Recomendations for Wifi router

Hardware
1

Hi all;
At the moment I’m using my ISP’s modem/router/AP.
This doesn’t cover the whole appartement; so I added an old linksys wrt54 as an extender.
The Linksys allows me to do device-tracking, which is nice.

I’m now looking to upgrade my setup and have my ISP modem only be a modem and have my own wifi solution.
I’m new to this so I’m learning.

Can someone give me some insight on what they use / what they like?
Ubiquity seems like a good brand, I think I can get a Unify6 LITE and use an AP Lite as secondary AP.
But is it compatible with Home Assistant?

Linksys has some devices, but it’s not clear where I can install ddwrt (and do I even need to?)
TPLink ; I have no clue?

price is important to me. I don’t want to cheap out, but neither do I need the best of the best (gaming happens wired anyway). It’s mostly for mobile devices, wifi switches and to learn.

2

Compatible with HA, simple in use, reliable…

https://en.avm.de/products/fritzbox/fritzbox-4040/

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3

Unless you have other reasons to change your router, I’d just disable wifi on that one and plug some Wifi mesh solution.

I use TPlink Deco P9 with satisfaction.

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4

It’s absolutely not !! Products are nice and work OK so long you don’t use any cloud feature or SSO system of Unifi that are both major security issues (Unifi system cloud has already been compromised in past with Unifi keeping it silent at maximum to avoid damage at its marketshare value …although it was a major problem which is absolutely a no-no behaviour !).
Netgear is a nice compromise and they have products in different range of prices so easier to find something that fits your needs and budget :wink:

5

I went cheap out. I have concrete floors and didn’t get signal from ISP hub on 2nd floor. Bought 3 used BT Home hub 5A and flashed them with Openwrt. Less than 10 quid each.Turned off wifi on ISP hub and run the 3 Openwrts as dumb access points(AP). I’ve enabled fast roaming between APs. No problems with HA wireless devices connecting.

Run DDNS and wireguard on one of them and avoid many of the problems people get on HA with this.

In same room from 5GHz can get 20MB/S for laptop. The APs are connected by LAN. Cheap and reliable. Openwrt has been very reliable. Uptime 180 days before I updated firmware. Can monitor and switch functions on/off securely from HA.

If you want to spend more there are many compatible devices.

Openwrt forum is a bit of a rabbit hole but not as deep as HA community.