Reliable Router for Fully Connected Home

[GoodNetGear]

Hi,

New to the forums - lots of great information here. Hoping someone can help. I have a Linksys EA9500 router, which has caused me nothing but problems - devices are dropped frequently, static routing isn’t honored until multiple reboots, general instability, archaic firmware that hasn’t been updated in years. Has to be the worst purchase I’ve made.

I’m ready to look beyond the “prosumer” range of $400 routers - they seem like a waste of money. WiFi 6 and 6E seem like they’re still being fleshed out - so not a requirement for me at this point in time.

My usage:

• 50+ 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz devices for home automation + a few wired hubs
• Home server running Ubuntu + Home Assistant for home automation, WiFi connected, but may hard wire to its 1 gbit ethernet in future (or 10 gbit if I upgrade mobo)
• Fast PC with 10 gbit ethernet, hard wired
• ~1,500 square feet of WiFi coverage across 3 rooms
• 2.4ghz and 5ghz mobile devices, including latest iPhones and iPads
• 1 gbit down / 50 gbit up internet connection

Requirements:

• Stable
• Secure
• Updated frequently (open to custom firmware)
• Fast

I was about ready to pull the trigger on the RT-AX88U based on posts in this forum, but then I stumbled upon this interesting perspective below from @Val D. I don’t know whether moving away from the prosumer models is right for me, or where I’d start, but I am very curious given the money I’ve wasted on crappy routers in the past.

Any advice? Thanks!

@Val D. Says:

I don't know why you have all those requirements. I have a different view of a "good" WiFi router/system. Let me explain:

- 1Gb up/down can be handled by many routers, on LAN. 1Gb on WiFi is currently not needed for most devices.
- What options specifically do you need? The more options in consumer routers - the worse implementation of each one.
- "Robust" and "consumer router" usually do not live well in one sentence, especially newer disposable models.
- 10Gb and LAGG support... for what reason? NAS? Many have this option.
- 4+ ports are not a problem, a 8-port dumb Gb switch is $20, smart Gb switches (even with PoE) start from about $70.

Think this way:
- Web browsing experience >150Mbps is all the same. Very few web servers will send you data back with >100Mbps.
- Mobile devices don't need >100Mbps connection. 4K streaming on a small screen is a bandwidth waste, for example.
- Mobile devices don't do large downloads, so no extremely fast WiFi is needed.
- Computers/Servers/NAS is best to be wired, no WiFi will give you the same performance.

Few people got Netgear R7800 on sale for $120 around Christmas. This is one of the best performing AC routers in term of WiFi speed and range. It is extremely reliable too, based on user feedback. It is Qualcomm hardware and fully supported by OpenWRT. Take a look, may be a good option for WiFi. AX routers are work-in-progress, you'll be the guinea pig. A paying guinea pig. And you'll be lied to about what technologies your router currently supports. Do you think RT-AX88U supports all WIFI 6 specifications? Think again.

If your budget is high enough, think about wired router + switch + access points from small business segment. A nice all Cisco, Ubiquiti or mix-and-match as per needs system will be really "robust", secure, flexible, upgradeable, configurable, etc. system. The performance will be much better than any consumer router you can buy. If you need an advice in this direction, @Trip may give you all the options available. @coxhaus is a Cisco guy, he knows what works well from this manufacturer. I have played with a lot of consumer routers and none is perfect. They all have flaws, some very serious ones. Finally had the time to arrange something better for my home and there will be no coming back to consumer products any time soon. "High performance", "enhanced performance", "optimized for gaming", "better than ever"... forget about marketing BS in consumer segment.

 

[degrub]

Cisco SMB gear should do the job. RV 340, WAP581, SG350-xx or SG250-xx depending on if you want Layer 3 managed switch or layer 2 smart switch for VLANS to segment your traffic. If you use a SG350 you should be able to offload the Router so that it is only handling the traffic out to the WAN and not local routing chores. No sure about how it handles gig down as i don't need that much bandwidth.

 

[tipstir]

I had invested over $500+ back in 2012 with Tp-Link managed Business Network Gear all rack mounted hardware dual WAN VPN VLAN wired router and long with rack mounted VLAN Layer 2 switch. I use continuous power supply unit runs at peak voltage in the rack as well. I don't run 10GBp which is 7 GBps. I run 1GBps here I have much more smart plugs here though AI's 4K stuff and games I can keep going but you need to invest in business hardware get away from home network gear. Try to keep everything cool just like you do at your job or what your job network room has. Key to keep everything running smoothing keep it cold. My newest gear is Tp-link business AP and had built a AP stand to place that device on my ceiling with out placing on perm bases.

 

[GoodNetGear]

Thoughts on the UniFi Dream Machine Pro?

 

[degrub]

Val D already gave you solid advice unless the network is suffering from G.A.S.

(from photograper’s annals, 1963, “Gear Acquisition Syndrome” )

 

[GoodNetGear]

Val D already gave you solid advice unless the network is suffering from G.A.S.

(from photograper’s annals, 1963, “Gear Acquisition Syndrome” )

Val D didn’t give me advice - his post was in response to someone else’s requirements.

 

[Trip]

Unless your 1500 sf place has a really weird layout and/or is made of solid brick/metal/concrete, a single 4x4 AP of requisite amplification should cover your entire place pretty well. That means starting with an all-in-one is not necessarily a bad idea. Asus might be appealing for the "easy" factor; I'd go AX88U running Merlin. If it falls short on wired performance or features, you can start a piece-by-piece transition to discrete components by re-purposing the AX88U as an AP and adding in an ARM or x86-based firewall running whatever OS you prefer (pfSense, OpenWRT, Untangle, etc.). If wireless takes a dive on the 88U after that, rip and replace entirely with a purpose-built AP, optionally PoE powered via a gigabit PoE injector or PoE switch for better location/orientation.

If you just want to go discrete right away, I'd run OpenWRT or pfSense on a low-power x86 embedded box off Amazon, or a cheap thin client or SFF PC with multi-NIC Intel card off eBay, then wire in whatever 4x4 AP you like, optionally something purpose-built or controller based. The other route might be UniFi, although you must understand it's not a like-for-like swap between the likes of an 88U and a UDM -- the former being very over-amplified, the latter being much more tight of a broadcast, meant for scaling APs in numbers at low power. It may work well enough, though, for just 1500 sf, again depending on layout and materials.

 

[GoodNetGear]

Unless your 1500 sf place has a really weird layout and/or is made of solid brick/metal/concrete, a single 4x4 AP of requisite amplification should cover your entire place pretty well. That means starting with an all-in-one is not necessarily a bad idea. Asus might be appealing for the "easy" factor; I'd go AX88U running Merlin. If it falls short on wired performance or features, you can start a piece-by-piece transition to discrete components by re-purposing the AX88U as an AP and adding in an ARM or x86-based firewall running whatever OS you prefer (pfSense, OpenWRT, Untangle, etc.). If wireless takes a dive on the 88U after that, rip and replace entirely with a purpose-built AP, optionally PoE powered via a gigabit PoE injector or PoE switch for better location/orientation.

If you just want to go discrete right away, I'd run OpenWRT or pfSense on a low-power x86 embedded box off Amazon, or a cheap thin client or SFF PC with multi-NIC Intel card off eBay, then wire in whatever 4x4 AP you like, optionally something purpose-built or controller based. The other route might be UniFi, although you must understand it's not a like-for-like swap between the likes of an 88U and a UDM -- the former being very over-amplified, the latter being much more tight of a broadcast, meant for scaling APs in numbers at low power. It may work well enough, though, for just 1500 sf, again depending on layout and materials.

Thanks for the advice. Maybe 88U with Merlin is a good idea.

I do have a home server that's completely under utilized - Intel 9900k (8 core) with 32 GB of RAM running Ubuntu. Only challenge is that it's mini-ATX so fitting another NIC in there would be tough, and I'd need a separate switch since I have 7 wired devices. How much better would the config and monitoring experience be with pfSense vs. 88U+Merlin?

Edit: I should mention that I want to setup several VLANs to segregate each home automation hub and my home network - possibly 4-5 VLANs.

 

[Trip]

How much better would the config and monitoring experience be with pfSense vs. 88U+Merlin?

Depends somewhat on what you're looking for, but in general, it's a pretty stark difference. pfSense, for one, is BSD-based, and beyond that fully exposes its network stack and offers a lot more extensibility with its package catalog. Merlin is much more limited in its ability to access the entire Linux networking stack, even with script extensions, for which there are also fewer types/numbers on offer (they do seem to be growing, though...). pfSense also has 16 years of stability behind it, focused on a single x86 dev train. AsusWRT, well, they keep a lot of the core distro the same, but they have to start anew on certain processes and packages every time they change SoC generations, causing the alphaware-betaware-ghostware cycles that are inevitably the standard in the consumer segment. It's the main reason why so many, myself included, just choose not to even deal with those products. Why do the dice roll when you can simply avoid it, presuming you have the time/resources/skill.

Edit: I should mention that I want to setup several VLANs to segregate each home automation hub and my home network - possibly 4-5 VLANs.

Now that changes things. Based on that requirement alone, you're going to want VLAN-native gear straight away. The only way to get that on consumer gear is to load third-party firmwares that support VLANs, such as DD-WRT, OpenWRT or Tomato. That being said, you may still be dealing with instability by going that route and of course you won't get any support from the OEM for your VLAN endeavors, not like you will with gear that has VLAN support out-of-the-box -- ie. small-business, enterprise and/or community-grade. If you want to start with a more converged control plane for ease-of-use, you could go all-UniFi or all-Cisco RV/SG/WAP, the limitation with them being their WAN/gateway solutions. Neither are as robust or extensible (officially, anyways) like pfSense or OpenWRT are, or as a corporate firewall distro like Sophos UTM, would be, so if you really want the ability to run anything on your gateway with how you see fit, then the best option for you would probably be a x86-based gateway, plus UniFi or Cisco SG/WAP for switching and wireless with a single control plane (UniFi is the way more integrated of the two). If upgrading your 9900K box is more of a pain and a single point of failure than you feel like dealing with, then a discrete low-power box isn't the biggest deal in the world (Qotom/Protectli or even SuperMicro 1U short-depth chassis).

Hope that helps.

 

[tipstir]

Thoughts on the UniFi Dream Machine Pro?

$379 buy it seems to have quad core in there. Expandable. You can do a lot with that router I see. You have options but get the optional switch as well. save on the router to manage other devices.

 

[GoodNetGear]

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

After fighting bitterly and unsuccessfully to virtualize Untangle on my home server, I ended up reusing an old PC (4 GHz/4 core, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) for a bare metal install.

To that, I added a 150 watt 8 port PoE+ UniFi switch and a UniFi UAP-AC-HD.

Untangle is great so far - plug and play with lots of customization and helpful reports. Only issues I ran into is that 1) the fast boot setting on my PC was causing it to incorrectly report a corrupted HD, and 2) I was getting invalid certs for my NGINX/letsencrypt setup until I switched the admin ports off of 443 and 80.

I’m even more impressed by the UniFi hardware and software - truly first class. After some rf scans and tweaking, the UniFi HD provided 100 mbps greater throughout than my prior Linksys. I hear UniFi is not as configurable as something like Untangle, pfsense, or Sophos, but I think it’s so slick. Almost makes me want to buy a UDM Pro - so I did for my parents

 

[coxhaus]

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

After fighting bitterly and unsuccessfully to virtualize Untangle on my home server, I ended up reusing an old PC (4 GHz/4 core, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) for a bare metal install.

To that, I added a 150 watt 8 port PoE+ UniFi switch and a UniFi UAP-AC-HD.

Untangle is great so far - plug and play with lots of customization and helpful reports. Only issues I ran into is that 1) the fast boot setting on my PC was causing it to incorrectly report a corrupted HD, and 2) I was getting invalid certs for my NGINX/letsencrypt setup until I switched the admin ports off of 443 and 80.

I’m even more impressed by the UniFi hardware and software - truly first class. After some rf scans and tweaking, the UniFi HD provided 100 mbps greater throughout than my prior Linksys. I hear UniFi is not as configurable as something like Untangle, pfsense, or Sophos, but I think it’s so slick. Almost makes me want to buy a UDM Pro - so I did for my parents

You are on your way to a solid network. It will be much better than any consumer setup. Even more secure than my network. I turned off my rack system so I have no way to run Untangle any more.

If you want to run a UDM PRO router Untangle will run in transparent bridge mode behind the router. It needs to be installed that way. I ran Untangle behind my Cisco router for years. The UDM PRO can not match Untangle's security so without Untangle you will be running at a lower level of security.