UniFi Dream Router 7 vs Asus RT-BE88U

[NS156]

Keep the "want" and "need" in balance. Prioritize reliability over speed.

If the Wi-Fi environment is challenging I would look at products like U6 In-Wall. This is a wall plate style AP with 4x extra LAN ports for wired devices. One AP may cover a room or two for Wi-Fi and provide wired connection to local devices. It has GbE ports, but nothing beats the wire for reliability.

Gigabit network will bring down the costs significantly. Matching gateway is £79.00 only (UCG-Ultra), matching 8-port switch with PoE good for 4x APs is £85.00 (USW-Lite-8-POE). If you don't need LAN ports APs start from £79.00 (U6-Plus). If you do need LAN ports the in-wall APs are £140.00 (U6-IW).

Good luck!

Thanks, will do some thinking. I do need LAN ports, but only for one room and I've already set all that to go into the nearby closet where the little 'network cabinet' (A slim wall mounted BESTA with a glass door) resides. I've got a modem and the ASUS router in there. TBH one of the reasons I liked the BE88U was all the 2.5Gb ports because that would save me from also getting a switch for things like transfers between my PC and NAS. Of course, I'll have to split all that up now.

 

[NS156]

I already mentioned this upthread, but: UniFi APs are pretty sweet as long as you can run ethernet cables to all of them. If you have to rely on wireless backhaul then they are less attractive, because they are not optimized for that. They can do it, but performance is not stellar.

I hear you about plaster walls and suchlike, but the truth of the matter there is that all wifi manufacturers are limited by the exact same laws of physics and FCC regulations. It's not the case that one make is going to be a lot better than another at punching through a wall. You're better off going for more APs with smaller coverage areas if you have that problem. If you do follow that advice, UniFi has two advantages over ASUS and other consumer gear: first, they get this idea and are happy to sell you small cheap APs (the $129 U6+ is widely recommended), and second they make it easy to tune the APs' transmit power down to appropriate levels for small-coverage-area usage. Nothing turns your wifi experience into crap faster than an AP blasting out a 30dBm signal when the clients can only answer back at 12-15dBm.

As a real use-case, I currently use 3 UniFi APs running at pretty low Tx power to cover a long narrow apartment, about 85ft x 25ft. I initially tried just two near the ends, but had some poor coverage in the middle; three work better. I don't have plaster interior walls to cope with, just drywall --- but I do have an elevator shaft and some concrete pillars within the floorplan, so it's not exactly wide open. With 3 APs I have solid-as-a-rock service everywhere.

I'm in the UK so not sure what transmit power regulations are like here compared to the US. I can wire them all up no problem. From the cursory reading I am doing, it seems throughput and range are generally better if you can ceiling mount with the dish models compared to the others. If so, that's something I can also do. I imagine one per floor in a central location is probably going to do the trick - like I said, UK. Our houses aren't massive like the US in the first place. They just typically have the additional problems of walls that like to neuter higher frequency signals.

 

[Crimliar]

FYI, most Unifi APs can be set up as Mesh units if needed. I've almost certainly said this many times but I bought my GT-AX6000 dirt dirt cheap, but I'd planned to buy a Mikrotik RB5009UG+S+IN and APs - looking at issues people have with that setup I may have dodged a bullet! If I were buying tomorrow, it'd either be a powerfull ARM OpenWrt box, or a Ubiquity Cloud Gateway Fibre and APs - to keep family happy, probably the latter!

 

[Tech9]

I'm in the UK so not sure what transmit power regulations are like here

2.4GHz up to 20dBm (100mW), 5GHz non-DFS up to 23dBm (200mW), 5GHz DFS up to 30dBm (1000mW), 6GHz up to 24dBm (250mW).