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Sub $200 router or Mesh WiFi Router?

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Looking to finally upgrade my N66U because its been lacking coverage in my house.


hi

so the n66u wasnt bad wifi coverage wise but the wireless AC stuff is def better due to built in amps and beam forming etc

but

what size house do you have and what are the construction materials etc as the local environmental conditions may be detrimental to any wifi and throwing yet a bigger wireless router at it may not solve the issue

question first why the n66u isnt giving better coverage and if its just the case the n66u doesnt have the power to cover your wifi needs then i suggest you beg , borrow or steal an ac router to test with first and see if it meats your expectations

in my experience if the construction is such that the wifi wont propagate well then nether a bigger honking router nor mesh system will help that is unless you have ethernet runs in place around the house and then the use of wireless access points is the solution
 
Could give a powerline adapter a go as well. When I bought my AC87U I eventually turned my N66U into a 5GHz AP to add extra 5GHz coverage in our house as there are just too many people where I live with 2.4GHz radios. The powerline adapter might give you an opportunity to relocate the router to a better location in your house as well. Smallnetbuilder has some reviews of powerline adapters here: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/rankers/powerline/view
 
You've offered no specifics so I'm shooting in the dark. Many of us don't get the coverage we'd like because we locate our stuff in some corner of the house because that's where our service comes in. If that's your case I'd first try running a longer wire between my service and N66U such that I can relocate the N66U a little more centrally.

Then I'd take a device and walk it around the house to see where the signal's weak and where it's dead. If you're only talking about a few feet here and there then perhaps all you need is a better / more current router. If you've only one definite dead area maybe a router plus range extender and a couple dead areas might call for a mesh. (But, as Pete suggested, there are definite advantages to using wired APs if you can.)

In one of my applications everything worked reasonably well but I did have one definite dead area. Dead to the point where I didn't think a better router would fix it. My walk around tended to confirm it but bosses being bosses he insisted I replace/upgrade the router. When that didn't work I located a range extender where the signal was still OK and used it to feed the dead zone.

For performance I dedicated the 2.4GHz radio of the range extender as a back-haul to the main router and used the 5GHz radio to talk with the dead area clients (which is pretty much a poor man's mesh).
 
All you need is a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter SPF+Ubiquiti Unifi AP AC PRO, or EdgeRouter X+TP-Link EAP330 thats under 200 USD, but thats me.
 
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