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New router suggestions
I just moved my family of 6 into a new home with 5000 finished sq ft. The prior owner clearly didn't care about wires networking, so there is no ethernet lines run through the house, forcing us to go with wi-fi in most rooms for now. As there are 6 of us, we have lots of devices running at any time; 2 PS4's, 4 Ipad's, 3 desktop PC's, several laptops, and Apple TV's connected to every TV in the house. To handle the wifi load, I am looking for a new router. Any suggestions to handle the heavy gaming and streaming load in a 5000 sq ft house?
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Still need a router behind that - any consumer router would be ok (Disable it’s wifi and use the Ubiuiti AP instead), or if you want to stay in brand Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite.
single routers have trouble in larger homes because of signal loss due to hitting multiple walls, water pipes, appliances, etc.
also stay away from non-mesh extenders and repeaters they cut signal
your other option is to contact your isp or a local contractor about getting outlets ran in your home. its fairly cheap... usually runs anywhere from $20 to $120 dollars per outlet in most areas.
All decent wireless routers have this feature tbh, some even have SPI. Which is worth bearing in mind if you are worried about the kids viewing things they shouldn't.
I bought powerline adapters for the WiFi and it has been life-changing in my case. They connect your PC to the router using the power network. Spotless connection with no issues.
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/products/list-18.html
I still have the WiFi for my phone and tablet, but the PC always has a guaranteed "direct" connection.
If you want to get your home wired for ethernet. Do not get your ISP or an electrician to do it. Get someone who specializes in fishing wires through walls to run the ethernet. ISP technicians are limited in the way they can run wires to limit the amount of time they spend on a job and reduce the potential liability of an inexperienced technician. Electricians tend to run wires like it's electrical and use old wiring. I have seen electricians run RG59 cable in brand new homes using splitters from the 80s and daisy chain the line. It will cost more but will save you the headache of someone explaining why they have to drill a hole to the outside.
For the purpose of this discussion - AP = Access Point, which is what is originating your WiFi Network (identified by the SSID). An AP isn't the same thing as a router - AP only bridges a WiFi signal to the network. The router is the device that handles all the network connections/DHCP server/etc. Most consumer devices, the router and AP are built into the same device - in commercial applications they are often separate.
Both mesh routers and extenders will daisy chain out however far out you want to cover an area with WiFi. They will hop the data back to the router, which then decides where that network traffic ultimately needs to go. You can think of APs essentially the same as ethernet switches/hubs - all they do is take WiFi data and pass it along -- AP takes WiFi data and put it on a physical network, extenders/mesh APs take WiFi data and pass it down to the next AP until it can get to the physical network, repeat hopping until you can finally get to the router.
The biggest difference is that in a mesh network, all the APs know they are part of a mesh network. With an extender, the original AP (probably the one built into your router) has no idea it's part of a mesh network.
Your device defaults to connecting to the AP with the strongest signal. In reality, you want to connect to the AP that is the closest to your router that has a "good enough" signal, as that will give you the fewest hops.
Having an extra hop will add a few milliseconds to your latency - it's not utterly disastrous, but you would like to avoid it if you can. The real problem comes in when your standing in a fringe area - say, your right between the root AP and the extender. Your device may keep switching between the root AP and the extender signal, which adds a good deal more overhead to the process.
A good mesh network is smart enough to keep you on a "good enough" signal as long as it can, and the really good ones can beam form and adjust coverage area and signal strength to ensure they aren't overlapping too much and maximize coverage and to minimize channel switching. Extenders often are not, and usually are installed much too close to the original AP, which results in a lot of channel switching and severely degraded performance.
If you have outlets on different circuit breakers, it can be hit or miss... if they happen to be on the same phase, you may luck out. If not, it will have a lot of noise in it at best.
I use Powerline at home - works well. I find I can get faster speeds with AC Wifi, but I get more consistent speed and better latency over the Powerline. But if your electrical doesn't let it work, it's much, much worse than WiFi in pretty much every regard.
The other bad part about Powerline is that for a lot of devices (phones, tablets, etc)... you still need WiFi anyway. But at least those don't tend to be high bandwidth devices, so you just need adequate coverage, and cheap repeaters may be adequate.
I still strongly recommend the Ubiquiti lineup. Edgerouter Lite + AC AP is about $175-$250 combined (depending on which AC AP you get) - or about the same price as a high end consumer router.... The difference being Ubiquiti is commercial grade, will mesh very well if you need additional coverage, and can do anything and everything you would ever want to do with networking at home. Once you set it up, it will be bulletproof for years. The downside is that Ubiquiti is not plug and play gear, and it takes a bit of work/google-fu to get it set up initially. If you can make it through the setup, it's hands down the best WiFi solution I've found out there, period. Odds are one AP will cover your entire home and then some, and there are a variety of other products that can integrate right in (outdoor APs, radio antenna for long distance bridging, etc).
I think some of you are lost in just looking for the best technology. Price points do matter.
I would agree with Ozmodan though in that very few people actually need the full blown mesh system. ~Most~ folks, the problem with their WiFi is channel congestion - those people in dense neighborhoods, apartments, dorms, etc. Mesh won't help with that at all, and can actually make the problem significantly worse.
If your problem is that you have to cover a lot of odd geometry, wall/floor interference, multiple stories of living/working area/etc... that's where mesh is made to shine. Now even then - for most people, you only have a problem because you have a low quality consumer router and it just doesn't have the strength to punch through and get to all areas. Mesh can help with that, but it's an expensive solution to the problem, whereas just a stronger AP would fix the problem at lot cleaner.
If it's just one spot in your house - like your garage or something... an extender makes a lot of sense there. Why spend a lot of money to cover a place that isn't a high traffic zone? Or if your are only looking to cover phones and tablets - those aren't typically high bandwidth devices in the first place. But if it's your entire second floor where all your bedrooms and half your computers are, or the entire West side of your home, maybe something more robust would be better.
https://www.corenetworkz.com/2018/01/setup-linksys-wap300n-wireless-access.html