I highly recommend the eero's. They give you great coverage, at the expense of a little speed (but if you're not already at gigabit you're already limited anyway and won't find a downgrade).

 

[yosh1993]

THANK YOU to all for your replies. This has been very helpful.

@Rogue - you are correct...no way I use near 1 Gbps. I just figured since I'm paying for it...might as well get a router that maximizes it. My fiber is pretty inexpensive at least compared to what I used to pay for 1/3 of the speed...it's only $49/month.

 

[HC_79]

Eero or Orbi are your best bet. Don’t get too excited about WiFi 6e as hardly anything supports it yet so you can’t really go wrong with a 6 or 6e Router.

 

[Tim-in-CA]

As others have said, Eero works great. Do you have Coax installed in your home? You can use MoCA adapters that “convert” Coax to gigabit Ethernet. I use that to utilize wired backhaul. Game changer!

 

[LucidNC]

THANK YOU to all for your replies. This has been very helpful.

@Rogue - you are correct...no way I use near 1 Gbps. I just figured since I'm paying for it...might as well get a router that maximizes it. My fiber is pretty inexpensive at least compared to what I used to pay for 1/3 of the speed...it's only $49/month.

1G Fiber for $49/mo. ... WOW!

I have no choice where I am .. Spectrum cable 200 Mb down 5MB up (and NEVER get that) for $75/mo. ... ugh!
but, even w/ that we have several PCs and many security cameras and TVs streaming (along w/ iPads, iMacs, iPhones, etc.) and, when its not down, it's still plenty fast

 

[thecodingart]

This is a bit of a techie question, I’m guessing you’re looking for best consumer grade wireless mesh system?

On my end, I’ve hardwired my home and have a Unbiquiti setup and couldn’t be happier.

If you’re looking for set it and forget it as a mesh, Eero is hands down the most reliable.

Orbi is less reliable and stable, but has awesome throughput with its triband setup. (I personally, cannot recommend them though and they have major limitations to scaling that I hit)

UniFi’s Alien mesh is still my #1 recommended consumer mesh system for set and forget with high bandwidth, advanced options and ease of configuration.

 

[yosh1993]

1G Fiber for $49/mo. ... WOW!

I have no choice where I am .. Spectrum cable 200 Mb down 5MB up (and NEVER get that) for $75/mo. ... ugh!
but, even w/ that we have several PCs and many security cameras and TVs streaming (along w/ iPads, iMacs, iPhones, etc.) and, when its not down, it's still plenty fast

Yea, it's a really good deal. AT&T offered me a promo rate when I bought the house 2 years ago and just extended the promo. I think the 500Mbps rate is higher than what I'm paying.

 

[yosh1993]

This is a bit of a techie question, I’m guessing you’re looking for best consumer grade wireless mesh system?

On my end, I’ve hardwired my home and have a Unbiquiti setup and couldn’t be happier.

If you’re looking for set it and forget it as a mesh, Eero is hands down the most reliable.

Orbi is less reliable and stable, but has awesome throughput with its triband setup. (I personally, cannot recommend them though and they have major limitations to scaling that I hit)

UniFi’s Alien mesh is still my #1 recommended consumer mesh system for set and forget with high bandwidth, advanced options and ease of configuration.

Thank you. And, yes, I am looking for a consumer grade/home setup. My main issue is that while I do get "coverage" throughout the house, the upstairs rooms crawl sometimes and my outside wireless cameras disconnect or get poor signal at least once a month. So trying to find a mesh system that will extended coverage with relatively and reasonable loss of speed.

 

[Rogue]

Thank you. And, yes, I am looking for a consumer grade/home setup. My main issue is that while I do get "coverage" throughout the house, the upstairs rooms crawl sometimes and my outside wireless cameras disconnect or get poor signal at least once a month. So trying to find a mesh system that will extended coverage with relatively and reasonable loss of speed.

In that case, it just sounds like you need some boosters versus an entire new mesh setup. Father had to do boosters because of similar issues, and I did it in my own home.

As long as there exists a strong signal between the boosters, there should not be much degradation in performance unless you chain a ton of them together.

 

[HC_79]

As long as there exists a strong signal between the boosters

That is the critical piece when it comes to boosters and if you're already having coverage issues in areas of your house, boosters are useless. I've never had much success with boosters unfortunately but when I switched to mesh it resolved my issues.

 

[AIR.LUCID]

Which router shows Bits up and down per device? I saw a screen shot of one on this forum, but I don’t think the model was mentioned.

 

[LucidNC]

Which router shows Bits up and down per device? I saw a screen shot of one on this forum, but I don’t think the model was mentioned.

A lot of consumer-grade routers don't give you that level of granularity.

Plenty of commercial (or near-commercial) network routers will provide a lot of insight into your network. I, for example, have a Ubiquiti network at the house (which others on this forum also have), but I wouldn't recommend it to folks unfamiliar with managed switches/routers.

 

[borski]

A lot of consumer-grade routers don't give you that level of granularity.

Plenty of commercial (or near-commercial) network routers will provide a lot of insight into your network. I, for example, have a Ubiquiti network at the house (which others on this forum also have), but I wouldn't recommend it to folks unfamiliar with managed switches/routers.

The Amplifi systems from Ubiquiti are good consumer systems with lots of power and data, but they are overkill for most people who would do perfectly fine with a set of eero’s.

(I also run a UDM Pro all-ubiquiti setup)

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Thank you. And, yes, I am looking for a consumer grade/home setup. My main issue is that while I do get "coverage" throughout the house, the upstairs rooms crawl sometimes and my outside wireless cameras disconnect or get poor signal at least once a month. So trying to find a mesh system that will extended coverage with relatively and reasonable loss of speed.

Eero Pro 6 works great. Do you have Coax (cable TV) cables installed in the rooms you would want to put the nodes? You can use MoCA adapters to cheaply convert to Gigabit ethernet for wired backhaul.