Another new Wireless router upgrade recommendation request thread

[KenH]

Hello all,

Currently using an Asus RT-AC66U for the last 4-5 years and have been extremely pleased as it has been a solid and stable performer for that time and I get decent coverage around the house (2 story 2700 sq/ft with another 1000 sq/ft basement). However, with the addition of all relatively recent added wifi enabled smart home devices, security cameras, Ring Pro door bell, Echos, along with the many Iphones, Ipads,etc I am approaching the 50+ client mark and I think it is time to upgrade to something that may be able to handle the concurrent use of wifi by many of these devices a little better. A lot of these devices utilize 2.4ghz only so that will still be important to the new router. I do a lot of console gaming and tv streaming all of which are hardwired through switches so wifi will not be a concern for that except in a few rooms. I have a Synology 916 NAS so I was looking at a router that may be able to take advantage of port aggregation. Was about to pull the trigger and buy the Asus AC88U but figured I just post here before I did to maybe get some other input to see if something else might suit me better?

Thanks for the help!

 

[CaptainSTX]

With that many WiFi devices you need to consider adding an AP which in your case can be repurposing your current router as an AP. For best performance you should divide your clients so there are no more than 20 -25 devices at any time using a particular radio on either your router or AP. Has nothing to do with the processor of the router and is all about air time fairness allocation.

Put your IoT devices on guest networks to help segregate them from other networked devices. (You still only have two radios in each router AP and it makes no difference to airtime allocation if a device is on the regular network or the guest network.)

Also the more streaming devices that can be kept on Ethernet the better for overall WiFi performance.

Someone who uses an AC88U will have to tell you about their experience with it. I use an AC1900P.