Recommendations for Single floor Home Network

[json2001]

New member here and so glad I've found this community. I've been enjoying reading the roundups and all the detail (even if it's over my head in many places).

The roundups have been great, but I'm hoping I could get some specific opinions on my setup and needs for my home network. I need to re-think and overhaul my wireless network at home because I have dead/slow spots in my home and don't want to invest in expanding my current Apple Airport network.

My home:

• I have a fairly sprawling 4,000ish square foot single floor home (ranch with large addition)
• I work from my home office a good bit of the time, so reliability/performance is key
• My home has Cat 6 runs to 3 locations (office in rear of home, media/tv cabinet in the middle of the home, and the master bed room av cabinet in the front of the home)

Current setup

• I have a verizon fios modem/router with wifi disabled that is plugged into a 8 port switch
  • Right now I have 75/75 speeds. But easily see myself upgrading to gigabit in the next 1-2 years and would prefer not to have to invest in new APs when I do upgrade.
• The switch then feeds cat 6 to the locations in my home (see above)
• There is an Airport Extreme in the rear of my home in bridge mode
• There is a regular Airport Express in the middle of my home in bridge mode

I was looking at replacing the Airport APs with 3x Unifi Lites hopefully covering back, middle, and front of home much more completely (all plugged into the hard wired connections). 1 would be ceiling mounted in the office, but the other 2 would live in the AV cabinets (I know this is not ideal, but I'm not ready at this stage to invest more in running additional wiring. Currently my Airport Express lives in one of these cabinets and seems to do an ok job when you're in range.)

Some features I like the idea of:

• Managing/configuring the APs together
• Parental/Time Restricting Features (by SSID is ok enough)
• Guest network

I'm also curious if there is a need and/or benefit to replacing my Switch or the Verizon Modem/Router along with this upgrade.

Is the Unifi a good fit? I was intrigued seeing that it didn't rank so highly in the 2x2 roundup you guys have done. Thanks for any help / suggestions / food for thought.

Thanks in advance. Hopefully I have provided enough detail up front!

 

[thiggins]

You don't need to replace the switch. You'll replace the router when you upgrade service.

DO NOT put the APs in cabinets. Get them out in the open. Use a longer cable and stick them on top of the cabinet.

When you have multiple APs, the range performance of each one matters less.

 

[mreg376]

I have FiOS too. I'll assume you have FiOS TV. If you're not using the FiOS router's wifi, there's no reason to replace it and it should remain as primary router. Whatever model you have is good for your current speed. If you upgrade to gigabit FiOS will give you the G1100 router (or whatever they're using at that time.) The only issue is that since your speed is 75/75, your router might be getting its Internet over coax. That will have to change if you want better wifi. If not already done, you'll have to call FiOS and tell them to activate the ONT's ethernet port. (If you don't have FiOS TV you don't need a FiOS router at all.)

Unless you like to spend money, I think you can start slow. Start with a Netgear X4S R7800, Synology RT2600ac, or Asus RT86U (all about $200), to operate in AP or bridge mode. You're going to use your new router's wifi (and its LAN ports of you wish). Ethernet from the ONT will go to the WAN port of the FiOS router, and then you'll connect your new router by FiOS LAN to your router's WAN or LAN port. The distance doesn't matter, although you may want to start out close to your FiOS router so you can compare the coverage with your FiOS router. Set up your new router in AP/bridge mode and keep the FiOS router's wifi disabled. The FiOS router is primary and will still be assigning all the IP's, and you will be able to set up your new router's wifi once you find out the IP it has been assigned.

The three routers mentioned above have great range. Since you have three ethernet runs, install switches as necessary to run hard wired ethernet to all non-mobile devices that have ethernet ports. This will prioritize wifi for mobile devices and any other devices remaining. Once your new router's wifi is set up, go all over your house and test the wifi, both 2.4Ghz and 5GHz. You might be pleasantly surprised at the range of these routers. If you still have dead spots try moving your new router to one of the ethernet runs, or you can install, on any one of your ethernet runs, another router in AP/bridge mode to extend the network (I'd advise against extending the network wirelessly using repeater mode). Depending on your need for speed and its age you might still be able to use the Airport Extreme for this.)

By the way, routers in AP mode generally cannot configure a true guest network that is isolated from your main network -- the only router that I find can do so is the Synology. If a true guest network is important to you, you may want to start with the Synology.

Btw, if you do NOT have FiOS TV just replace your FiOS router with your new router (there's little procedure you have to go through to free up the FiOS WAN IP), connect the ONT ethernet port to for router's WAN port, and set up the router in regular router mode. Everything else would be the same, and any of the routers will be able to do a guest network.

Hopefully some of this info is useful for you.

 

[json2001]

Thank you both for the replies!

I will check out those routers Mreg especially the Synology.

@tim - I will see how I can get creative with the wiring to pull the APs out from the cabinets. The issue I have is that these are built in cabinets in public/conspicuous areas of the house. I'll see what I can do though.

Thanks folks I appreciate the details and help!

 

[degrub]

Do you have a smoke detector on the ceiling ?
If you get a power over ethernet (POE) based AP, you can install it on the ceiling and run the single cable through the ceiling cavity. Alarm installers are good and will generally do this for a modest fee.
Run the cable to the switch/router and place a power injector between a lan port and the cable if you don't have a POE port on the switch/router. Check the current draw required by the AP and exceed it.

 

[json2001]

Do you have a smoke detector on the ceiling ?
If you get a power over ethernet (POE) based AP, you can install it on the ceiling and run the single cable through the ceiling cavity. Alarm installers are good and will generally do this for a modest fee.
Run the cable to the switch/router and place a power injector between a lan port and the cable if you don't have a POE port on the switch/router. Check the current draw required by the AP and exceed it.

I do indeed have smoke detectors in the ceiling that my alarm company installed. That's a good thought to check in with them for completing those runs for me! Thank you for the tip.