Request: I’m looking for something with high reliability rather than high speed. It needs to support 30+ devices.
Additional information: My house is about 30m (100ft) long, and the internet comes in by ethernet at one end of it. I’m happy to use a Wi-Fi extender if needed.
Context:
I’ve been having issues with both my current and previous routers. Devices are randomly unable to communicate over the network for several seconds at a time. Both ethernet and Wi-Fi are affected.
I live in Australia, so even the slowest router should be more than fast enough.
I have a large number of automated devices that need to stay connected at all times - even 5 second network dropouts are difficult to deal with. Internet dropouts are handled gracefully.
Any suggestions are gratefully received.
I’ve been using Linksys E4200’s with (Fresh)Tomato firmware for about 10 years now. Recently one failed and I think, due to all the claims about new wifi “versions”, the more modern devices should provide better performance, so I’ve been reading some stuff every now and then and looking for a new setup.
People with knowledge ™ who I semi-trust all seem to point at different devices for the wired and wireless part. Some even say you should split the router from the switch (so you can do a managed switch with vlans and stuff) but I will never use any of that and even my E4200’s can handle vlans just fine. I do get that using dedicated access points has its advantages but it does get quite a bit more expensive.
On the other end, a lot of brand names are now using Chinese chips in their routers and devices like the GL.iNet MT6000 seem to be one of the current favorites on the openwrt forums (and seems to be a very powerful device). I think I’m still going to go for a separated setup but I’ve got no clue which devices yet.
Fwiw, Louis Rossmann recommends some things.
I like the idea of modularity. If I’m going open source, I may as well make everything modular and upgradable. Even if the whole system won’t last for life, I won’t be throwing out an entire device to upgrade just one part.
Thanks for the link. I haven’t seen anything quite so detailed and helpful before.