Best wireless router for range?

[ngerasimatos]

I have gone through about 10 wireless routers and cannot seem to find one that provides enough wireless coverage in my home that is satisfactory.

I have a wireless access point in the basement attached to my SSL VPN router which is dedicated to the basement only. This works fine and I do not want to bother it.

One the middle floor we have the primary wireless access point/router which needs cover both the middle and upper floor. Home is about 2000 sq ft in total. I have tested wireless range extender/repeaters and such but am not happy with them. The home is a 1946 Cape Cod and the walls are lath, plaster, and wood. The wireless router resides in the office on the middle floor, not the most ideal location as the office is in the front of the home and not centralized but I don't really have any choice.... Its a long story.

The one wireless router that seemed decent was the ASUS RT-87U with custom firmware which allowed me to increase the power output, but I was nervous that 1: I am not within compliance and 2: the unit would burn out or have a shorter life span.

I have seen a ton of wireless router reviews and they always talk about throughput but not necessarily about range. I also have looked across NewEgg and Amazon trying to find people who are in the same situation as myself but doesn't seem like people are so concerned with overall range, just throughput. Throughput is obviously important but if I cannot even get a stable connection in my bedroom while using my tablet in bed what's the point?

Anyway, does anyone have suggestions? The most recent routers I tried were the Linksys EA9200 and the TP-Link Archer C8, C9 and the Google OnHub.

Thanks!

 

[Nullity]

You may simply need to use multiple, wired APs.

Have you checked the main site to see what devices have the best range?

The WiFi clients in your house, mostly phones and tablets?

 

[ngerasimatos]

You may simply need to use multiple, wired APs.

Have you checked the main site to see what devices have the best range?

The WiFi clients in your house, mostly phones and tablets?

Inworn from home as does my girlfriend. There is a combination of devices.... 3 Chromecast, 3 laptops, Apple TV, 2 tablets, an Arlo wireless camera unit with 4 cameras, an ADT Pulse system and multiple cellphones . We mainly have connectivity issues on the second floor.

The primary floor has good reception though the Chromecast in the living room sometimes has issues. Unsure if its my network or the provider though as its intermittent and always on the same channels. The one in the kitchen seems to work fine butnit also is a straight shot to the router with nothing blocking it.

The primary floor also is where my office is but I use a hard line to the VPN router in the basement. I sometimes wnader around the house though when I get stir crazy or I am on conference calls. Walking helps me concentrate.

The upper floor has an office as well with a Chromecast.

The upper floor is where the master bedroom is as well, which has poor coverage.

I have the entire home wired with CAT6 and was hoping to find a decent wireless mesh solution. We use Meraki at work and they handoff between one another so there is no connectivity drops. Seems the home market doesn't really have anything like this ezcpet for one brand and they are rated poorly.

You mention using multiple APs. That would work but they all need to have the same SSID as indint want to have dedicated APs for each area.

 

[Nullity]

You can do single SSID or multiple. I would do multiple, since you can manually choose but the client device can still automatically switch, if it chooses.

With a single SSID, you will not be able to manually choose a certain AP, so if the device chooses the wrong AP, there is nothing you can do.

Really depends on your devices and whether they choose wisely or poorly.

 

[ngerasimatos]

Any suggestions of a non commercial mesh network?

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

 

[coxhaus]

I use 3 Cisco's small business wireless WAP321 units on 5GHz 40mhz wide. They have single point setup which allows my wife to walk around the house using Apple's FaceTime and not drop a call. They work together sharing 2 SSIDs across all 3 units one being guest.

PS
There is a lot of previous discussion on this. Try search.

 

[stevech]

Any suggestions of a non commercial mesh network?

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

Use APs.
Don't attempt using mesh.

I use $35 ASUS router/APs set to AP mode. More than adequate for the speeds that tablets and phones need.

 

[ngerasimatos]

Right. But you use multiple SSID and then have to manually connect as you move though the home. Yes? What models are you using?

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[Nullity]

Right. But you use multiple SSID and then have to manually connect as you move though the home. Yes? What models are you using?

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

Most WiFi clients automatically connect to any available WiFi AP, regardless of SSID, assuming that AP has been added.

When you get home, your devices automatically connect to your WiFi, right?

 

[ngerasimatos]

I guess my point is. If I am upstairs and connceted to the AP there and I got to the main floor it won't switch to a different AP without me telling it to. Which will result in a disconnect and reconnect. Thus my VOIP calls will drop and my VPN as well.

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

 

[Nullity]

I guess my point is. If I am upstairs and connceted to the AP there and I got to the main floor it won't switch to a different AP without me telling it to. Which will result in a disconnect and reconnect. Thus my VOIP calls will drop and my VPN as well.

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

Ah. Right. You could mitigate that, depending on the protocols, or you could do single SSID for seamless handoff. Quite a few choices and drawbacks go with any choice.

 

[ngerasimatos]

Yeah. I guess I'm just spoiled by commercial wireless APs. If I could find a good deal on some Meraki APs I would buy them and mesh the whole home. Sigh.

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[Nullity]

There are respected people around here that advocate the single SSID, and have few troubles, but it is really client/AP dependant. (I think Apple products do well?)

If it what you want, go for it. You can always just switch to/from single/multiple SSID.

or, ya know, you could just throw money at the problem until it goes away...