I’m looking for something for the bi-level level house from the 70’s we’re in. it’s probably something like 40ft x 80ft in size. multi-gig would be nice (like the Deco X90) as we will be getting 1Gb fiber soon.
which one did you decide to go with?
why did you choose it?
how big is your home?
how is the performance?
Netgear Orbi. Using it for about a year now. So far it’s working as advertised and no issues. 2 level house approximately 2000 sq ft. The master is downstairs in one corner of the house, the slave is upstairs towards the other end of the house.
I’m using Google wifi and it works pretty well for our 100 sqft house. I have one in the front of the house, one at the back of the house and one on the garage. I have total coverage and a lot of devices connected at once. Plus the Google home app is not bad to diagnose when something is not working, which is rare ime.
The key I found out for good signal is to not place them on the ground because this way you loose half of the signal going into the floor. One is on top of a bookshelf and the other two are on top of desks.
I’ve used the original Google WiFi mesh system for about the last four years, with the rounded plastic “pucks.” One on my ground floor, one upstairs, one in the basement. All on shelves, tables or a dresser to maximize signal, as @Cameleon30 indicated. Our house is about 2,500 square feet, including the finished basement.
The system works flawlessly and fantastically. Used to have all sorts of dead spots in my house and many drops with a conventional router. Also rarely got advertised download speeds. Now I have zero drops, no dead spots and get 10-20 kbps MORE than the advertised speed for which I’m paying.
Get a mesh system. SO worth it.
I went full berserk at my parents place and prepared for a multiple-AP setup (of which exactly 1 was needed).
Setup consists of a Mikrotik hEX PoE and MIkrotik cAP ac. The hEX is configured as a switch providing PoE and Wlan-Controller to the AP.
That one AP is located centrally on the top floor of the house (two story single family home, concrete&brick construction, by estimation 15x20m )
Be aware this solution requires you to run cables to the access point(s). With the better APs, you can run one cable and then passthrough to the next AP. Then again, when you are crawling through the attic anyway, pulling two cables isn’t that much more effort.
This setup is NOT Plug&Play! You need to configure this yourself before installing things to ceilings.
Mesh is boring, so I went with something I could expand should the family need better WLAN coverage in the backyard or something.
Cheap
Perfectly happy with it. Steam In-Home Streaming via 5GHz works flawlessly, via 2.4GHz, the AP is not the limiting factor, my notebook is.
I went with eero pro 6. Very easy setup and very user friendly. Good for up to 1 gig. Great sale going on for them as well.
Mesh works and it removes a lot of the wiring issues…but that does come at a cost, as does anything that is ‘convenient’, LoL!