Best wifi router for size/money and reach?

Tremonti said:
Need for mixer. Thx
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My main router is a Synology RT6600ax. I have 2 other bridge routers from Synology to insure good coverage. Not sure if they are the least expensive choice, but they are very sercure and I have used them for many years with minimal issues.
 
Our house is a PITA when it comes to WiFi. The majority of the walls are 1.5' thick adobe and WiFi has a hard time getting through it. I switched from a centrally located primary router to a 3-node ASUS mesh system, so I can power up the repeater routers, place them, tell the system to optimize itself, then review the speeds/quality of each connection. After six months I rethought how to get even better connections, moved two of the nodes, reoptimized and it's been super stable. Even with these walls I'm getting excellent throughput everywhere, even into the backyard.

We have fiber into the house, and it's amazing to be able to walk into a room and still have very high throughput; its backhaul seems to be very efficient. I have a couple computers hardwired to the routers, and a small hub in the front room for the TV, Roku and Apple TV that's connected to the ASUS next to them. All in all I think they're worth looking into.
 
The IEEE standards that "wifi" is based on use radio signals, so no, not line of sight. Think instead of what you're putting between the two points like Greg said his house has really think, dense walls. Not good for radio signals.
 
Something like below would probably be a good choice, I uses the previous model to manage our stage wifi and our FOH tablet which is often 75-100' or more away from the router. Do not mount it in the rack, it will shorten the range unless the antennas are pointed in the appropriate directions. Also 2.4 ghz goes further than 5, so if you are talking long distances it likely will perform better if you are using 2.4.

Amazon product ASIN B08J6CFM39
 
Greg Ferguson said:
Our house is a PITA when it comes to WiFi. The majority of the walls are 1.5' thick adobe and WiFi has a hard time getting through it. I switched from a centrally located primary router to a 3-node ASUS mesh system, so I can power up the repeater routers, place them, tell the system to optimize itself, then review the speeds/quality of each connection. After six months I rethought how to get even better connections, moved two of the nodes, reoptimized and it's been super stable. Even with these walls I'm getting excellent throughput everywhere, even into the backyard.

We have fiber into the house, and it's amazing to be able to walk into a room and still have very high throughput; its backhaul seems to be very efficient. I have a couple computers hardwired to the routers, and a small hub in the front room for the TV, Roku and Apple TV that's connected to the ASUS next to them. All in all I think they're worth looking into.
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Another vote for a "mesh" system.......Along with all the normal phones and iPads, we use wireless for several Ring cameras around our property
for security and wildlife viewing, and when we were using a normal router with an antenna, even though the performance was acceptable on the
i devices, the Ring cameras video would constantly freeze.

Ended up feeding our gigabit fiber to a 3- node Netgear mesh system, and all I can say is wow, wish we would have gone to that a long time
ago.....well worth the cost.
 
Dave Merrill said:
For you folks using mesh systems, the OP is talking about on-stage use, presumably setting up, doing the gig, then on to the next one at some point, not a quasi-permanent residential install.

Does a mesh setup make sense there?
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Yeah I don't need a space shuttle to drive me to the grocery store. Just need a small, cheap system that doesn't have a million crab legs and take up a shit ton of space. 20 ft range max
 
Tremonti said:
Yeah I don't need a space shuttle to drive me to the grocery store. Just need a small, cheap system that doesn't have a million crab legs and take up a shit ton of space. 20 ft range max
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I wasn't thinking so much about it being overkill (which it might be), more about the need to set up multiple stations and have it optimize itself.
If that takes 15 seconds and is fully automated, no big deal, otherwise maybe not worth it in that situation.
And if there's much chance of it ending up sub-optimal in any particular situation, maybe not the best choice.

Note that I'm NOT saying that's likely, or even a real possibility, I've never worked with or really researched mesh networking.
Just that I'm not sure those setups are designed for the road, and it's worth investigating.
 
Old_Soul said:
You could just go to the local big box and look for something small like this:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/eero-6...-wi-fi-6-router-white/6433416.p?skuId=6433416

View attachment 131995
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These work well. A friend had a terrible time getting Wi-Fi from one end of her house to the other because the kitchen was in between and the appliances acted like a Faraday cage in the middle blocking the signal.

Using three of the eeros, I routed around the kitchen and they talked together giving her nearly the full speed of her WAN connection everywhere in the house.

They’re not very expensive and they’re extremely easy to set up, they’re small and unobtrusive, and seem pretty well built. And, they’re easily managed with their client software. If there’s a need to provide a Wi-Fi signal on stage I think they’d do really well. If physical robustness was a concern I’d find some suitably sized Rubbermaid containers, wrap the routers in bubble wrap, cut some holes in the containers for power and a Cat-5 cable if internet/WAN access is needed, and experiment. At the worst they’d work great at home if the experiment failed.
 
A lot of the mesh and other systems rely on being able to connect to a cloud service and grab/update their config, including at boot. I'd be really cautious using anything like that, and there really shouldn't be a need for a mesh or overly complicated system like one of those. Go with something super simple that doesn't have tons of features, you're just using it for live mixing, go with a cheap ASUS or something like that. Nothing against those other systems for use in home or business - but they aren't a good choice for your scenario because of all of the cloud dependency built in to the features.
 
I bought one of these:

TP-Link Archer C54 | AC1200 MU-MIMO Dual-Band WiFi Router (amazon)​

To replace one of these:

GL.iNet GL-AR750S-Ext (Slate) Gigabit Travel AC VPN Router (amazon)​

At the insistence of the bassist/default sound engineer because he said the GL was dropping out - I never had issues at all, but maybe that's because I was closer to it than he was.

The TP Link has worked flawlessly.

These are NOT used at home. Strictly for live band use.
 
Tremonti said:
Yeah I don't need a space shuttle to drive me to the grocery store. Just need a small, cheap system that doesn't have a million crab legs and take up a shit ton of space. 20 ft range max
Click to expand...

I think almost anything will work for that. Most things will have a return policy if your rack blocks the signal.

I was going to say that my day job switched to the Omada stuff when they moved into their new office, but 90% of the draw was that I can administer it from ~1000 miles away. It's been fine. The WiFi control is pretty slick. I don't like their routers (not wifi router, network router/firewall) compared to OpnSense, but that's for reasons that I don't think apply to you.
 
The TP Link above, seems like a great option. Yes the antenna's look a little goofy, but you need them.
For mixing (I'm using X32), I prefer a router with 2.4 and 5g....I generally connect to the 5g an turn the 2.4 off.
2.4 is going to get too much cell phone interference, and it also interferes with my Shure guitar system.
5g does not have as much range, but you will have less competition in the room (assuming you're in a room full of cell phones and bluetooth devices)
 
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