Wi-Fi needed for large house; help me plan it out!

[RavinDJ]

I have a family friend that has a crappy Comcast router in the basement and they use that for the whole house. They would like really good coverage across the house and large back yard. They'll pay for hardware and the labor (me) is free (ugh).

What say ye? Ubiquity? Netgear Orbi?

https://www.netgear.com/home/wifi/mesh/

I'd like something with 2 to 4 access points working together for redundancy (so that they don't call me back every other day)

 

[uberjon]

Unifi is great IMO. Let them call you.. just remote in and tweak if needed.

Edit:

I just replaced a my dead cloud key gen1 with a dream router. It adopted my like 5+yr old outdoor+ model access point with ease. It's not even on ubiquity's website anymore but it works!

 

[Darunion]

i have my house setup with ubiquiti. 4 access points and its seemless with a phone walking around. I havent had to do much or anything to it after installing it 3years ago.

 

[Dopamin3]

I would suggest TP Link Omada APs. I run two EAP 660 HDs (not in mesh, just hardwired to a PoE switch) and they are fantastic. They do support mesh though. Like Ubiquiti, they have a controller that can either be hosted as a docker container, Windows/Linux or physical hardware.

The Omada Controller has feature parity compared to the Unifi Controller on Ubiquiti Unifi APs. With both of these platforms you would set yourself up an admin account on them, and as long as the persons Internet is up and the controller is online, you can look at detailed information, do configuration changes, etc...

TP Link offers a "limited lifetime" warranty (whatever that means) vs a 1 year on Ubiquiti. Not knocking Ubiquiti on this front because my work still has a first gen AP deployed and it's still going strong, but just something to consider.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

Just upgraded to the Asus GS AX5400 and I have full bars anywhere in the house which is 5 bedrooms and backyard and front yard also all 3 bathrooms full bars. I'm not very knowledgeable about wifi devices but oh my goodness I am so happy I upgraded feels quite luxurious walking around anywhere like a champion

 

[SamirD]

Just upgraded to the Asus GS AX5400 and I have full bars anywhere in the house which is 5 bedrooms and backyard and front yard also all 3 bathrooms full bars. I'm not very knowledgeable about wifi devices but oh my goodness I am so happy I upgraded feels quite luxurious walking around anywhere like a champion

You must love your drink if you have full bars all over the house and full bars in the bathrooms too. j/k!! Great to hear a single unit can still make that type of coverage happen.

 

[zandor]

I would suggest TP Link Omada APs. I run two EAP 660 HDs (not in mesh, just hardwired to a PoE switch) and they are fantastic. They do support mesh though. Like Ubiquiti, they have a controller that can either be hosted as a docker container, Windows/Linux or physical hardware.

The Omada Controller has feature parity compared to the Unifi Controller on Ubiquiti Unifi APs. With both of these platforms you would set yourself up an admin account on them, and as long as the persons Internet is up and the controller is online, you can look at detailed information, do configuration changes, etc...

TP Link offers a "limited lifetime" warranty (whatever that means) vs a 1 year on Ubiquiti. Not knocking Ubiquiti on this front because my work still has a first gen AP deployed and it's still going strong, but just something to consider.

I'm using TP-Link as well. I've got a pair of EAP-610s (so cheap AX1800, cheaper than Dopamin3's 660s). Mine are wired to a PoE (power over ethernet) switch and I haven't tried out the mesh feature. I'm running the controller on a Linux box. It's written in Java, so you can get it to run on unsupported platforms and distros. When I installed mine RHEL 8 wasn't supported. That said getting the software controller going does involve a bit of technical skill, so you should probably push your friend towards just buying the hardware controller from TP-Link or using the cloud controller. I've thought about buying the hardware controller myself just so I don't have to scramble to reconfigure my WiFi after an OS upgrade on my server.

IMHO what to use really depends on how tech savvy they are and what they want in terms of features. TP-Link and Unifi are good for a higher end setup for not too much $, but are more complicated to administer. Consumer grade mesh kits are the easiest to deal with, but of course have fewer features. A middle option that's worthy of mention is the Netgear Orbi Pro line. They support VLANs and multiple WiFi SSIDs mapped to VLANs. Their routing features between VLANs are kind of sad, but if you want a family network, an adults only network and a work network that are completely separate from each other except for sharing the internet connection Orbi Pro will do that.

Another perk of some of the commercial setups is you can use a cloud controller with remote web management. That's an option for TP-Link Omada and others. I think Unifi does something like that too. It's a nice bonus if you've been roped into playing network admin for them since you can just go to a web site and see how their network is doing. I disabled that feature on my TP-Link stuff, but if I were running a network for friends or family I'd sign them up for it. So far I've managed to dodge that bullet. Dad is tech savvy enough to manage a router and build a rig. It's a bit of a security risk which is why I disabled it, but I figure it's a bigger security risk if things don't get taken care of which is exactly what will happen if I have to get in my car and drive over there every time something happens.

If the layout of their house is suitable for pulling ethernet backhauls I'd recommend doing so. Unfinished basements and attics are your friend there. Through the basement and up into a wall to an ethernet jack or through the attic to a ceiling mount AP. Once nice perk of commercial APs is they come in ceiling mount and "outlet" versions that can work off PoE. You might also want to look into outdoor APs for really good coverage in a large backyard.