Better Wi-Fi router for a 3000+ sqft range?

[shejan0]

Hello Linus Tech Tips Community, 

 

My family and I have recently moved into a bigger home, from 2690sqft home to a 3465 sqft home with thicker walls. I concurrently have a NETGEAR N300 WNR2000v4 in operation as our home network, however, it is not reaching the far sections of the house and is consistently dropping with 10-11 average devices connected wirelessly. As well it is not able to push the full communication speed of 200Mbps at all (only averaging a 30Mbps with one device hardwired, when the hardwire connection from the modem is ~150Mbps).

 

In essence, I need a router that can cover the full area in 2.4 GHz 802.11n at least 100Mbps (a little bit of alteration should be fine), and 5Ghz with the full speed available for most of the area as well. Cheaper prices would be nice, but if the router is a little bit on the pricy side, I can work with it. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

shejan0

[Slottr]

The Ubiquiti AP's are godlike 

[BobVonBob]

Just about any mesh wifi kit will be able to cover that area without breaking a sweat.

[xreaperx22]

the

12 minutes ago, shejan0 said:

Hello Linus Tech Tips Community, 

 

My family and I have recently moved into a bigger home, from 2690sqft home to a 3465 sqft home with thicker walls. I concurrently have a NETGEAR N300 WNR2000v4 in operation as our home network, however, it is not reaching the far sections of the house and is consistently dropping with 10-11 average devices connected wirelessly. As well it is not able to push the full communication speed of 200Mbps at all (only averaging a 30Mbps with one device hardwired, when the hardwire connection from the modem is ~150Mbps).

 

In essence, I need a router that can cover the full area in 2.4 GHz 802.11n at least 100Mbps (a little bit of alteration should be fine), and 5Ghz with the full speed available for most of the area as well. Cheaper prices would be nice, but if the router is a little bit on the pricy side, I can work with it. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

shejan0

the asus rog rapture that i use is pretty godlike also i love it and it looks cool lol

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/ROG-Rapture-GT-AC5300/specifications/

[kbmy]

The Ubiquiti UniFi NanoHD's work great for the price.

[shejan0]

1 hour ago, BobVonBob said:

Just about any mesh wifi kit will be able to cover that area without breaking a sweat.

What Mesh kit should I get, and how would I go about choosing where to put the nodes?

[shejan0]

1 hour ago, xreaperx22 said:

the

the asus rog rapture that i use is pretty godlike also i love it and it looks cool lol

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/ROG-Rapture-GT-AC5300/specifications/

I am going, to be honest, a $500 router is going to be a little too much even for me, but I do appreciate the offer.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, shejan0 said:

Hello Linus Tech Tips Community, 

 

My family and I have recently moved into a bigger home, from 2690sqft home to a 3465 sqft home with thicker walls. I concurrently have a NETGEAR N300 WNR2000v4 in operation as our home network, however, it is not reaching the far sections of the house and is consistently dropping with 10-11 average devices connected wirelessly. As well it is not able to push the full communication speed of 200Mbps at all (only averaging a 30Mbps with one device hardwired, when the hardwire connection from the modem is ~150Mbps).

 

In essence, I need a router that can cover the full area in 2.4 GHz 802.11n at least 100Mbps (a little bit of alteration should be fine), and 5Ghz with the full speed available for most of the area as well. Cheaper prices would be nice, but if the router is a little bit on the pricy side, I can work with it. 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

shejan0

Well you have several options. 

 

1. Multiple AP's wired up to a central router. (This is the best options) As @Slottr said Ubiquti are the bees knees of AP's.
   1. If Ethernet between the APs and router is not an option then there are alternatives 
      1. Powerline and Moca adapters can be used, but will not be as good as Ethernet. Moca tends to be the better of the two as far as speed is concerned. 
2. Mesh System 
   1. My sister has the Google mesh system and it works well, but she lives in a lot smaller house than you. The google mesh system communicates via a 5Ghz link I think between the main unit and the satellite units. So you would need to make sure you put those in range of that 5Ghz signal. 
   2. From a video Linus did a while back it sounds like many of the ASUS routers now support their mesh standard. Meaning you can just cobble together a network with what ever ASUS router you want, at least the ones that support the AI Mesh system. 
   3. Some of the mesh systems that exist
      1. Linksys Velop
      2. TP-Link Deco
      3. Negear Orbi 
      4. Amped Wireless Ally Plus
      5. AmpliFi (Ubiquti Consumer gear) 
3. Beef cake router
   1. This is probably the shittiest solution because there are no guarantees that one router will do the job. 

I personally dont have much experience  with mesh, My sister and her boy friend were able to set the Google one up on their own. So it has to be easy to do. To me you kinda have to decide on how much you want to spend. Also come to terms that you cant make any guarantees on WiFi performance. So dont set you standards high. 

[shejan0]

20 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Well you have several options. 

 

1. Multiple AP's wired up to a central router. (This is the best options) As @Slottr said Ubiquti are the bees knees of AP's.
   1. If Ethernet between the APs and router is not an option then there are alternatives 
      1. Powerline and Moca adapters can be used, but will not be as good as Ethernet. Moca tends to be the better of the two as far as speed is concerned. 
2. Mesh System 
   1. My sister has the Google mesh system and it works well, but she lives in a lot smaller house than you. The google mesh system communicates via a 5Ghz link I think between the main unit and the satellite units. So you would need to make sure you put those in range of that 5Ghz signal. 
   2. From a video Linus did a while back it sounds like many of the ASUS routers now support their mesh standard. Meaning you can just cobble together a network with what ever ASUS router you want, at least the ones that support the AI Mesh system. 
   3. Some of the mesh systems that exist
      1. Linksys Velop
      2. TP-Link Deco
      3. Negear Orbi 
      4. Amped Wireless Ally Plus
      5. AmpliFi (Ubiquti Consumer gear) 
3. Beef cake router
   1. This is probably the shittiest solution because there are no guarantees that one router will do the job. 

I personally dont have much experience  with mesh, My sister and her boy friend were able to set the Google one up on their own. So it has to be easy to do. To me you kinda have to decide on how much you want to spend. Also come to terms that you cant make any guarantees on WiFi performance. So dont set you standards high. 

I greatly appreciate your words, I do agree that a beefy router is not the best idea, but for me, it is usually the prices, such as @xreaperx22 stated:

23 hours ago, xreaperx22 said:

the

the asus rog rapture that i use is pretty godlike also i love it and it looks cool lol

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/ROG-Rapture-GT-AC5300/specifications/

3

I have been looking at Google's Wi-Fi solution myself, and to me, it seems like the best option for the price, however my family (the ones paying the tab) is one full of engineers, and my father, in particular, is asking if using a Wi-Fi repeater would be a good choice.

 

I believe the answer is no, as the original router would still have to travel and communicate the distance then the repeater would have to repeat the delayed or broken data. Which is why I proposed the Google Wi-Fi solution.

I wanted to personally know, what solution you are using as you seem to have quite a bit of knowledge into Network setups. And what do you think of the repeater system? 

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, shejan0 said:

is asking if using a Wi-Fi repeater would be a good choice.

They cut your bandwidth in half. So not really a good solution. 

 

9 minutes ago, shejan0 said:

Which is why I proposed the Google Wi-Fi solution.

The Google WiFi system works pretty well. My sister has one and it does what it needs. There house is more of a single story rectangle with a detached garage. She has one Unit connected to the modem, one in her bedroom and a 3rd in the garage for the Nest Security camera to use. My sister is not a networking genius and shes able to use the system easily. It has some nicer features such as parental controls, which she uses to turn the internet off on her kids devices at a certain time. She can revoke internet privileges at any time if the kids are being bad. 

 

9 minutes ago, shejan0 said:

what solution you are using

I have a Synology RT2600 AC router. It works well. I get full 5Ghz coverage in my 1300 sqft home which is two story. Not to mention because the router is near the out side wall, I also get good coverage outside and in our detached garage. I cant speak if the router will cover the large area you need, but I think Synology has their own mesh type of system that you can add to the router. The only issue with this router is the fact is around $200.