Need faster wireless than my Eero Pro system that can cover the whole house

[vw-tx]

My Eero pro 3 node setup, and one extra node and we only gets me around 200-300 max around the house, in some places 150 or less. I have 1GB internet, and would like to try and get the most out of it.

Now that I have a S10 plus, that supports AX, I'd like to see about getting something that will do that. Our house is a large spread out one story 2300sq ft house on 1 acre. The router/modem are located on one corner of the house (due to how it's wired and designed), and the opposite corner is the garage and master bedroom which is the area where its weak. We have had other routers in the past and they wouldn't reach the master/garage side of the house well. So we got the mesh system. We had Orbi first, and had too many firmware issues, so we switched to Eero, and it's been solid since.

Now, I read the new Asus AX11000 GT router are a lot stronger and the signal may reach all the way across the house unlike previous ones we've had. Would this be a good buy? Or do you all have other recommendations?

We do not have any ethernet wiring in this house, so we rely heavily on WIFI. We have near 45 devices connected to wifi. Need fast speeds, with reliability and stable connections.

 

[L&LD]

45 devices all connected to the same band,

wirelessly ​

(I assume 5GHz)?

Is making at least one Ethernet run feasible, so as to place the main router or at least an AP in a more central location in the home? If you can run 5 or more Ethernet cables to a better location, a centrally located wireless router will be more stable, more reliable and easier to manage than router + AP's.

I would not recommend the GT version of an Asus router. Reason #1 is because RMerlin doesn't support those models.

A single device that supports draft AX is not a good reason to buy a draft AX router today. All indicators point to 2020 being the right time to buy a finalized AX hardware. (From my understanding, today's AX routers will seem hardware deficient compared to the full meal deal coming in a few short months).

You don't specify which other routers you have tried at your home before.

The RT-AC86U is one of the most powerful routers I have used. Even better than the RT-AC3100 that previously held that honor (please see my signature below for a link to how the 'AC3100 can perform).

The RT-AC86U is also capable of handling 1Gbps ISP speeds much better than my previous routers. It also excels at VPN based workload with reported 100 to 200 Mbps speeds (depending on the VPN provider and settings, of course) vs. the expected 20 to 50 Mbps of previous routers (it has a hardware encryption chip, onboard).

With each wireless band being better suited to a maximum of 32 clients connected at any one time, you may be beyond a single router solution. Unless you consider a TriRadio solution like an RT-AC5300, for example. This will give you two 5GHz radios in a single box and balance your devices between them more ideally.

Do you need a change in your network now? Is professional wiring to relocate the router more optimally an option (even better if you can do it yourself, with similar results)?

Yes, AX is going to be the future (for a while!). But it isn't there yet.

But that doesn't mean that an AX router like the RT-AX88U won't give you better performance than anything you've experienced before, even with your current devices. And particularly if you can put some of those client devices on the 2.4GHz band.

Said another way, the available options are laid out above. How much effort and experimentation in your network environment do you feel like doing now?

 

[Trip]

The real question is how much in money and sweat equity are you willing to invest to get this done? Because it can be done, and done right the first time, but it's going to cost you in both.

First off, it's very likely that repeating and/or multi-hop mesh aren't going to give you the results you're looking for; at least not from the class of gear you're likely going to be buying. So, agreeing with @L&LD, at the very least you need to figure out how to get some wired backhaul to at least 1, if not 2 (or more), AP drops in the places that make the most sense. If that's where the APs are now, great; if that's elsewhere, then so be it. If it can't be proper Cat6, then how about preexisting coax with MoCa 2.0 adapters? Regardless, you're going to want some form of wired infrastructure beyond the ISP drop itself to get near-WAN speed, latency and jitter. Just make the sacrifice and do it. Battle the wife. Ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Whatever. Just get it done. And if not DIY, then via an electrician, or better yet, an A/V or specialty low-voltage shop that makes cabling look like an art form. However it gets done, that piece is critical.

From there, you can upgrade your Eero Pro's to either a higher-end AP system, preferably driven by a business-class PoE switch, or simply go consumer AX all-in-ones set into AP and/or mesh mode. I would go very much for the former, as I have zero patience with rushed-to-market betaware, but that's just me. If budget was absolutely no object, I'd roll Ruckus R730's all day and twice on Sunday. But assuming that idea is hilariously out of place and budget here, which it most likely is, then whatever AX AIO has the least flaky firmware and is within budget.

Put all of that together properly, and you should be seeing high hundreds of MB/s from most AX clients soon enough.

 

[vw-tx]

Yeah, due to injuries with my back, and feet., I am unable to do any wiring myself. So, I was hoping there was a better solution than Eero.

 

[ACwifiguy]

I bought 200ft of bulk cat 6A cable with the appropriate connectors / faceplates. I then hired an electrician to get a second pair of hands to help with fishing wires to the right locations. The cost of the cable and electrician labor was less than $200. I had good experience buying cables from here: https://cables4sure.com/ - All I had to do was strip and crimp the wires - super easy.

Well worth the money to have a wired backhaul. Performance despite my ancient routers is still top notch - my refurbished $40 dd-wrt routers are providing 500Mbps+ throughout 90% of my house.

There are multiple articles on wireless backhaul on this site - BLUF: the performance is going to suffer with any wireless backhaul system. If performance is important to you... Well worth it to go wired no matter what system you pick.

I’d send a network cable to the other side of your house. Your house would probably do great with one access point and one router. Split the SSIDs according to their frequency and have all your faster devices connect to the 5ghz only. They should naturally roam about half way through your house.

 

[thiggins]

Agree with the comments about the need for wired backhaul.

But before you go crazy trying to get gigabit throughput to each client, consider that most streaming services require only 5 Mbps for an HD stream; 20 Mbps or so if you are doing 4K. Even if you're torrenting, that spreads the load among many streams, each far slower than a gigabit.

So the main thing a big pipe brings is higher total capacity, which it appears you have plenty of. Which brings me to ask what problem(s) are you really trying to solve?

Re AX, one device isn't going to provide any advantage. OFDMA is still under heavy development and every consumer router shipping today doesn't have it turned on. (There should be an "OFDMA ready" disclaimer, like there was with MU-MIMO.) OFDMA presents a HUGE challenge for the airtime scheduler so that it doesn't end up causing lower throughput utilization.

OFDMA improves bandwidth efficiency. It doesn't increase range or give you higher link speeds.

Bottom line, focusing on getting high link numbers may not be the right thing to do.

 

[Datalink]

Do you happen to have RG-6 runs in the home that can be used with ethernet to coax adapters? If so, then you could use any cable ports as ethernet ports and park a router in a more central location.

Another idea, since you have a single story home, is to use high gain antenna to give you a greater horizontal range from the router. Simply swapping all of the existing antenna for the following might solve a big chunk of the problem. Just depends on how spread out the home is:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KQ0EN2A/?tag=snbforums-20

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CMWTMSY/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[coxhaus]

The best solution for low latency is always wire. Use as much on wire as you can.