Renewed / Referb - Stay away or great way to save some cash?

[quick4321]

I'm looking to purchase two routers. I have 20 years experience in Infosec and routing/switching so I feel like I have a decent grasp of the technology even though I can't decide on what to purchase. Requirements and nice to have are : Mesh the routers with the main in my office and second in the bedroom. The main will have attached storage and the second will be in the bedroom to make sure my wife has decent signal. I have a lot of IOT in my smarthome so capacity must handle all devices. I figure the bedroom device doesn't have to be anything special but the chipset should match the main device to ensure the mesh runs well. I'm looking at the ax-rt88u pro as my main and a smaller AX-rt1800 or 3000 for the bedroom. I'd like to keep the price under 300 if possible. What are your thoughts on referb / renewed devices from Amazon? Am I throwing away my money? What would you suggest for my scenario. I have a 1300 sq ft condo with 1 gig fiber all one level but all neighbors have wifi too so I'm sure the bandwidth is congested.

 

[Tech Junky]

Refurb/resale is nice with a 90 day return period. My current mobo was a return and the only issue was they didn't upgrade the uefi to make it work properly. Got it for $160 instead of retail over $300.

 

[bbunge]

I've gotten two Asus routers from Amazon refurb. Both worked well for the testing. I did then sent them back. AX86U Pro would be good for the router and just about any other Asus AX for the node. Make sure the node is not EOL like the AX68U. If having VLAN on the node is important make sure you have an AX "Pro" node.

 

[tiddlywink]

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[degrub]

How many is a "lot" of IOT devices ?
They typically don't use a lot of bandwidth and do prefer the 2.4GHz band which is the most congested.
If more than 50 IOT devices, then i would consider SMB gear such as TP-Link Omada router and 1-2 low TX power APs. Designed to handle more clients than typical consumer gear and to use more APs for coverage rather than blast out and cover with one device.