The Router Recommendations Thread (Consumer)

[sfsuphysics]

Ok FINALLY got my 10 Gbps fiber hooked up, and using my existing router (nothing but 1GbE ports) really feels like a disservice. NAS as 10GbE, desktop only 2.5GbE though. Anything I should be looking at out there? That Ubiquiti unit did catch my eye, and maybe use my oooooooold router as a wireless AP until I can find something worth upgrading to (and that means cheaper end). I know I'll never get 10Gbps off it, but even 8+ to flex the epeniz would be nice. Probably should just wait until BF to see if anything pops up, as it stands 1Gbps is more than sufficient for what I'm doing, I really don't need 10Gbps... I just really really want it

 

[Mackintire]

Ubiquiti UCG-Fiber can do 5Gbps with IDS/IDP enabled, and 10Gbps without. It supports both 10Gbit WAN over copper and SFP+ and will cost you $300 for the router, the NVMe tray and you provide the NVMe for it. Or you can pay $400 and they're add the tray and a 1TB NVMe disk. Ubiquiti now offers a better/longer warranty along with priority support for $59 with the UGC-Fiber

The Enterprise Fortress Gateway can do 12.5Gbps with IDS/IDP enabled but uses an SFP28 port for WAN and costs $2k and the same kind of warranty and priority support is an extra $400 on this device.

Assuming you go with the UCG-Fiber

Make sure you stay on firmware 4.3.9 and upgrade to Network version 9.4.19

There's an unresolved HW offload bug in firmware 4.4.7 for the UGC line at the moment.

Also the Firmware and Network code stacks are now co-interdependent, so bugs in the network code can affect the normal operation of the gateway

They need to work out the WAN/LAN offload bug in either what will be 4.4.8 or in the new 5.0.x code fork.

 

[kydsid]

Firmware 4.3.9? Do you mean Unifi OS?

 

[sfsuphysics]

Thanks for the heads up on the firmware.

I was reading up on it, and it seems that WAN ports can be configured as LAN ports as well (unless I was reading that wrong) considering I'd only need (want) three 10G ports, WAN, desktop & NAS, this router would check a lot of boxes without the need for a costly 10G switch ... which to be honest I would run at 2.5Gbps rather than 10G for now if it came down to that.

Bottom line is I don't need 10Gbps to the internet... it's just nice that was what was offered as "the fiber service" where as other customers have gotten 1Gbps at the same price, which was cheaper than my 400Mbps async from Xfinity. So win win win.

Out of curiosity what's the purpose of popping an NVME into it? For sideloading programs to run directly off the router?

 

[kydsid]

FYI there aren't 3 10g ports on the UCG. There is one 10g port. The remaining ports share 10g total.

The NVME let's you use it as an NVR. It can run Unifi protect and control security cameras and other devices. Also can be used for logging.

 

[sfsuphysics]

FYI there aren't 3 10g ports on the UCG. There is one 10g port. The remaining ports share 10g total.

Still faster than 2.5GbE and doesn't require the addition of a switch

I assume it's a CPU limited thing in the router that limits the total speed, but regardless still faster than the 1Gbps I'm currently getting to my NAS.

 

[ND40oz]

Still faster than 2.5GbE and doesn't require the addition of a switch

I assume it's a CPU limited thing in the router that limits the total speed, but regardless still faster than the 1Gbps I'm currently getting to my NAS.

You may as well grab a U7 Pro XG at the same time and use that as your AP. It'll be a lot easier to configure everything in one place then messing around making your current one an AP. If you're really trying to save money, grab a U7 Lite.

 

[GotNoRice]

I have enough WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 devices now that I'd like to get a WiFi 7 Access Point to replace one of my existing WiFi 6 Access Points.

I'm not interested in any hardware from a Chinese company. That includes TP-Link, etc. I don't care if it's objectively the best performing Access Point ever made. I'll dig my old WRT54G out of the garage before I put something from a Chinese company on my home network.

-I only need an Access Point, not a Router, though obviously a Router that can be configured as an Access Point is fine.
-Range is my #1 consideration, more-so than fastest speeds. I want to have good coverage in the yard around my house.
-Wall Mountable is preferable, but not 100% required.
-Looking at units in the $200-400 range.
-Not interested in a Mesh setup. I'll use my older WiFi 6 Access Points, connected via Ethernet, to fill dead-zones as necessary. This new Access Point will be in the Center of my property, handling most of the important stuff.
-Would like at least one 2.5GbE (or faster) ports.

In my research so far I've come across a lot of recommendations for the ASUS RT-BE92U and RT-BE96U. The RT-BE92U is a decent price and looks like it would wall-mount easily. The RT-BE96U is borderline out of my price-range but there are some refurbished units on Amazon. I've never personally owned an ASUS access point before, having generally stuck with Netgear and Linksys over the years. Is the RT-BE96U worth the extra money over the RT-BE92U?

 

[kydsid]

If that's your price range why not go SMB/Enterprise. Buy used if you must. Set up a controller as needed and go? Ubiquiti, Ruckus, netgear, aruba

 

[GotNoRice]

If that's your price range why not go SMB/Enterprise. Buy used if you must. Set up a controller as needed and go? Ubiquiti, Ruckus, netgear, aruba

I'm certainly open to suggestions, but I'm more interested in new features (WiFi 7). I already have good WiFi 6 Access Points. Is WiFi 7 old enough that you can find used Enterprise-level gear already?

 

[ND40oz]

I'm certainly open to suggestions, but I'm more interested in new features (WiFi 7). I already have good WiFi 6 Access Points. Is WiFi 7 old enough that you can find used Enterprise-level gear already?

No it isn't, Enterprise level gear just started getting released this year. If you have good WiFi 6 stuff, there's almost no reason to upgrade unless you have a very specific use case that 7 would address. I've only just started replacing my Ruckus 5 stuff with 6E as I find decent deals and the only reason I'm doing it is because my R510s are EOL'd, otherwise I'd stick with them.

 

[Mackintire]

FYI there aren't 3 10g ports on the UCG. There is one 10g port. The remaining ports share 10g total.

The NVME let's you use it as an NVR. It can run Unifi protect and control security cameras and other devices. Also can be used for logging.

That is incorrect.

There are 2 WAN ports that share internal interface, the 10GbE RJ45 and the 10G SFP+ . Only ONE of those can be active at the same time.

There is a 10G SFP+ LAN port which is routed

That's a total of x2 functional 10Gb ports x1 WAN and x1 LAN

AND there are x4 2.5GbE RJ45 ports of which one has POE.... I assume all of these are on a x4 port switch chip which can be vLAN tagged.

 

[GotNoRice]

If you have good WiFi 6 stuff, there's almost no reason to upgrade unless you have a very specific use case that 7 would address.

I'm upgrading more because I want to, not because I need to. I have 3 access points, every so often I replace the worst one and rotate the others around accordingly. I have enough 6E and 7 devices now, I want to experiment with 6Ghz WiFi and stuff like MLO.

 

[SamirD]

I have enough WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 devices now that I'd like to get a WiFi 7 Access Point to replace one of my existing WiFi 6 Access Points.

I'm not interested in any hardware from a Chinese company. That includes TP-Link, etc. I don't care if it's objectively the best performing Access Point ever made. I'll dig my old WRT54G out of the garage before I put something from a Chinese company on my home network.

-I only need an Access Point, not a Router, though obviously a Router that can be configured as an Access Point is fine.
-Range is my #1 consideration, more-so than fastest speeds. I want to have good coverage in the yard around my house.
-Wall Mountable is preferable, but not 100% required.
-Looking at units in the $200-400 range.
-Not interested in a Mesh setup. I'll use my older WiFi 6 Access Points, connected via Ethernet, to fill dead-zones as necessary. This new Access Point will be in the Center of my property, handling most of the important stuff.
-Would like at least one 2.5GbE (or faster) ports.

In my research so far I've come across a lot of recommendations for the ASUS RT-BE92U and RT-BE96U. The RT-BE92U is a decent price and looks like it would wall-mount easily. The RT-BE96U is borderline out of my price-range but there are some refurbished units on Amazon. I've never personally owned an ASUS access point before, having generally stuck with Netgear and Linksys over the years. Is the RT-BE96U worth the extra money over the RT-BE92U?

If you want to avoid the chinesium stuff, don't look at consumer at all--and you pretty much can with your budget. Aruba, Ruckus are APs I've heard people rave about on the serve the home forum (ruckus especially), but as someone said, 7 is new in the enterprise world (should tell you about how 'real' and 'stable' it is too), so you will be paying top dollar. Still, there are places to find open box deals, etc. so that's where I would be looking for these.

 

[Wade88]

I have enough WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 devices now that I'd like to get a WiFi 7 Access Point to replace one of my existing WiFi 6 Access Points.

I'm not interested in any hardware from a Chinese company. That includes TP-Link, etc. I don't care if it's objectively the best performing Access Point ever made. I'll dig my old WRT54G out of the garage before I put something from a Chinese company on my home network.

-I only need an Access Point, not a Router, though obviously a Router that can be configured as an Access Point is fine.
-Range is my #1 consideration, more-so than fastest speeds. I want to have good coverage in the yard around my house.
-Wall Mountable is preferable, but not 100% required.
-Looking at units in the $200-400 range.
-Not interested in a Mesh setup. I'll use my older WiFi 6 Access Points, connected via Ethernet, to fill dead-zones as necessary. This new Access Point will be in the Center of my property, handling most of the important stuff.
-Would like at least one 2.5GbE (or faster) ports.

In my research so far I've come across a lot of recommendations for the ASUS RT-BE92U and RT-BE96U. The RT-BE92U is a decent price and looks like it would wall-mount easily. The RT-BE96U is borderline out of my price-range but there are some refurbished units on Amazon. I've never personally owned an ASUS access point before, having generally stuck with Netgear and Linksys over the years. Is the RT-BE96U worth the extra money over the RT-BE92U?

We've been happy with our ubnt wifi 7 pro max access points. They have 2.5gbps inlets and can be on the wall but why would you do that instead of the ceiling? We do it with a ubnt cloud gateway pro and a pro max poe switch x 4 sites. The jump to 7 improved the performance of 5 and 6ghz to the furthest reaches of the house in little rock and out in the garage even with just one connected. With 3 it bathes the whole property in 6ghz. This is the most regular house of the sites though, the others have a lot more APs and very large POE switches with redundant psus and loud fans.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Alrighty, finally hooked up my UCG-Fiber, and oh boy... me likey. I'm not even a network guy and I'm just looking at all the creepy info that the dashboard shows me, everything from what sites my TV or the Roku is going to, to all the little ad places my wife's phone is hitting when it's connecting to wifi, so when my kid gets to "that age" I can yell at him for going to "that site".

So far "only" get about 7Gbps up/down to the gateway. Not sure if that's all I can get, or if there's some networky stuff that I need to configure. But I'm not going to complain that I'm not closer to 10Gbps to the internet, who knows it may be the time of day as well, maybe the speedtest places can't handle that kind of test from normies for free.

Got it during BF using Paypal's pay in 4, and got it for 20% off. The Ubiquiti site had some older ones on sale, and free shipping, which I wasn't digging because they didn't have 10G connections! I figured I was going to buy this anyways, the extra 20% off (and free shipping!) was just cherry on top stuff. Didn't get any of the APs for wireless, figured I could use my existing Netgear router in bridge mode as an AP... which I did, mostly because I don't have any devices that can use wifi7, hell I don't even think I have any wifi6 devices. So for now, it'll do.

It does misidentify some things, for instance my old router (now AP) it thinks it's a Netgear Orbi, and my desktop it's seeing as a minisforum box for some reason. Not quite sure how to change this identification though, it's not like it came with instructions, guess I'm too old for text stuff today "look online!" as the extent of instructions. Also it shows everything connected to the gateway, including things that are being fed through the AP over wifi, which I guess is the way it's supposed to do things, but yeah... I'm not going to buy one of their AP points (and have my wife yell at me what the glowing UFO on the ceiling is) just so I can have it all showing the proper connected points.

 

[Mackintire]

It does misidentify some things, for instance my old router (now AP) it thinks it's a Netgear Orbi, and my desktop it's seeing as a minisforum box for some reason. Not quite sure how to change this identification though, it's not like it came with instructions, guess I'm too old for text stuff today "look online!" as the extent of instructions. Also it shows everything connected to the gateway, including things that are being fed through the AP over wifi, which I guess is the way it's supposed to do things, but yeah... I'm not going to buy one of their AP points (and have my wife yell at me what the glowing UFO on the ceiling is) just so I can have it all showing the proper connected points.

If you click on clients on the left side of the page, and the click on one of the clients some info on the clients pops out on the right side of the page. Notice that there's an icon for every client.

Click on that icon and you'll get into the page that lets you select the icon for that device. It's not a completely list but it has lots of items to choose from.

Everything will show as if it is connected directly to the your UGC fiber, because that's all it knows. If you put a managed Ubiquiti switch in the middle it will know which devices are connected to which ports. AND if you connect a Ubiquiti AP to the Ubiquiti switch THEN you'll see what is using the AP on what SSID and if you want what vLAN. You can also show traffic flows and throughput for each segment, again assuming you have all Ubiquiti network equipment.

 

[sfsuphysics]

If you click on clients on the left side of the page, and the click on one of the clients some info on the clients pops out on the right side of the page. Notice that there's an icon for every client.

Click on that icon and you'll get into the page that lets you select the icon for that device. It's not a completely list but it has lots of items to choose from.

Yeah, figured that out after a bit of googlin' it's so so, but at least I put something that looks like a desktop computer up, then gave it a nickname so I didn't have a "Dell Optiplex" or whatever.

Everything will show as if it is connected directly to the your UGC fiber, because that's all it knows. If you put a managed Ubiquiti switch in the middle it will know which devices are connected to which ports. AND if you connect a Ubiquiti AP to the Ubiquiti switch THEN you'll see what is using the AP on what SSID and if you want what vLAN. You can also show traffic flows and throughput for each segment, again assuming you have all Ubiquiti network equipment.

Yeah, figured that was the case, and right now not worth the effort to get that level of information.

Overall I just wanted a router that could handle my 10Gbps fiber and have 2.5GbE for my NAS and Desktop at a minimum, and this does it. Sure there were multiple options to do this from different brands, Netgear, TP-Link, etc, but they were all more expensive, granted they have WiFi capabilities built in but that was easily fixable by using my old router as an AP and if I ever did want WiFi 7 (old router is only WiFi 5, which is more than adequate for me) I could get that as low as $99 with one of those ceiling/wall mounted discs, I still have a PoE+ port on this thing to power it.

 

[ND40oz]

if I ever did want WiFi 7 (old router is only WiFi 5, which is more than adequate for me) I could get that as low as $99 with one of those ceiling/wall mounted discs, I still have a PoE+ port on this thing to power it.

They make a table stand for the wall mount unit if you don't want to ceiling mount: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category...cc-u7-pro-wall-ts?variant=uacc-u7-pro-wall-ts

Yeah, it's not cheap but at least it's a hunk of aluminum for that price. Or for the same price get the paintable flush mount and hide it that way.

 

[kydsid]

Once you mount saucers in your ceiling they arent any more noticeable than a smoke detector, even if they are 3x the size of a smoke detector

 

[sfsuphysics]

Once you mount saucers in your ceiling they arent any more noticeable than a smoke detector, even if they are 3x the size of a smoke detector

Don't they have that glow blue circle though? Or is that an option you can turn off?

 

[trick0502]

Once you mount saucers in your ceiling they arent any more noticeable than a smoke detector, even if they are 3x the size of a smoke detector

I mounted mine in closets. I never have to hear the wife say what is that?

 

[Mackintire]

Don't they have that glow blue circle though? Or is that an option you can turn off?

Yes, and I they did have a switch to turn it off in earlier versions. I never paid attention if that feature is still present as the light is dimmer than a night light. Unless it is booting up, which is that case it blinks white.

 

[tunatime]

Yes, and I they did have a switch to turn it off in earlier versions. I never paid attention if that feature is still present as the light is dimmer than a night light. Unless it is booting up, which is that case it blinks white.

You can turn it off in software