Our only fiber option is Breezeline AFAIK, and TBH the reviews their service elsewhere made me awfully hesitant to give them a chance. They were price-matching Xfinity in terms of speed so there wasn't necessarily any immediate benefit going with them in terms of cost.
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
edited January 18
Honest answer? The router you have is probably fine. You'll get better wireless speeds with an upgrade more than likely, but there's a lot of marketing hype especially when you talk about 4x4, mumimo, and other stuff that hardware companies would love to sell you.
Blue sky? How much do you wanna spend? The AX55 is a decent upgrade for not a lot of money. Did the first one give enough coverage? Do you want to go with a mesh for a larger home? Or do you want to go sicko mode with a more prosumer build?
What does Ubiquiti really get you over TP-Link/Netgear/et al? It does look pretty good spec wise, but do you have any limitations on local configuration like you do on TP-Link (where some stuff gets restricted to their Tether app)?
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
edited January 18
No. Ubiquiti is more in the realm of pro grade, you can configure to your heart's content. If you want to set up multiple VLANs with firewall rules that's absolutely available. I think the only real app-only bit is the initial setup. Once you set it up in the Unifi app you can do everything from your browser.
It's basically like baby's first Dream Machine. If you're not going to go into cameras or a lot of APs or anything it's a great device that will serve the needs of a smaller home really well.
I have a Netgear R7690P (may have the wrong model number) and the wifi was generally shit. So I added 2 Unifi hot spots to my house and added POE injectors.
Set them up via the phone app and they are rock solid.
I have the luxury of being able to run wire to my heart's content, so keep that in mind.
I don't use any Ubiquiti switches or CloudKey; they just work.
I did upgrade to TP-Link mesh stuff about a year ago, but I am honestly a bit tempted by Unifi stuff.
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sponoMining for Nose DiamondsBooger CoveRegistered Userregular
I have a TP link archer AX router and I'm thinking about adding one or two Unifi U6-Lite APs hardwired to the router. Do I need to buy any other hardware to make this work, other than POE injectors? I just want better wifi coverage and seamless switching between APs.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Nope. As long as you can get the wire where you need the AP that's all you need. The AP can be set up with an app pretty easy.
Nope. As long as you can get the wire where you need the AP that's all you need. The AP can be set up with an app pretty easy.
Excellent! Thanks for confirming. I couldn't tell from the website what their cloud keys and cloud gateways were or if I needed one to make this all work.
I did upgrade to TP-Link mesh stuff about a year ago, but I am honestly a bit tempted by Unifi stuff.
So anyway I have a Unifi Express now.
Yessss, follow my path.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
edited March 18
Hey, a question for you guys:
I've recently switched to gigabit internet through Xfinity and I'm not getting the advertised speeds. I'm maxing out at 120 mbps on my desktop and 300 mbps on wireless devices. I'm running a fairly simple setup of my ISP's coax into my cable modem, an ethernet cable from my modem to my router generating a mesh wi-fi network (including a second wi-fi node), and then another ethernet cable from my router to a Powerline wall unit connecting a single desktop.
What am I doing wrong here / how would I go about troubleshooting this? The Arris S33 is specifically listed as an Xfinity-compatible device and should be good for gigabit and more. The router(s) is good for 2+ gbps. The Powerline adapter is similarly rated for 2+ gpbs.
Initial dumb question - if I just have a plain Cat 5 ethernet cable running from the modem to the router, would that show up in reduced bandwidth like I'm seeing? I have no idea if it's a Cat 5E or 6.
SummaryJudgment on
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
edited March 18
Powerline is never going to give you 2Gbit, don't believe the box. Honestly 120mbit is really good over Powerline. You're restricted by the wires in your wall, the circuits in your breaker, other devices in the same circuits drawing power, the phase of the moon.. if you plug them into two outlets next to each other with nothing else on the circuit you might get close to the full speed but I've never seen it.
And 300Mbit is fine for Wi-Fi either over the router or mesh. If you plug your computer directly into the router, see what it gets then.
As for the cable, doesn't matter. At short distances like that, cat-5 can pass gigabit no problem.
The short reason is both options deal with a lot of interference (not 100% but it's the simple reason)
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Is it a ceiling or a % falloff? i.e. if I'm getting 30% (wifi) and 10% (powerline) of gigabit, respectively, if I went to 300mbit would I get 90 and 30mbit, or would I continue to get 300/100 on wifi/powerline?
Can I save a buck by downgrading my bandwidth without compromising my bandwidth bottleneck further?
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Is it a ceiling or a % falloff? i.e. if I'm getting 30% (wifi) and 10% (powerline) of gigabit, respectively, if I went to 300mbit would I get 90 and 30mbit, or would I continue to get 300/100 on wifi/powerline?
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Can I save a buck by downgrading my bandwidth without compromising my bandwidth bottleneck further?
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Maybe to both? I'd worry more about packet loss at that point, which decreasing speeds won't make a difference for. Ideally? Run a wire. I know it's a pain in the ass, but that's the best way to handle the issue.
Is it a ceiling or a % falloff? i.e. if I'm getting 30% (wifi) and 10% (powerline) of gigabit, respectively, if I went to 300mbit would I get 90 and 30mbit, or would I continue to get 300/100 on wifi/powerline?
Can I save a buck by downgrading my bandwidth without compromising my bandwidth bottleneck further?
Even Wifi 6 tops out well below 1Gbps especially in real world tests. I want to say it's 600Mbps but it's a guess.
Powerline says they can do near-Gigabit but in practice it's closer to 100 Mbps (mileage may vary but I'd be amazed at anything above 200).
So in short if you're not going to change your setups, then you can drop your service level
I have the Linksys Velop mesh system in the house now and I'm looking to upgrade to something better (just...in all ways probably).
Any recommendations? I've seen the TP-Link rated pretty well and Unifi comes up a lot, but I'm not sure where to go looking to find something reasonable. Hardwiring isn't on the table, so need to be able to place the APs around the house.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Better in what way? If you can't run a wire then you're going to want to spend on the more expensive mesh systems that have a dedicated backhaul like the Deco X75 pro.
But also, if your Velop system is still working and already has the dedicated backhaul, what are you looking to gain?
I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a dedicated backhaul, which was one of the first things I was looking to gain.
In general, I've noticed that performance hasn't been great overall, and I'm trying to decide how much of that is just an aging system that doesn't have any of the improvements they've made since then versus how much is something that needs just to be moving things arounds. I'm also looking into the idea of if looking into 6G is worth it or not.
Overall, I'm not sure I need to replace things, but I also know that given I've had this system for ~5 years now, I'm suspicious that there's something better out there that I could swap to that handles my pretty normal use case better.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Wi-Fi 6/6e is good, better than 5 in a lot of ways, but you'll see the biggest benefit of you live in a congested area. Five years is pushing it though, yeah, and that's when I start worrying about the radios going.
That in itself is helpful to know. Because it definitely does feel like its a "lately gotten worse" type of problem, so that would match up.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Remember too that you've probably added more devices in those five years. Any iot devices that weren't around before, speakers, newer phones and tablets.. it all adds up, and an older kit is going to have a hard time routing that much traffic.
Hey, question about router antennas; my cats just flipped out at some unknown thing and broke one of the antenna on my gt-ax6000, and it doesn't look like there's really any way to get a matched replacement outside of maybe randomly catching them on ebay or something.
My question is if there's anything fancy under the plastic in them, or if they're just pretty generic antenna? I mean, our wifi is still perfectly fine in the house with the 3 still attached, but the router looks dumb with one side off. But it seems to be a standard antenna slot, could I just screw in any I have lying around (I oddly have many from old wifi pc cards), if I ever run into issues with coverage? There's no magic sauce to them, right, it's just wire or whatever to increase coverage?
If the functionality is still sufficient for us, and there's nothing I'm unaware of that having that one missing is going to cause issues with, I might just glue the thing back together, knowing it doesn't actually work, just so the router looks right.
Hey, question about router antennas; my cats just flipped out at some unknown thing and broke one of the antenna on my gt-ax6000, and it doesn't look like there's really any way to get a matched replacement outside of maybe randomly catching them on ebay or something.
My question is if there's anything fancy under the plastic in them, or if they're just pretty generic antenna? I mean, our wifi is still perfectly fine in the house with the 3 still attached, but the router looks dumb with one side off. But it seems to be a standard antenna slot, could I just screw in any I have lying around (I oddly have many from old wifi pc cards), if I ever run into issues with coverage? There's no magic sauce to them, right, it's just wire or whatever to increase coverage?
If the functionality is still sufficient for us, and there's nothing I'm unaware of that having that one missing is going to cause issues with, I might just glue the thing back together, knowing it doesn't actually work, just so the router looks right.
Your router is 2.4/5.8 dual band, so any $5 basic dual band 2.4/5.8 wifi antenna should just screw on and work, assuming the cats didn't break the antenna port on the router side.
You generally don't want to run without an antenna, you'll get bad performance if it works at all.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
One of my internal hard drives is starting to act up, so now is the time to finalize my plans for setting up a NAS.
My desktop gets internet access through WiFi; I'm not wired in directly to the household router. I run a Plex server on my desktop so we can watch things on the big living room TV. I'd like to run the Plex server off the NAS, though, just so I don't have to have the computer on all the time. I'd also like to share the drive with an FPGA setup I have next to the desktop. If I were near the router I'd just use it as a switch and plug everything in there. If I want everything in the household to have access to this NAS server, should I just pick up a router and use it as an access point? That way everything physically near the server is on the same router and then all everything can gain access to the main house router. Does that sound like it will work?
I'm now thinking that I actually want a wireless bridge since I have no need to repeat the signal wirelessly, I basically want a switch that'll communicate wirelessly with the main router. This Reddit post actually describes my situation pretty accurately, but I'm having a bit of a time finding out whether specific routers support this or not. The main router in the house is a TP-Link. I think this Netgear can do the job, but I don't know if it's better to stay in the same brand ecosystem or not.
One of my internal hard drives is starting to act up, so now is the time to finalize my plans for setting up a NAS.
My desktop gets internet access through WiFi; I'm not wired in directly to the household router. I run a Plex server on my desktop so we can watch things on the big living room TV. I'd like to run the Plex server off the NAS, though, just so I don't have to have the computer on all the time. I'd also like to share the drive with an FPGA setup I have next to the desktop. If I were near the router I'd just use it as a switch and plug everything in there. If I want everything in the household to have access to this NAS server, should I just pick up a router and use it as an access point? That way everything physically near the server is on the same router and then all everything can gain access to the main house router. Does that sound like it will work?
I'm now thinking that I actually want a wireless bridge since I have no need to repeat the signal wirelessly, I basically want a switch that'll communicate wirelessly with the main router. This Reddit post actually describes my situation pretty accurately, but I'm having a bit of a time finding out whether specific routers support this or not. The main router in the house is a TP-Link. I think this Netgear can do the job, but I don't know if it's better to stay in the same brand ecosystem or not.
Wireless bridging support is rather rare in home routers. At least without custom firmware. These days I'd actually recommend a Wifi mesh setup over regular bridging as it will be simpler to deploy, more flexible, and more easily expandable (depending on implementation, bridging may only allow a single remote AP). Get a mesh system where each AP has at least two Ethernet ports, one for the main ISP uplink, one for expansion or direct connect. That way you can just hang a cheap 5 port switch off the second port at any AP that needs more ports. For example, my "base" AP has #1 port for the ISP and #2 for the desktop PC nearby. The AP for the entertainment center has its #2 port connected to a switch. Various things that don't have their own wifi are hardwired to the switch there and the wifi mesh is used for network backhaul to the base unit. I could do the same thing with the third AP upstairs if it were needed.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
One of my internal hard drives is starting to act up, so now is the time to finalize my plans for setting up a NAS.
My desktop gets internet access through WiFi; I'm not wired in directly to the household router. I run a Plex server on my desktop so we can watch things on the big living room TV. I'd like to run the Plex server off the NAS, though, just so I don't have to have the computer on all the time. I'd also like to share the drive with an FPGA setup I have next to the desktop. If I were near the router I'd just use it as a switch and plug everything in there. If I want everything in the household to have access to this NAS server, should I just pick up a router and use it as an access point? That way everything physically near the server is on the same router and then all everything can gain access to the main house router. Does that sound like it will work?
I'm now thinking that I actually want a wireless bridge since I have no need to repeat the signal wirelessly, I basically want a switch that'll communicate wirelessly with the main router. This Reddit post actually describes my situation pretty accurately, but I'm having a bit of a time finding out whether specific routers support this or not. The main router in the house is a TP-Link. I think this Netgear can do the job, but I don't know if it's better to stay in the same brand ecosystem or not.
Wireless bridging support is rather rare in home routers. At least without custom firmware. These days I'd actually recommend a Wifi mesh setup over regular bridging as it will be simpler to deploy, more flexible, and more easily expandable (depending on implementation, bridging may only allow a single remote AP). Get a mesh system where each AP has at least two Ethernet ports, one for the main ISP uplink, one for expansion or direct connect. That way you can just hang a cheap 5 port switch off the second port at any AP that needs more ports. For example, my "base" AP has #1 port for the ISP and #2 for the desktop PC nearby. The AP for the entertainment center has its #2 port connected to a switch. Various things that don't have their own wifi are hardwired to the switch there and the wifi mesh is used for network backhaul to the base unit. I could do the same thing with the third AP upstairs if it were needed.
Ahh, I hadn't considered mesh. TP-Link has a mesh extender with an ethernet port. I think I'm going to try running that into a small standalone switch and get everything connected that way. Ultimately I think I'm going to end up running ethernet through the house from the router (and maybe update the router at some point as well), but the extender will at least get me up and running.
I finally pulled the trigger and got Synology’s RT6600ax to replace my 2 years past end of life Netgear setup. I’m hoping based on my experience with their NAS’s, they’ll support the routers for much, much longer than Netgear, etc does.
So far I’m liking it. Got lot’s of nice features that I probably don’t really need, but fun to have and play with!
One of my internal hard drives is starting to act up, so now is the time to finalize my plans for setting up a NAS.
My desktop gets internet access through WiFi; I'm not wired in directly to the household router. I run a Plex server on my desktop so we can watch things on the big living room TV. I'd like to run the Plex server off the NAS, though, just so I don't have to have the computer on all the time. I'd also like to share the drive with an FPGA setup I have next to the desktop. If I were near the router I'd just use it as a switch and plug everything in there. If I want everything in the household to have access to this NAS server, should I just pick up a router and use it as an access point? That way everything physically near the server is on the same router and then all everything can gain access to the main house router. Does that sound like it will work?
I'm now thinking that I actually want a wireless bridge since I have no need to repeat the signal wirelessly, I basically want a switch that'll communicate wirelessly with the main router. This Reddit post actually describes my situation pretty accurately, but I'm having a bit of a time finding out whether specific routers support this or not. The main router in the house is a TP-Link. I think this Netgear can do the job, but I don't know if it's better to stay in the same brand ecosystem or not.
Wireless bridging support is rather rare in home routers. At least without custom firmware. These days I'd actually recommend a Wifi mesh setup over regular bridging as it will be simpler to deploy, more flexible, and more easily expandable (depending on implementation, bridging may only allow a single remote AP). Get a mesh system where each AP has at least two Ethernet ports, one for the main ISP uplink, one for expansion or direct connect. That way you can just hang a cheap 5 port switch off the second port at any AP that needs more ports. For example, my "base" AP has #1 port for the ISP and #2 for the desktop PC nearby. The AP for the entertainment center has its #2 port connected to a switch. Various things that don't have their own wifi are hardwired to the switch there and the wifi mesh is used for network backhaul to the base unit. I could do the same thing with the third AP upstairs if it were needed.
Ahh, I hadn't considered mesh. TP-Link has a mesh extender with an ethernet port. I think I'm going to try running that into a small standalone switch and get everything connected that way. Ultimately I think I'm going to end up running ethernet through the house from the router (and maybe update the router at some point as well), but the extender will at least get me up and running.
I went with this solution recently. I had thought my old router had the capability to run as a wireless mesh node, but it was only the V2 version of it (sold in the EU). So I had to get a TP-Link mesh extender, ran its ethernet port into my old router that was now setup as an access point, and that worked to bridge my NAS on to my wireless home network again (and room for expansion for other devices).
another +1 for mesh; and if you live in a place where 6GHz has been approved, recommend getting a system (I have a tp-link deco 6e) that supports it. not even so much for future proofing as the ability to have the mesh sit on the 6GHz band all by itself for the best backhaul experience. I pretty much get at least 400/400 anywhere in the house wirelessly.
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SixCaches Tweets in the mainframe cyberhexRegistered Userregular
I’ve had the tplink 6E mesh for about a year and a half now and am very happy with it. So +1 there—I’d never go back to a single router.
another +1 for mesh; and if you live in a place where 6GHz has been approved, recommend getting a system (I have a tp-link deco 6e) that supports it. not even so much for future proofing as the ability to have the mesh sit on the 6GHz band all by itself for the best backhaul experience. I pretty much get at least 400/400 anywhere in the house wirelessly.
The deco 6e was the one I ended up going with and it's been an immediate improvement over my old Velop setup. I'm running less of them too (only 3 to cover everything instead of the 5 I had previously).
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Any thoughts on the router side Shadowfire?
Blue sky? How much do you wanna spend? The AX55 is a decent upgrade for not a lot of money. Did the first one give enough coverage? Do you want to go with a mesh for a larger home? Or do you want to go sicko mode with a more prosumer build?
It's basically like baby's first Dream Machine. If you're not going to go into cameras or a lot of APs or anything it's a great device that will serve the needs of a smaller home really well.
Set them up via the phone app and they are rock solid.
I have the luxury of being able to run wire to my heart's content, so keep that in mind.
I don't use any Ubiquiti switches or CloudKey; they just work.
Excellent! Thanks for confirming. I couldn't tell from the website what their cloud keys and cloud gateways were or if I needed one to make this all work.
So anyway I have a Unifi Express now.
Yessss, follow my path.
I've recently switched to gigabit internet through Xfinity and I'm not getting the advertised speeds. I'm maxing out at 120 mbps on my desktop and 300 mbps on wireless devices. I'm running a fairly simple setup of my ISP's coax into my cable modem, an ethernet cable from my modem to my router generating a mesh wi-fi network (including a second wi-fi node), and then another ethernet cable from my router to a Powerline wall unit connecting a single desktop.
Modem: Arris S33 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VTJR48F
Router: TP-Link Deco AXE5400 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09VW5JHPH
Powerline: TP-Link AV2000 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H74VKZU/
What am I doing wrong here / how would I go about troubleshooting this? The Arris S33 is specifically listed as an Xfinity-compatible device and should be good for gigabit and more. The router(s) is good for 2+ gbps. The Powerline adapter is similarly rated for 2+ gpbs.
Initial dumb question - if I just have a plain Cat 5 ethernet cable running from the modem to the router, would that show up in reduced bandwidth like I'm seeing? I have no idea if it's a Cat 5E or 6.
And 300Mbit is fine for Wi-Fi either over the router or mesh. If you plug your computer directly into the router, see what it gets then.
As for the cable, doesn't matter. At short distances like that, cat-5 can pass gigabit no problem.
The short reason is both options deal with a lot of interference (not 100% but it's the simple reason)
Can I save a buck by downgrading my bandwidth without compromising my bandwidth bottleneck further?
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Maybe to both? I'd worry more about packet loss at that point, which decreasing speeds won't make a difference for. Ideally? Run a wire. I know it's a pain in the ass, but that's the best way to handle the issue.
Even Wifi 6 tops out well below 1Gbps especially in real world tests. I want to say it's 600Mbps but it's a guess.
Powerline says they can do near-Gigabit but in practice it's closer to 100 Mbps (mileage may vary but I'd be amazed at anything above 200).
So in short if you're not going to change your setups, then you can drop your service level
Any recommendations? I've seen the TP-Link rated pretty well and Unifi comes up a lot, but I'm not sure where to go looking to find something reasonable. Hardwiring isn't on the table, so need to be able to place the APs around the house.
But also, if your Velop system is still working and already has the dedicated backhaul, what are you looking to gain?
In general, I've noticed that performance hasn't been great overall, and I'm trying to decide how much of that is just an aging system that doesn't have any of the improvements they've made since then versus how much is something that needs just to be moving things arounds. I'm also looking into the idea of if looking into 6G is worth it or not.
Overall, I'm not sure I need to replace things, but I also know that given I've had this system for ~5 years now, I'm suspicious that there's something better out there that I could swap to that handles my pretty normal use case better.
My question is if there's anything fancy under the plastic in them, or if they're just pretty generic antenna? I mean, our wifi is still perfectly fine in the house with the 3 still attached, but the router looks dumb with one side off. But it seems to be a standard antenna slot, could I just screw in any I have lying around (I oddly have many from old wifi pc cards), if I ever run into issues with coverage? There's no magic sauce to them, right, it's just wire or whatever to increase coverage?
If the functionality is still sufficient for us, and there's nothing I'm unaware of that having that one missing is going to cause issues with, I might just glue the thing back together, knowing it doesn't actually work, just so the router looks right.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Your router is 2.4/5.8 dual band, so any $5 basic dual band 2.4/5.8 wifi antenna should just screw on and work, assuming the cats didn't break the antenna port on the router side.
You generally don't want to run without an antenna, you'll get bad performance if it works at all.
I'm now thinking that I actually want a wireless bridge since I have no need to repeat the signal wirelessly, I basically want a switch that'll communicate wirelessly with the main router. This Reddit post actually describes my situation pretty accurately, but I'm having a bit of a time finding out whether specific routers support this or not. The main router in the house is a TP-Link. I think this Netgear can do the job, but I don't know if it's better to stay in the same brand ecosystem or not.
Wireless bridging support is rather rare in home routers. At least without custom firmware. These days I'd actually recommend a Wifi mesh setup over regular bridging as it will be simpler to deploy, more flexible, and more easily expandable (depending on implementation, bridging may only allow a single remote AP). Get a mesh system where each AP has at least two Ethernet ports, one for the main ISP uplink, one for expansion or direct connect. That way you can just hang a cheap 5 port switch off the second port at any AP that needs more ports. For example, my "base" AP has #1 port for the ISP and #2 for the desktop PC nearby. The AP for the entertainment center has its #2 port connected to a switch. Various things that don't have their own wifi are hardwired to the switch there and the wifi mesh is used for network backhaul to the base unit. I could do the same thing with the third AP upstairs if it were needed.
Ahh, I hadn't considered mesh. TP-Link has a mesh extender with an ethernet port. I think I'm going to try running that into a small standalone switch and get everything connected that way. Ultimately I think I'm going to end up running ethernet through the house from the router (and maybe update the router at some point as well), but the extender will at least get me up and running.
So far I’m liking it. Got lot’s of nice features that I probably don’t really need, but fun to have and play with!
I went with this solution recently. I had thought my old router had the capability to run as a wireless mesh node, but it was only the V2 version of it (sold in the EU). So I had to get a TP-Link mesh extender, ran its ethernet port into my old router that was now setup as an access point, and that worked to bridge my NAS on to my wireless home network again (and room for expansion for other devices).
The deco 6e was the one I ended up going with and it's been an immediate improvement over my old Velop setup. I'm running less of them too (only 3 to cover everything instead of the 5 I had previously).