Blackfriday Router, NordVPN

[Birnir]

Hello

I recently learned that my ISP allows me to buy my own router and they will turn of the router in their box to allow me to connect one. I live in a fairly large house in two floors and i have not been happy with the Wifi coverage, from the ISP router. i have a 500/500 line into the house and i have a cat 6 into every room (computer&Tvs), so only thing that's running on Wifi is actually mobiles and tablets.

But i have a Nord VPN account and i would love it if i can use it directly on the router instead of running clients on my units. I have also some interest in adopting AX but, the more i read on this forum the less i feel its a good idea at this point. I have a low tolerance for dropouts, so i would like a stable router.

I am bit partial to Asus, but i am wondering which one i should pick up ? AC5300 or AX11000 vs RT-AC86U or RT-AX88U. I think i will have to use the mesh function to get the cellar wifi up and running but i dont know enough about that to choose. cellar is about 600 square feet and the house about 1500 square feet.

 

[L&LD]

Your top two choices should be the RT-AC86U and the more expensive RT-AX88U. The RT-AC5300 is just too old and outclassed today to consider it anymore.

If you're able to do a simple return, start with the cheapest router and if it doesn't perform up to your expectations in a couple of weeks, return and buy the more expensive option.

With a smaller area that you want to be covered, I can't see how the RT-AC86U can disappoint.

RT-AC3100 Report https://www.snbforums.com/threads/s...-go-with-the-rt-ac1900p-v3.34748/#post-281391

See the thread above for my experience with the router that was replaced by the RT-AC86U for most of my customers (and for me personally too, even though my space is much smaller than what the post describes).

 

[Trip]

I would hold off on AX gear until we're well past draft 1 and there's plenty of product out there in the wild that can reliably deliver and take advantage of AX-only features (OFDMA, BSS coloring, TWT, uplink resource scheduling, etc.). That's probably late-2020 at the earliest. Until then, stick to proven AC Wave 2 gear. You're not losing much, if any, real-world benefit by doing so, plus you're avoiding the betaware.

With a total of 2100 square feet to cover, I would think that an all-in-one of requisite quality, placed centrally, would stand a good chance of giving you enough bandwidth at the edges. The K.I.S.S. method would be an AC86U running Merlin. If you're skilled enough, a slightly better piece of hardware would be a Netgear R7800, but only if you can install and setup OpenWRT, as the stock firmware leaves much to be desired. OpenWRT should also support WireGuard, which is offered by NordVPN, I believe (albeit still experimental and largely unaudited).

If you think you may still need two or more separate broadcast locations, you may want to look into a mesh-capable product. You could try Asus AiMesh, but I would recommend only via wired backhaul in a base+AP setup. For a pure mesh, I would stick to a purpose-built product like a Netgear Orbi (tri-band Orbi only) or more pro-level gear with something like Ubiquiti UniFi plus an EdgeRouter ER-4.

 

[dosborne]

cellar is about 600 square feet and the house about 1500 square feet.

Although it can be used as a very basic starting point, square footage is almost useless as a coverage indicator. There are way too many variables. Construction materials, reflective surfaces, neighbouring networks and other sources of interference, quality and orientation of antennas, frequency band, etc. The quality of the client devices is a huge factor as well..

Best strategy: adaptability

See how a centrally located router performs. If a single router doesn't work, (after trying different channels and all the other configurable stuff), then either split a pair evenly within your coverage zone or add access points in the weak areas.