New Router recommendations

[d-dave]

So my two year old TP Link C7 Archer is dying.  Despite firmware updates, it needs to be restarted multiple times per day.

Any of y'all have any new wireless routers you'd recommend?  

What about mesh systems?  Any experience?

[d-dave]

Well, for anyone who is interested, I did go mesh.

I have a 2300 sq.ft. home with my cable access points downstairs, one to either end of the house.  So I was kind of screwed anyway due to the width of my home.  I looked at just upgrading the router, but realized that it would never have the best performance across my whole home, which is what we really wanted.  I got a Linksys Velop two node system.  It was $260 at Best Buy, which wasn't a terrible price.  

Pros:  Whole house coverage!  I get 200 down / 10 up from spectrum (why the crappy upload?  Makes me uploading anything a pain.) at the modem.  In the far corner of my home, I used to be lucky to get 30 down.  Now I see 140-160 in the same place with the same upload speeds.  Not bad at all.

Cons:  2 gigabit ports instead of four.  No USB.  I did work around it by digging out an old netgear switcher which has worked like a charm.

The fact that it's been able to simplify our wireless needs (1 SSD instead of the two I used to have), it covers everything, and it was up and running in 5 minutes was pretty dang cool.

I'm sure there are cheaper options out there.  I could have hacked something else together.  Or I could have used another product.  But it what I picked and I'm satisfied with it myself.

[cookinwithgas]

I’ve got to do this myself, wireless N + extender is getting sketchy these days

[d-dave]

4 minutes ago, cookinwithgas said:

I’ve got to do this myself, wireless N + extender is getting sketchy these days

That was me, I had a network extender (TP-Link was super highly rated) which sort of worked.  I even had it directly wired to the router via a powerline connection.  But once the router started to crap out, I went on the look out.

There are a lot of pretty good, reasonable mesh systems out there.  It's more expensive than just buying another router, but the coverage is just night and day.  And it just works.  I used to like to meddle with my router settings sometimes for port preferences, or specific addresses.  I can still do that, buy I haven't had a need to.  I can stream 4k movies all over the house, I can play either one of my xboxes with no extra lag (and the download speeds have gotten better on the one on wifi).  

I do miss the media server (when it worked).  So that would be something else I'd have to work on in the future.  Got to save up for a NAS bay...

[cookinwithgas]

TP-Link is what have as well, I know its not the latest and greatest but you would think that the self diagnostics would be better than they are. Whenever I Lose connectivity it seems like its still too difficult to determine what component has lost it's mind. I'm going to get all this stuff going shortly...

[Pejorative Miscreant]

I have google mesh with 3 additional access points.  Have 200/20 and it’s sustainable throughout 3000 sq ft.  No problems in my front and back yard either.  Super easy setup and you can optimize at it lets you know which devices are tethered to a specific access point. 

[Anybodyhome]

Nevermind... was gonna tell you I have a little bit older version of this one and it's awesome- very little vibration, stout construction...

[d-dave]

7 minutes ago, Anybodyhome said:

Nevermind... was gonna tell you I have a little bit older version of this one and it's awesome- very little vibration, stout construction...

I picked up a a Hitachi router for my job (5 year warranty and my students use it).  It's been super nice, and it came with a plunge base.

[Judo Thoreau]

I went with multiple routers/access points for years with spotty results. Picked up a single Unifi Pro a couple years ago and have had no issues. Great product, easily covers ~2500 sqft over 2 levels. Runs off my old router (in bridge mode) & almost never needs to be reset. 

[Inimicus]

5 minutes ago, Anybodyhome said:

Nevermind... was gonna tell you I have a little bit older version of this one and it's awesome- very little vibration, stout construction...

This was my first thought as well