In some ways this is the wrong place for this question because it has little if anything to do with home automation. On the other hand, this is also a place with people who like to tinker, and work with technology, often with home offices, or small businesses. From that perspective, you are exactly the people I want to talk to.
Over the past 20 years, I have been a proponent of Linksys. I was very happy when Cisco bought them, and less than happy when I found that Cisco sold them. Now Some of my old (2004 year) switches are starting to develop bad ports which causes problems for my automations (there’s the tie in to this forum).
So my question is this. Is Linksys still delivering quality products since their purchase by Belkin, or shoudl I start looking at Netgear for my switches or someone else? What are your thoughts? I’m located in the US so no European only manufacturers please.
Thanks
I’m a netgear fan, only because they haven’t let me down. I’ve only used their wifi routers but my network has a lot of devices(both wired and wifi) and I haven’t had any complaints.
I will say, I owned 1 belkin and it was crap. I know other people that owned belkins and they were crap. Belkin just doesn’t have a reputable name. Whether or not their Linksys line is still worth it? They’d have to stray far away for belkin before I’d even consider them again.
Ubiquiti…
Cannot support this enough. Go with Ubiquiti.
Cheap, and rock solid.
I have a an edgerouter-X-SFP for my main gateway connected to ISP modem (80mbit VDSL). If you have >100mbit/fibre then they have faster devices. I think the edgerouter-X are good up to about 250mbps.
I have a single Unifi AP AC LR for in home wifi. The coverage and speed are fantastic + I can easily add more APs into the mesh if ever needed. In the mesh APs support handoff between each other etc.
Currently this setup is supporting an internet heavy family - lots of streaming, VPN working from home etc - with approx 60 devices in dhcp table.
Also their iOS apps are good and always improving.
Their Unifi controller (Wifi) and Edgemax UNMS (wireed) both run on docker and are pretty nice… although overkill for sure for a small home deployment.
And they are constantly adding new features in firmware for existing devices.
Ubiquiti may not be best honestly but it is most stable and amazing performance.
Yes, can be overkill but I have setup homes with this for less than cost of most Linksys (USG + AP/no switch $130US great coverage)
CURRENT SETUP
(4) Vlan: server, IOT devices, MediaPlayer/PC, Guest
IOT Vlan blocked from WAN and communication out to other vlan
Guest blocked from all vlan but has WAN out
Server and MediaPlayer/PC can see and communicate with all devices on any vlan
Custom Portal Created for guest (like hotel login with Capture page/TOS acceptance)
all configured from GUI. A little complicated but nothing Googling couldnt solve.
For managed switches, I wouldn’t touch net gear. Crap all around.
Cisco small business or ubiquity.
If you go unmanged switches, I don’t think it matters.
If you want cheap, but quality, basic managed switches, I’ve had great success with ZyXel. The Netgear basic managed range, other than requiring an app, seem to be ok too.
Otherwise, yeah, Ubiquiti.
Ubiquiti is the closest thing you’ll get for enterprise features at a consumer price. They have a full line of network gear that is perfect for advanced home use, and the Hass Ubiquiti WiFi integration allows for reliable presence detection.