lifereinspired
Occasional Visitor
Hi!
I wanted to reach out to this awesome community because you know more abut routers and networking than anyone else I know. We have lots of IoT/HA devices (see list below for more specifics), 4K streaming on two TVs (we stream all of our TV), plus lots of surfing, etc. Long story short(er), all in all, I'm looking at 38-50 devices connected to WiFi at the same time (on top of the other items like Hue, smart plugs, etc that are on their own connected system). We have an apartment in a 40-unit building w/ mostly steel construction & some wood. Our unit is around 800sq ft, give or take 50s ft. The Netgear Nighthawk Tri-band R8500 X8($400) 5400mbps (AC) that we purchased just 3 years ago is totally dying & it doesn't seem fixable. No firmware updates and I keeps losing signal requiring a reboot(without showing anything is wrong). In order to talk with Netgear support it would cost me $89 just to troubleshoot with no guarantee (or even likelihood) that it will help and that's a good chunk of $$ towards a new router.
I don't mind investing in new "bleeding edge" router tech but I'm not sure it will help much right now to get the new (unratified) AX standard router, unless it can help somehow in how it works with AC traffic. ASUS & TP Link both get poor reviews on customer service/warranty replacement & both seem to need replacement fairly often, Netgear gets similar reviews with terrible drop out issues across their models & no resolution, so I'm not seeing an obvious standout option. I'm also wondering if any of the mesh systems world be beneficial for us - though I’m really not sure of that because we’re not dealing with a huge sprawling home. But we do have a lot of WiFi congestion from all the neighbors. I'm no programmer but I'm a bit of a geek & I do like having some flexibility on the settings. Typically, on our current router, I actually set the address of all the main devices so that it doesn't change. Makes it easier for some things. Not that I have to have that option available. I would like to have the ability to reboot/control the setup remotely, as well.
We currently have Xfinity/Comcast 250 w/blast (or whatever they call it) and we’re giving some thought to moving up to 400 or gigabit either through them or another local option that is all fiber with symmetrical gigabit for cheap - in case that info is helpful for router recommendations. We want to be able to be connected to local devices with a fast connection for transferring data across local devices but that always seems to use the internet (which also means slower) which I didn’t think it would need to for a local network connection. I probably have it setup wrong...
What are your recommendations? I’ve noticed from a little reading on these forums that some of the routers have the exact same chipsets inside? How is Linksys these days? What do you feel about the TP Link Archer C5400 (or C4000 from Costco). I’m also wondering about the newer Linksys 9500. The V1 seemed to only have a dual core processor but I noticed that the lower version 9300 has a quad core 1.8ghz and I’ve recently read about a V2 of he 9500 and I’m wondering if that might have the faster quad core processor. I like that Linksys has a 3 year warranty but I’m certainly not stuck on that. I’d like at least a two year warranty, if possible from the manufacturer. I’m also interested in the Asus routers. I think I’d like a tri-band as that’s what we have now (we currently have a Netgear 5400AC tri-band router) and I don’t want to go to something that the performance is worse on, if that makes sense. I also have an 8 slot Ethernet switch that I also use to not run things wireless when I can. It’s currently run after the router but I’m giving some thought to moving it in front. I’ve also used to use DD-WRT that I flashed on a couple of routers. So, I’m at least a little familiar with that setup. But I don’t have to have an Asus router for that reason. I’d rather have a different one if there’s a better option for us. Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Thanks so much in advance.
PS Here are some of our IoT and other connected stuff: We have SmartThings, more than 20 Hue devices, 9 smart plugs (the z-wave/zigbee combo device), August Pro smart lock, multiple Arlo Pro cameras (currently 3 but will eventually be 4 with the doorbell & 1 motion sensor light), Ecobee thermostat, various other "things" like a motion sensor, a few multi-purpose sensors, a couple of multi sensors including temp & humidity, multiple Google Home devices or hubs, Harmony remote/Hub, Neato vac, etc. On top of that we're cord cutters & use Roku & Android TV (Nvidia Shield) on multiple TVs (HD/UHD) and we get all our TV streaming since we can't get any OTA because of our apartment location. We also run out own media server for video, music, photos, ebooks, using Plex, Calibre, Google Music, etc. We also have the usual devices for smartphones, laptops, wifi printer, wifi scanner, tablets, and more.
I wanted to reach out to this awesome community because you know more abut routers and networking than anyone else I know. We have lots of IoT/HA devices (see list below for more specifics), 4K streaming on two TVs (we stream all of our TV), plus lots of surfing, etc. Long story short(er), all in all, I'm looking at 38-50 devices connected to WiFi at the same time (on top of the other items like Hue, smart plugs, etc that are on their own connected system). We have an apartment in a 40-unit building w/ mostly steel construction & some wood. Our unit is around 800sq ft, give or take 50s ft. The Netgear Nighthawk Tri-band R8500 X8($400) 5400mbps (AC) that we purchased just 3 years ago is totally dying & it doesn't seem fixable. No firmware updates and I keeps losing signal requiring a reboot(without showing anything is wrong). In order to talk with Netgear support it would cost me $89 just to troubleshoot with no guarantee (or even likelihood) that it will help and that's a good chunk of $$ towards a new router.
I don't mind investing in new "bleeding edge" router tech but I'm not sure it will help much right now to get the new (unratified) AX standard router, unless it can help somehow in how it works with AC traffic. ASUS & TP Link both get poor reviews on customer service/warranty replacement & both seem to need replacement fairly often, Netgear gets similar reviews with terrible drop out issues across their models & no resolution, so I'm not seeing an obvious standout option. I'm also wondering if any of the mesh systems world be beneficial for us - though I’m really not sure of that because we’re not dealing with a huge sprawling home. But we do have a lot of WiFi congestion from all the neighbors. I'm no programmer but I'm a bit of a geek & I do like having some flexibility on the settings. Typically, on our current router, I actually set the address of all the main devices so that it doesn't change. Makes it easier for some things. Not that I have to have that option available. I would like to have the ability to reboot/control the setup remotely, as well.
We currently have Xfinity/Comcast 250 w/blast (or whatever they call it) and we’re giving some thought to moving up to 400 or gigabit either through them or another local option that is all fiber with symmetrical gigabit for cheap - in case that info is helpful for router recommendations. We want to be able to be connected to local devices with a fast connection for transferring data across local devices but that always seems to use the internet (which also means slower) which I didn’t think it would need to for a local network connection. I probably have it setup wrong...
What are your recommendations? I’ve noticed from a little reading on these forums that some of the routers have the exact same chipsets inside? How is Linksys these days? What do you feel about the TP Link Archer C5400 (or C4000 from Costco). I’m also wondering about the newer Linksys 9500. The V1 seemed to only have a dual core processor but I noticed that the lower version 9300 has a quad core 1.8ghz and I’ve recently read about a V2 of he 9500 and I’m wondering if that might have the faster quad core processor. I like that Linksys has a 3 year warranty but I’m certainly not stuck on that. I’d like at least a two year warranty, if possible from the manufacturer. I’m also interested in the Asus routers. I think I’d like a tri-band as that’s what we have now (we currently have a Netgear 5400AC tri-band router) and I don’t want to go to something that the performance is worse on, if that makes sense. I also have an 8 slot Ethernet switch that I also use to not run things wireless when I can. It’s currently run after the router but I’m giving some thought to moving it in front. I’ve also used to use DD-WRT that I flashed on a couple of routers. So, I’m at least a little familiar with that setup. But I don’t have to have an Asus router for that reason. I’d rather have a different one if there’s a better option for us. Really looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Thanks so much in advance.
PS Here are some of our IoT and other connected stuff: We have SmartThings, more than 20 Hue devices, 9 smart plugs (the z-wave/zigbee combo device), August Pro smart lock, multiple Arlo Pro cameras (currently 3 but will eventually be 4 with the doorbell & 1 motion sensor light), Ecobee thermostat, various other "things" like a motion sensor, a few multi-purpose sensors, a couple of multi sensors including temp & humidity, multiple Google Home devices or hubs, Harmony remote/Hub, Neato vac, etc. On top of that we're cord cutters & use Roku & Android TV (Nvidia Shield) on multiple TVs (HD/UHD) and we get all our TV streaming since we can't get any OTA because of our apartment location. We also run out own media server for video, music, photos, ebooks, using Plex, Calibre, Google Music, etc. We also have the usual devices for smartphones, laptops, wifi printer, wifi scanner, tablets, and more.
