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Router suggestions and maybe some advise wanted

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ecktt

Occasional Visitor
I have an ISP provided Arris TG1672G router+modem with the wifi locked ON and an Asus RT-AC56U in AP mode (I really hate this router but that's another story) next to each other trying and failing badly to cover inside and outside of a 2 story concrete and steel house taking up over 2/3 of a 50' x 100' lot. For whatever reason, my neighbours give me better wifi coverage than my own equipment. I started looking at wifi 6 and mesh solutions. The Eero Pro 6 looked like the jack of all trades and was ready to pull the trigger but then I happened upon Easymesh standard while combing the Amazon Prime deals today. Should I lock myself into a proprietary mesh network when there is a vendor *neutral solution? I rather not. What would yall recommend for total coverage, ability to stream 4K x264 movies from a NAS and 250/15 Mbps internet connection? Initially, the devices will have to link wirelessly but I do have plans to pull cat6 copper to most rooms. bound points if the AP can supply ethernet ports and I can get a prime day deal on it.
 
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Lets go one step at a time. Why do you have an AP next to a router with Wi-Fi enaThe house is not currently
The house is not currently wired with any network cable. Probably won't be till my country comes out of lockdown. So the only way to link them is with a short network cable.
 
The AP must be placed in area with weak ISP router Wi-Fi coverage. Two Wi-Fi routers next to each other, especially working on the same/close channels, make Wi-Fi only worse. They fight with each other, in simple words. Use one of the two, not both in the same time. You need wires in your reinforced concrete house. Wireless "mesh" systems may or may not work reliably for you.
 
The AP must be placed in area with weak ISP router Wi-Fi coverage. Two Wi-Fi routers next to each other, especially working on the same/close channels, make Wi-Fi only worse. They fight with each other, in simple words. Use one of the two, not both in the same time. You need wires in your reinforced concrete house. Wireless "mesh" systems may or may not work reliably for you.
The Asus is on the least populated channel (9) and the routers are in the location where the ISP terminated the line. There is little to be done to fix that right now. As originally mentioned, the Arris Wifi is locked ON, Channel Auto (Wifi analyser app says it's 6). That's how the ISP rolled them out. That said, handing over from one SSID to another would not have been graceful. I once tested with a 25 ft network cable to relocate the Asus router 2 rooms down through open doors, to leverage both wifi. In the few instances where the Arris was better than the Asus signal, I had to manually switch the networks on my phone since it would not auto switch and the signal was so bad by that point the Teams/Whatsapp/Signal/etc call was dropped long before. This behaviour was consistent with a Moto g(7) and a Samsung Note 5. In any case, the RT-AC56U had a day one problem and Asus refused to give me support in English. I managed to get around the issue by running it in AP mode. I've tried various versions of Merlin, OpenWRT (no 5G support) and Tomato (router became inaccessible) over the years to fix the bug but have had no success. This RT-AC56u router is a lemon.
 
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Any chance to contact your ISP and ask them to "unlock" this modem/router? Modem Bridge is ideal, DMZ is acceptable. You can go with many different wired and wireless solutions, but you have to solve this problem first. What's the budget for the entire project?
 
Any chance to contact your ISP and ask them to "unlock" this modem/router? Modem Bridge is ideal, DMZ is acceptable. You can go with many different wired and wireless solutions, but you have to solve this problem first. What's the budget for the entire project?
I've asked but FlowTT (is the ISP btw) have a separate VLAN that gives free wifi to all their customers wherever FlowTT routers are and so they won't turn off the radio. A previous modem allowed me to turn off the wifi radio but it didn't make much difference if any at all.

Every time I update or try a new firmware, I also try Bridge mode. The RT-AC65U never picks up the public IP with either Aggressive or Normal settings. A cheap 10 USD D-Link router I bought at the same time as the RT-AC56U works fine with the Arris Bridge mode. That is one of the reasons I consider this RT-AC56U a lemon.

Looking to spend less than 300USD initially and expand as necessary. I already have a 48 port Netgear switch, cat6 cables and keystone plates but I have to wait till lockdown is over and things settle down before someone can fish the cabling before I terminate it. Either way, that Asus has to go for something faster and better. This is why the Eero Pro 6 looked so appealing to me; right up until I found out about Easymesh.
 
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in my case the only Mesh solution I a happy with is UniFi that is not expensive solution for home user. When I project new router solution for home I want to have all device the same companies.
not sure if EasyMesh will be perfect solution as:
1. Example of Asus AIMesh as it have challenge to be stable with the same routers or the same company routers even
2. Why different router supplier would like to add option to implant different router/AP if now you can buy it from them
3. It is good for small not well recognized companies to sell those routers/AP as part of system.
4. How you want to diagnose which different companies router/AP is not working correctly. Form my work and different business segment if anything is wrong each supplier trying to convince it is not their fault.
5. I can understood easymesh for big companies etc ( dozen, hundreds AP not all buy in the same time because company/p lace grow etc) but for home where you have main router and few AP from one supplier why you want to complicate all.
 

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