Want to upgrade from RT-N66U, used only as AP. Suggestions?

[binarydad]

My N66U has been working just fine and has good range, but I'm (finally) looking into AC wireless. The N66U is only used as a AP, so I only care about performance. I wouldn't mind having more bandwidth and speed throughout the house. I have a mix of N (2.4 and 5) devices as well as some AC phones.

I was looking into some of the mesh systems, specifically the Google Wifi, but it seems that it can't be in bridge mode in order to make use of the mesh capabilities (meaning I would only be stuck with one AP). This may be fine, if it can deliver more performance than the N66U.

Is pretty much any AC router/AP at this point an upgrade from what I have, or are there only certain models that would deliver better performance? Thanks.

 

[heysoundude]

Once you've found a solution, can I have your n66u please?

 

[sugarbear]

I have the same question. I bought a Ubiquiti UniFi (AC-Lite) for upstairs and it is rock solid.

I'm considering Ubiquiti again (likely the AC-PRO) downstairs to replace my RT-N66U that I also use only as an access point. I'm not sure though... it still seems to be performing so well!

 

[binarydad]

I was searching for an answer for this and came across my own question. Bumping this. Any more suggestions?

 

[pege63]

Any of the Ubiquiti UniFi AC-LITE/LR/PRO will do a good job, but i also like my Netgear EX7300 Nighthawk X4 WiFi-AC i use it in AP mode.

 

[MichaelCG]

I came from a N66 to a UAP-AC-LR...there is for sure a speed difference. If you have 3x3 capable clients, you will want to go to the UAP-AC-PRO for the best performance.

I also recently compared the performance of a N66 to an AC66 as a media bridge. In my specific use case which is less than optimal for 5GHz, ISP Router is in basement and media bridge is up on 2nd floor, I went from getting 45-50Mbps to just shy of 100Mbps. So just swapping to an AC capable device nearly doubled my real world throughput.