Have you considered getting a wired router and separate access point? That's what I do. I don't like my router, ERX, it's great, just not what I want. I pair that with a unifi access point. That way I can add more if needed.
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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I had that thought in passing, but I've never managed such a setup and I (perhaps baselessly) assumed it would work out to be more expensive. Also, I've never looked at wired(-only) routers except when I have had to deal with rack-mount ones.
In theory though that could work perfectly. Do you have some starting points for me to look at wired routers, and APs? The Ubiquiti APs seem rather expensive, more than the all-in-one wifi routers I was looking at.
I have no experience with Open WRT, but I can confirm that, TP-Link Archer A7 is working great with DD WRT.
I can vouch for TP-Link wireless products in general. So far I've used 2 routers and 2 usb adapters (even drivers are working fine with Windows 11 and Ubuntu MATE) from TP-Link, and none of them had any problem whatsoever.
Regarding performance of Archer A7-V5, I'm getting full 100 Mbps (my ISP connection speed) through this router on my phone, and this is 3rd router in my setup. First being ISP, then ASUS and then Archer A7.
I'm running Archer A7-V5 for over a year with DD DRT. In fact, I've just upgraded it to July 8, r53221 build right after reading your post. Firmware files for r53221.
Ok good to know! I forgot about ddwrt as well. The Archer A7-V5 seems top of list right now.
The Belkin RT3200 is a pretty popular router for openwrt. It's a Wifi 6 router and you can usually find them cheap on ebay.
For customer router, you can't go wrong with Asus. It has thriving community firmware (AsusWRT-Merlin), which really open up the device without sacrificing usability and the original routers' features. Asus also help with the project and the open source maintainers have full access to the routers original source code. IIRC flashing Merlin doesn't void the router warranty.
The drawback is Asus routers are more expensive than TP-Link. But after owning several TP-Link routers (mainly because they're cheap), I don't recommend them and I think you should spend a bit more money to get an Asus router instead.
If you're interested, buy an Asus router supported by AsusWRT-Merlin (specifically the AX models of you want wifi 6): https://asuswrt-merlin.net/
Thanks for the suggestion. I wasn't aware of AsusWRT-Merlin, which would (in theory) open up ASUS routers. Having said that, and looking at the list on their website and checking prices, it is definitely out of the question. They range from "way too expensive" to "astronomically and absurdly expensive" (some are pushing $600USD).
If your getting a TP-Link router for the purpose of installing openwrt, be extra careful with selecting the router to buy and note their hardware revision. TP-Link has a habit of naming different routers with similar name, so if you're not careful you might ended up buying an incompatible router.
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind!
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