Easiest way to wire a house with multiple APs, with a need for streaming video through a VPN

[Entropism]

So I'm in the market for a new house, and I'm trying to see what the easiest way to make everything work would be. I don't currently know anything about OPNSense, PFSense, etc, and I'd like this to be as easy as possible.

Currently I have a gigabit connection, an Asus AC86U, a pair of MOCA adapters and a pair of 8 port switches. Home office is wired through the router/switch, and the MOCA adapters send a wired signal downstairs for my TV, Apple TV, game consoles, etc. The apartment is small enough where the AC86U covers the entire apartment. I have NordVPN running on the router to let me stream my local hockey team and get past any blackouts. The ONLY thing the VPN will be used for is for streaming. I'm using the ASUS router currently as it's the only consumer router that I know of that allows you to run as a client, rather than a server.

New house looks like it will have 4 floors (basement, 1st, 2nd, attic). Home office will be in the basement, 1st floor has the living room, and there will be an office on the 2nd floor that all needs to be wired. I'm going to assume an AP in the attic and another towards the rear of the 1st or 2nd floor would blanket the entire house and backyard. I don't mind buying another pair of MOCA adapters, and I don't mind paying to have a few Cat 6e runs installed.

Now... I'm planning on either upgrading to an AX86U or AX88U, or (if it's easy enough) going with the SFF PC and a distro firewall. ALL the lights in the house will be smart bulbs (Hue/Ikea), plus a few assistant devices as well. Currently we run alexa, we're thinking of switching to Homepods and Siri.

Sorry if this is rambling, just trying to give an idea of what currently works and what would be changing. Anyone have any advice?

 

[YPNvexed]

First question to ask, is where will the services come into the house? Where I live, we typically bring the services (power, cable, telephone, internet) into the basement, into a "utility" room. If you are the same, then I would recommend that you run at least one cat6 from each bedroom, two from the living room where your cable outlet will be (do this for each location you will have a TV at), one from the kitchen, 4 from the office, 1 to a central location in the house where you might want to control a security system from, and possibly one more to what ever location you want a smart hub to control your smart home from, and I had each of my phone lines upgraded from what the builder typically uses to cat6 (when terminated, if not needed you can just ignore the extra twisted pairs...but you can't add them if you need them). Yes, that is a lot of lines, but doing it this way will give you a ton of flexibility - and the time to do this is now, before the walls are closed up. In addition to the above listed, I also ran one more line to each audio "zone" in the house that allows me to control the volume of the in ceiling speakers (cat6 can be used for more than just networks) in each area. This can now be handled with correct digital hub configuration, so you can probably skip this).

When you have the opportunity to reduce reliance as much as possible on wifi, my advice is do it. Especially for devices like TV's, computers, audio receivers, security equipment, printers etc. All of your devices will function at their maximum potential, and be less prone to interference/drop in speed and are probably more secure in the end. There are also studies that say prolonged exposure to wifi radiation may be harmful...esp. in children...I am not necessarily convinced of this, but less wifi flying around the house can't be a bad thing either

This is also a good time to consider whole home audio as pulling speaker lines to a central location where your audio equipment will be located is a lot easier too.

One other thing I did, was pull USB3, HDMI and DisplayPort and an audio cable from my office to my utility room. This allowed me to put a very powerful pc in the utility room along side my media/hyperviser servers. As a result my office is "fanless"(a.k.a. "silent"), uncluttered, and not impacted by heat from the pc. Those cables were very expensive compared to network lines, but we plan on living here a long time and I don't have to buy expensive, quiet coolers ever again so it was worthwhile in my opinion. Just something else to think about.

**EDIT: In the above, I assumed by "new house" you meant a new build...if that's not the case this isn't going to make a lot of sense ...sorry 'bout that!

 

[Entropism]

This isn't a new build, it's a new purchase. If it was a new build, I'd have every room wired with 6e and a central switch in the basement.

Current owner has Comcast coax, I'll be switching to Fios (fiber). I'm more worried about a residential router + APs, vs a PFSense box + APs, especially when it comes to a learning curve.

 

[degrub]

Are you planning to use the existing coax for the new FIOS install (tv streaming, DVRs, tuner boxes, etc) or will you be getting internet only through FIOS ?
If only internet, then i would isolate the existing house coax particularly if RG6, and run a moca based backhaul network. You can use MOCA 2.5 where you need higher bandwidth, but MOCA 2 is likely more than adequate, particularly if you can use a star layout of modem pairs from the wiring closet in the basement ( assumed) rather than multidrop.

Then set APs where you need them and turn down the power to avoid too much overlap. Maybe even stay only on 5 GHz for main users and run 2.4 for IOT stuff on its own vlan.

i've been using the above for 5 users (2 work at home plus 3 college age ) with an RV325 and 4 WAP371s on 5 Ghz only. ATT Gbit with MOCA2.5 from the ONT to the ATT router, double nat to the RV and then out across the moca2 star.
No bandwidth issues and only reboots were after extended power off or firmware updates.

 

[Entropism]

I'd be doing internet only through FIOS. I work for a competing cable company so I'm able to stream every channel for free. The only thing I can't stream is my hockey team, hence the need for a good VPN.

As for MOCA vs Ethernet drops, I definitely have no issue buying another pair of adapters, as I have a pair of Actiontec ECB6200 already in use.

Again, I think my late night post wasn't clear on my point: Would a commercial router like an AX8600U work fine with a few added APs, or should I go PFSense? And if I go PFSense, how steep of a learning curve is there to get this working as (hopefully) a set & forget network?

 

[degrub]

did you search the threads in the forums here ? there are a few good discussions about pfsense and other firewalls. If you don't have experience setting up routing and rules, then unless there are config utilities to get the basics right, it can be an investment to not make mistakes. i used a Sonicwall appliance for a couple years, moved to the free firewalls for a while and i struggled with it, but decided my time was better spent elsewhere and just went with the Cisco RV3xx series as that seemed good enough for my household needs. Others with more networking experience here have been able to make it work and other than significant firewall software updates, appear to be able to forget about it.