What to buy for stable WIFI in a large house?

[bjorn66]

Hi!
I have a house with 2 floors, 1100 sqft each and used to use one Archer C7 until the AP broke. Now I use an ASUS RT-66 and I don´t find it stable. I use DENON HEOS multi-room speakers ocer WIFI & Ethernet which must work well. I wonder if buying 2 new C7s, connect them via a cable in between and use one as extra AP is a good choice? Or should I go for a specialized AP like Ubiquite Unifi Lite as extra AP? And Linksys WRT1900ACS as router? I am OK with the set up of the C7 and I found it to be stable when working. I am more interested in network stability than absolute speed.
Or should I go for a mesh network?
I use TVs, iPads, Android phones, Laptops, iPhones on WIFI, but I also have a lot of stuff over Ethernet where possible.
I´m looking forward to Your answer.
Best Regards, Bjoern

 

[hang-the-9]

Access points using WiFi are not very good, you would want a ethernet connection between the access point and the main router. You can also try power line networking to extend the WiFi instead of running ethernet cables around the house. If you have a newer house, powerline is stable enough to use. The Asus router you got is a good model even if it's not the latest.

 

[bjorn66]

Well, I intend to use a cable between router and AP. I think I wrote that? What I need to understand is what possible trade-offs there are using a mesh net compared to a second access point. And also to understand if a top rated WIFI router would be the best secondaty access point compared to e.g. an Ubiquity Lite or similar?

 

[hang-the-9]

Well, I intend to use a cable between router and AP. I think I wrote that? What I need to understand is what possible trade-offs there are using a mesh net compared to a second access point. And also to understand if a top rated WIFI router would be the best secondaty access point compared to e.g. an Ubiquity Lite or similar?

Mesh network is just a topology of the network, not how it's done. A good AP is as good as using a router, although for the top APs they get in the several hundreds of dollars, even more than a good router. Those are business class APs though. Most companies I have been at use the Cisco Aironet. The Ubiquiti stuff is OK, it's thing is easy configuration vs enterprise devices like the Cisco.