Time to replace my wifi router/ap, suggestions?

[Riash]

About 4-6 weeks ago, lightning struck my place. Had a few things die, and some others are now starting to give out.

Next thing that finally gave up the ghost was my ASUS RT-N66U. It's been a reliable workhorse, but was never quite the same after the lightning strike that took out the FIOS router it was connected to. Today it finally decided it'd had enough and failed.

So now I'm looking for a new WiFi 802.11ac router with good 5ghz range. I live in a crowded apartment complex and 2.4ghz is really not a great idea.

I would be using whatever I got as an access point, and plug it into my FIOS router. I've been looking at the ASUS line again, but heard decent things about Netgear and wanted some opinions.

Here's what I have for clients:

- Two 802.11n laptops (one I could upgrade with a 802.11ac card, the other is getting replaced by Christmas with a MacBook Air/Pro)
- Two iPad Air 2's and two iPhone 6 pluses. All 802.11ac.
- Two Apple TV 3's.
- 802.11n printer (EPSON)
- 802.11n Blu-ray player
- 2015 Samsung Smart TV (I'm pretty sure it's also 802.11n only)
- Three wired PC's, and 1 wired Vonage unit

I don't use any USB ports on the router, I share media from the wired PC's.

Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[sfx2000]

Airport Extreme AC or Linksys WRT1900ac would be more than enough considering footprint and number of devices...

sfx

 

[System Error Message]

consider surge protectors for your electronics and computers. Really helps you save money in a lightning environment. Some like Belkin offer warranty that they will pay for your equipment (up to a certain amount) if it gets destroyed by surge when plugged into their equipment.

 

[Riash]

consider surge protectors for your electronics and computers. Really helps you save money in a lightning environment. Some like Belkin offer warranty that they will pay for your equipment (up to a certain amount) if it gets destroyed by surge when plugged into their equipment.

1 missing surge protector is exactly why I'm in this mess. The lightning came in from outside my apartment and was powerful enough to trip circuit breakers. One surge protector had to be replaced as the protection light went out after the hit, but everything attached to it was and is fine.

However, my FiOS ONT is in the storage closet on the patio plugged into an outlet with -you guessed it- no surge protector. The surge hit the ONT, and transfered to the Coax line, which then hit the FiOS router and the things attached to it. Biggest thing fried was my 2013 i5 computer. So it was basically Outside -> ONT -> Coax -> FiOS Router -> Ethernet -> PC -> Ground.

My ASUS RT-N66U (also plugged into the FiOS Router) started acting erratically a few days later, a factory reset fixed it. A week or so later it starts dropping wifi randomly, factory reset didn't work but changing it's position did. Finally a day ago our video streams started stuttering, and as I was walking to the router the wifi quit. The RT-N66U's lights are on but nobody's home. Can't reach it to do anything with it, repowering it does nothing.

Ah well. Anyway I've looked over the SNB router ranker and decided the NetGear R7000 is the first choice for my needs. I ran out and got one and just finished replacing the ASUS with it.

The R7000 so far is giving me a better signal through my apartment. I even got everything off 2.4ghz (too noisy to be useful here) and onto 5ghz. Everything runs like a champ!

 

[sfx2000]

The surge hit the ONT, and transfered to the Coax line, which then hit the FiOS router and the things attached to it. Biggest thing fried was my 2013 i5 computer. So it was basically Outside -> ONT -> Coax -> FiOS Router -> Ethernet -> PC -> Ground.

Isn't lightning awesome - had something like that happen to me a while back - surge protector was fine, but everything hooked up to coax went kerblamm0 - two STB's and the cable modem, and melted two splitters - I had phone with the cableco, and that was oddly enough unaffected..

cox replaced the STB's free of charge, but I had to eat the modem - just as a pre-caution we replaced coax as the installer was getting some odd numbers during his testing - and he pulled new cable from the street side into my demarc as well - he mentioned that a lot of folks in our little cul-de-sac got blown up by the strike...

Homeowner's insurance covered my costs (had some other damage from the storm as well, so agent and adjuster put it all in one claim).