Pro-sumer WiFi 6/6E routers with support for VLAN, VPN, SSH, and some custom firmware

[Tech9]

Omada or consumer ?

Indeed. Proper or disposable.

 

[Digilog]

Omada or consumer ?

2 ER605 wired routers, wireless: 2 archer c54 and 2 AC1200 and two locations so its not the install at one location.

 

[degrub]

What was the issue with the ER605 ? power adapter ?

 

[Digilog]

What was the issue with the ER605 ? power adapter ?

Even with changing power adapters, the router would stop working (freeze) after being connected for a certain period of time. Its temperature related it seems, but I decided to go a different route with a router instead of re-flowing the solder to see if it would fix it. But two wired routers bought 6 months apart from two different vendors going out possibly over poor soldering was enough to decide to not use this brand anymore.

 

[Tech9]

ER605 is quite popular entry-level Omada router. The issues you had with it are not common.

The AIO Archer routers you have experience with are under $100 pieces of disposable hardware.

 

[Digilog]

The AIO Archer routers you have experience with are under $100 pieces of disposable hardware.

One day I'll open up those wifi routers to see what went wrong in them. But since they were cheap routers they might have just installed some poor quality capacitors or its just poor soldering. Because if everything is built up properly, it will last for years.

 

[Tech9]

TP-Link is perhaps the largest home networking equipment vendor in the World. You have the option to choose other vendors based on your experience, but they are probably doing something right, up to the extent other vendors are copying the marketing strategies in an attempt to catch up.

 

[Digilog]

TP-Link is perhaps the largest home networking equipment vendor in the World. You have the option to choose other vendors based on your experience, but they are probably doing something right, up to the extent other vendors are copying the marketing strategies in an attempt to catch up.

A lot of these OEMs come and go out of the computer market scene. Asus and Gigabyte have been the leading consumer brands because of their build quality consistency. But that is computers and not networking items. So if I consider going with those, I would look at how the other customers are either enjoying or disliking the product. Ubiquity products was the OEM I professionally installed, but I don't want to pay a premium price for it because they are not much different than the others other than having a handful of parts I can swap out for $20 and a couple of hours of time. A lot of "disposible products" are the same inside, just built with cheaper passive parts.

 

[Tech9]

Ubiquity products

The OP budget is around $200. I have nothing to recommend in this range except a few AIO home routers.

Are there any WiFi 6/6E routers within $200 range

Ubiquiti is out of question - UCG-Max alone starts from $200, single U7-Pro with PoE+ injector is about $200 more. Custom scripts on it are not recommended, it will do VLANs and VPN very well, Network Application has plenty of configuration options... but 2x above the budget.

 

[Tech Junky]

@SDF07S

If you really want all of your checklist items you should consider splitting off the WIFI into an AP and concentrate on the router side for the must have items. APs for 6/6E are fairly cheap ~$130 and they tend to work better than the AIO approach due to more room for the components which means better coverage.

Finding a non-wireless router should be easier if there wasn't so much consumer junk out thee but, it can be done. Or you could go DIY or with an appliance like minisforum type boxes. qotom topton

qotom is probably the easiest with the multiport nic built in. While it's not OOB setup it will do more than the off the shelf consumer junk. You'll be able to hit line rate even with a VPN enabled if using WG and possibly even with OVPN. You'll have the option of using the "sense" options or go with a vanilla *nix install and configure a few items to get up and running. DIY *nix might take a half hour to configure the first time and then you just leave it alone unless you want to run updates or upgrade the kernel weekly.

 

[Tech9]

None of this fits the $200 budget though...

 

[Tech Junky]

None of this fits the $200 budget though...

Obviously not set in stone since they mentioned a $300 option already. Reality is $200 won't get you there for all of the wants and to actually be happy when the return period has expired.

 

[Digilog]

One option is getting a $75- $150 wifi 6 mini pc and installing opensense, pfsense or ipfire. When you want to upgrade plug in a wifi 7 interface.

Looking at the prices of wifi, they are overpriced to some extent.

Btw, I think running a VPN server on the router is inefficient considering its using the router's processor that is tasked as a firewall/router. VLAN is another as it should be deployed in the switches of the network wiring. So when you change the router you don't have to resetup the entire network.

 

[Tech9]

One option is getting a $75- $150 wifi 6 mini pc and installing opensense, pfsense or ipfire.

This option has limitations, extra cost attached and often requires DIY skills.

- this cheap mini PCs rarely have more than one NIC and faster than Gigabit
- good internal Mini PCIe NICs are hard to find, mostly Realtek, extra cost, DIY
- needs separate switch because of the above and better managed, extra cost
- if run as router on a stick with VLAN WAN/LAN there is throughput limitation
- client Wi-Fi adapters are low power usually around 14-16dBm, not a good AP
- client Wi-Fi adapters can't do dual-band simultaneously

May be a good toy to play with for me, you or Tech Junky, but not a good option for someone coming from an AIO home router. I've run pfSense a on single NIC HP Elitedesk mini PC for about 2 years, works very well with a managed switch, but even initial configuration is not for everyone.

 

[Digilog]

May be a good toy to play with for me, you or Tech Junky, but not a good option for someone coming from an AIO home router. I've run pfSense a on single NIC HP Elitedesk mini PC for about 2 years, works very well with a managed switch, but even initial configuration is not for everyone.

Looking at the hardware, they purposely engineered the wifi7 PCIe cards as clients only. Because I need 4 lanes to effectively service it. So even if I toggle the controller it into router mode, its not going to be able to service many connections on a PCIe x1 slot much less at full speed.

But this Kit from Bananna Pi looks good. But I would beef up the cooling just a little:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFCTLXJC?tag=snbforums-20

But this wifi6 kit would fit the budget @$150:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLVF9697?tag=snbforums-20

 

[Digilog]

I've run pfSense a on single NIC HP Elitedesk mini PC for about 2 years, works very well with a managed switch, but even initial configuration is not for everyone.

I haven't test drove the Pfsense or Opensense, but looking at the screen shots reminds me of the Zyxel routers that have cluttered and slightly disorganized menus. I run IPfire, but I had to end up putting on my old Linux developing hat, write a couple of enhanced drivers. I manually patched my ipfire installation with the unreleased stable kernel, but in a few weeks, they are going to incorporate it into ipfire once its certified its a LTS or "Long Term Stable" version. I like the simplicity they went with however, I know what I'm getting into because I used to run a Linux gateway server and manually setup iptables, bind9, ubound, and UFW into a router and know a few things to check and enhance under the hood. All of these are a little bit difficult to set up the dev enviroment and you end up tieing up a whole computer over getting into dev work. I was looking at the way they wrote sens BSD router software, which did turn me away from it because of the methology they took in writing the interface. I'm not bashing PHP, but their usage of it in the structure they chose can lead to some potential bugs and security holes. IPfire isn't perfect either, but their authors have found out how annoying I am when I point out the flaws they wrote for themselves to fix.

I could have written a firewall front end and managed the OS modules these router software uses. But I'm lazy so I try what others came up with and programming is more of a non-schooled learned skill for me as I am an electronics tech that branched into computer repair, natworking, and assisted hardware electronics engineers in the past. So I'm considered a hardware guy more than a software and had to learn software and its interection with hardware under the hood.

 

[Tech9]

I haven't test drove the Pfsense or Opensense, but looking at the screen shots

We have nothing to discuss about it if your opinion is based on screen shots.