2 routers or 1 router and 2 extenders?

I have found that what works best in our house is a Wifi mesh with all APs wired to Ethernet. I currently use Google Home in that setup and it works great! Have them setup at in about the center of all halfs of the house and on all levels.

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If you can do two routers wiring wise, I would recommend using a couple of unifi AP AC-PRO's instead. They are poe (and usually come with their own POE injectors if you don't have a poe switch) These can be set so you roam better, you can segregate your 2.4ghz network better as well as they do well with vlan. This would ultimately be a better solution and more configurable. (IMHO). In my own home, I have one in the attic, one on the 1st floor and one on the back of the house. This gives great coverage and it's great when we bring chromcast devices outside for music. While it's great to hard wire where you can, wi-fi is still a necessary evil and I like maximizing my bandwidth...

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Avoid extenders. Two routers are ok but a meshed system with wired backhaul is better. Avoid Linksys - I found the system to be too unstable.

I just spent a week removing my old Linksys Velop mush network and replaced it with Ubiquity UniFi. It’s not without its flaws and gaps but I am really impressed with the system so far. The coverage and speed are 5-10x what I was getting with Linksys (in fairness I also switched from wireless to wired backhaul). The system can also be implemented with security that’s leaps and bounds above what is available with consumer grade products, should choose to do it that way. The downside is it does take a reasonable knowledge of network fundamentals to do it yourself, especially if you want to take advantage of some of the more advanced features.

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I too moved to mesh based routers years ago when I got my first Orbi, It was fine until IoT devices started to move into the mix. For example Alexa devices that may connect to different satellites won't group together if you create zones due to the devices being on different AP mac addresses. And many times IoT devices would lock onto to a AP that wasn't where it was originally attached to and stop working for example SimpliySafe cameras and base station. There was nothing worse then coming home and finding something that wasn't working.

At the end of 2019 for a holiday project I decided to go into Unifi so I could isolate IoT traffic and also create SSID networks that would pin IoT devices to AP's to solve many issues. I have 3 FlexHD's AP in my home wit one network for roaming devices (Phones, Tablets, and laptops), and then a Iot network per AP (IoT-Fam, IoT-Upstairs, IoT-Basement). Once I did this I have yet to have a devices not roam that should roam and devices that are pinned don't randomly disconnect any more.

It takes a bit of work and there are some great instructional video's on YouTube that I reviewed before I set this up.

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I just did an install for a client that was very "cost efficient".

It so happened that he had a relatively modern Asus router, which wasn't covering all his house.
Asus has a mode called "AiMesh" which allows an existing router to be used as a Access Point. Presto - I got another Asus router (with AX), and used it in place of the existing router. The existing router I placed a sizeable distance away. I was fortunate to connect it via ethernet (as a backhaul). Presto: mesh network with great radios, with great coverage, very inexpensively, and very quickly.
(It also can be connected wireless.)

Client very happy.

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Another consideration if you don't have ethernet wiring, try an ethernet power line adapter. I used these in a rental house I lived in a few years back and they worked great. Even allowed me to push ethernet into a detached garage. I can't give you any speed comparisons over mesh/wireless, but there are many options available through Amazon that can give you even 1GB speeds over your home wiring. Need to purchase in a pair to get started, then just add another port for each remote location. TP Link 1GB starts at $60 for a single port option, or $90 ea for a dual port adapter. There are slower adapters that are about half that cost. When I used it, 300MB was the norm, and they were just coming out with 600MB adapters.

I see @jshimota also mentioned power line. Highly recommend if you don't have wired backhaul. That is a 'must' for my future retirement home, minimum of 2 cat 6 in every room, double that in central offices/media etc, all wired to a central location (star configuration). I've already put that in another house I own, and in the in-laws house on a smaller scale.

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Nice post from @bobbyD with a link to wirecutter

Wow so many great replies!

I have about 30 Wyze cameras, all using an IP. Talk on the Wyze forums state Wyze does not play well with mesh. Most of the feeds are great, but others drop a lot. Bought 2 Tenda A18 extenders (sorry @jshimota - bought these about a week before this post) and still have range issues for the farthest cams

Older home built in 1969. No aluminum wiring, but the bedrooms have no grounded outlets. Really hard to run ethernet cable everywhere.

Aggregating all this information, I should get another router with a built in access point?

The Tenda A18 extenders have an ethernet port, so if I connect to that, it will become an access point. Too much for this old mind to absorb!

I would try a powerline adapter set as discussed. Even in a home with older wiring (ungrounded), they still should work. I used them in an older home with ungrounded wiring.

They have a port to use as an access point as you mentioned. The main one goes near your router to 'inject' the ethernet into your powerline. Then you put one (or more) adapters where you want the access points. To set up, they usually have a pairing function to link them to the primary adapter.

Then get a second router, put it in bridge mode with the same WIFI SID/password as your main router, and connect it to the powerline adapter.

Hate extenders lol They never work properly.

I use 3 Asus RT68u routers in a Mesh setup. The mesh network support form asus works surprisingly well. Did need to tinker a bit with some settings so client devices not flip from one AP to the other in certain positions of the house/garden. But still great stuff for home usage and dirt cheap these days

Also consider MoCA adapters too - coax is still pretty common in houses today.

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I have these as the "backhaul" for my Amplifi HD mesh routers and they have been working really well for about 2-3 years now. Since the Amplifi HD routers have 4 ethernet ports, I can hook my Apple TV, Hubitat etc. and have full ethernet in the house. I have AT&T fiber at home and from my Apple TV connected to Amplify HD to the AT&T fiber modem over coax, I get between 980 down/ 950 up.

NOTE: I don't have any other signals over coax since I ditched cable.

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Bought a Tenda MW6 mesh router. Easy peasy to set up. Disconnected the AC23 router and both A18 extenders. Using a gigabit switch to feed the desktops. Getting at least 300 Mbps on WiFi

Hubitat requires a reserved IP but there is no web interface for the MW6, only an app, and there is no way to reserve an IP. Just got this a few hours ago and am learning.

Technically you can go without a reservation and as long as the router keeps issuing you the same IP you'll be ok. But it certainly is better with a reservation. You could also find a range of IPs that are outside of the DHCP scope and give the hub a static IP in that range, since the DHCP server wouldn't issue an address in that range. Assuming your router can tell you that!

I came to the lounge to give a little review of my new ASUS router, ZenWiFi AX6600, got it to try to improve my AIMesh in my townhouse. I saw this thread and thought may as well drop it here. I had two AC68U units before, my mesh was a bit flaky at times and I was not happy with it. I got one AX6600 and put that in as the main router. So far it has been a huge improvement, my NAS streams 4k perfectly to everything in the house. the dedicated 5G backhaul is great. I have a smaller place and running CAT5 was not an option so AIMesh it was, it has only been a day and will keep an eye on any hiccups. I had the SSID for the three bands all named the same and that caused huge issues with my SONOS play 1 units took forever to get them back in. I had to rename all the different SSIDs to unique names. If I experience anything great or bad I will let you know. If you got the cash and are looking to improve you might want to try the two pack of these Routers, the reviews seem pretty solid.

Cheers
B

Follow up, well the SONOS play 1 units (3 in the house) do not like the new router for some odd reason. I think it will be factory reset time for all of them and then set them up again. Had a RM rule that turned on the radio in the kitchen through SONOS for the spouse, does not work anymore and the SAF is slowly falling. I am not sure how much longer I can hold her off with "I am working on it!" pray for me!!

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Be careful of cancel culture. If you can’t get the SONOS working, she will want it ALL gone down to the last peanut plug. :sunglasses:

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LOL, well she may not be that down on it at this point but damn these Sonos are being a bear to keep connected. Some wifi issues with the new router and once I get it ironed out the SAF will climb again to "Lukewarm" with occasional bursts of "thats cool".

For my clients I generally recommend the use of a Sonos Boost to keep the speakers on a separate network and on their own "mesh". I seem to have a lot less Sonos issues that way....

My unifi system is a couple weeks old and I do have a few roaming devices that don't roam optimally. One is a Nintendo Switch, which is known for this issue. It does not support 802.11r and it hangs on to a weak access point far, far too long. I ended up setting a minimum RSSI for each AP, and that seems to have done the trick. The good news is with Unifi you can actually change parameters like that. With consumer-grade stuff you're usually stuck.