Help with what WiFi to get

[Neonplanet40]

Hi folks, I was hoping for some help on what to do with my home WiFi.

I brought my old WiFi setup to my new house which is bigger.

Currently, I have an Asus DSL 68u and an Asus RT ac86u. However, I need more coverage and am keen to upgrade and make the network relatively future proof (as much as anyone can these days).

I have a gigabyte LAN around a lot of the house. We do stream 4k videos over Plex to tablets etc and phones. Some of these have WiFi 6 capability.

So what I want:

A system that has good speeds and can make use of new WiFi standards (so AX I guess). Stability.

I have a few options which I have narrow d it down to and would be keen to hear people's recommendations around these.

I am keen to stick with Asus because of the hope of using Merlin.
I like the thought of using AImesh (I haven't used it yet) to make the setup more seamless.
Any devices I buy will be connected to the network via ethernet for a wired backhaul, not wireless.

So which of the following would suit my needs (speed, stability, 'future proof', range etc)?

Keep my current 2 Asus routers and add an ax88u and use AiMesh.

Replace routers with 2 Asus Zenwifi xt8 mesh.

Replace routers with a pair of Asus RT AX 88U in AiMesh.

Replace with a pair of Asus RT AX86U in AiMesh.

Thank you for your help.

 

[L&LD]

@Neonplanet40, welcome to the forums.

Two (or more, how big is your new home?) RT-AX86U's is the first I would test in your new environment.

Where you don't have 1GbE LAN, you can repurpose the old routers as Media Bridges (serving only wired clients).

You didn't mention your ISP speeds, but 2x RT-AX86U's in wired backhaul mode (over their 2.5GbE Ports) and a 1Gbps symmetrical up/down Fibre connection is working extremely well for me (even on the RMerlin 386.1 Beta firmware for now).

 

[Neonplanet40]

Thanks for your feedback. My internet is poor (60mb down and 17mb up). However, FTTP was just activated this week. However, I still have a one year contract with Talk talk ISP who anret offering FTTP (Sucks ).

So basically, my house is 2 floors, 6 bedrooms, kitchen/diner, 3 living room areas etc. I also have a ring doorbell which need a good WiFi connection. I have multiple gigabyte switches around my house in which I have my Synology has, Plex server, PC's, routers, Hikvision 4k CCTV setup etc connected to it.

I don't have a 2.5gbe LAN yet. Probably won't for some time to be honest as I'd need to upgrade everything. So the fast WiFi speeds are more for streaming from my NAS to devices around the house and garden.

So for me, I just wanted something that would have good and fast coverage while offering an element of future proofing.

So you have said the AX86U. I have heard good things about it. Is the mesh as easy and seamless as the Zenwifi? And is it stable/reliable?

Thank you.

 

[L&LD]

I don't know the Zen, but from reading here, 2x RT-AX86U's in wired backhaul mode is even more stable and reliable.

 

[Neonplanet40]

I ended up getting 2 AX86U. It is good but the AiMesh drops every few days and I need to reboot main and node.

They are running the latest firmware. I couldn't set up AiMesh with the latest Merlin firmware. Until that is fixed, I won't be able to use it.