Hi Guys
I want to upgrade my home wifi router from the Asus Dir-825.
I have a excellent/ fast Fibre internet but my home wifi is getting a large number of wifi devices.
Can you recommend a good WiFi router that can handle the large number of wifi devices.
Thanks
Asus RT-AX86 or RT-AX88 is my current choice. Never any issues with signal strength or coverage or quality or number of devices attached.
Are you after a router or an access point? I do like my unifi APs, and their routers have a good rep.
Huh ? Just used google to find out it’s spec - but DIR-825 is a D-Link model number.
The number of devices is almost certainly your problem. The WiFi router’s firmware is designed to support a maximum number of concurent devices. When a new device connects one of the ones which hasn’t been seen for a while is dropped off. Unfortunately manufacturers haven’t reconsidered that 2.4GHz is now used much more for low-bandwidth IoT, while high-bandwidth uses have generally been migrated to 5GHz frequencies.
In short, you probably need to add another WiFi Access Point (WAP) and share the connections between them.
If you have money to throw away you could replace with a Ubiquity Wi-fi router (business-grade, so the manufacturer assumes a high number of connections), or a new “mesh” system.
Or you could simply add another Wi-fi router (maybe even a used one, especially if it’s only for 2.4GHz IoT devices) and disable most of its functionality to turn into a WAP only. Ideally run LAN cable to connect your routers, set both WAPs to the same SSID but on different channel numbers, and it should all be transparent to your devices.
Personally I replaced my old wi-fi modem/router with a new ASUS RT-AX55 model (I prefer to have a warranty on the backbone of my network) and found that devices still kept dropping off. I then reconfigured my old Wi-fi router and connected it in my study, and has been going good since. I note also that ASUS AiMesh has made it very easy to combine different models into a mesh, and if/when I need to update an ASUS RT-AX86 will be my first thought.
I’m pretty happy with my TP-Link Omada router, access points, and switches. Quite a step up from consumer grade WiFi all-in-one boxes. If Unifi is the gold standard, this might be silver quality at a bronze price…
I just went this route as well a few months ago. I’d been debating spending the money for a while, but I’m really glad I did. Every single WiFi issue I previously had went away.
PFSense or OPsense and aruba or unifi AP. problem is it is really hard setting up rules but if you get past that it is better than anything
Looking for a router , thanks . Looking for one that can take more that 6 wifi devices simultaneously.
Thanks Don for a excellent reply. Yes sorry not a ASUS router, I had one before so maybe that I thought of that make.
Just looking for one that can take more than 6 wifi simultaneously devices as with my current one.
One that can maybe take 30 or so,
thanks
Which one of the two is a better choice ? thanks
RT-AX86 has four ethernet ports in back.
RT-AX88 has eight ethernet ports.
Seriously about the only difference.
Awesome thanks
I use xiaomi routers. I have 3 of them and I connected them to mesh wifi. It’s oke, those are relatively cheap routers, they like to connect to bunch of Chinese server but that can be easily blocked with adguard.
If I had network cables around the house I will probably go with unifi.
Hear me out, this best in class approach is NOT expensive, and you can have your whole network up and running while you improve it over time piece by piece. This**** that I mention below at you will think is really pretty slick - and you can solve your whole problem with only steps #1 and 2 below and then stop if you want.
You are in luck, I only have the time to type this now because I am sitting in the waiting room of a shop to get my car fixed!
This is NOT expensive at all (even though it sounds like it is) - so read on…
The paradigm you want to go is AWAY from an all-in-one unit. Believe it or not, this is MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE and works better -
Some manufacturers now have the paradigm of you being able to update the firmware of, and manage the settings for, all of your WiFi equipment in one interface. This makes everything MUUUCH easier AND allows the devices to actually work with reach other in a seamless fashion! (In this situation, they need to be from the same manufacturer of course.) All my firmware is updated with one click - so it is kept up to date - otherwise, what % of people go check the firmware individually for every piece of their equipment on a weekly or regular basis?
I went with the TP-Link Omada paradigm, and I bought it one piece at a time even though each piece of hardware is not expensive at all!
Don’t even throw away your old router, still use it! Get a router that is NOT wireless, just wired that is in a class of devices that work together as mentioned above (I have the TP-Link TL-ER7206, the working together part is their “Omada” class of devices). TP-Link has another router that is about $50 less that does the same thing, called the ER605 I believe. The problem I saw with the 605 is that it has a MUCH lower throughout for processing VPN traffic - and the ER7206 has the ability to share its processing load with other hardware (more about this later). The idea behind the non-wireless router is that it offers much better hardware, dedicated to using all of its processing power for routing and decoding/encoding VPN encryption when and if you decide to implement that. The one I have even had the option (turned on of course) to share the workload across CPUs in two hardware devices (the router and controller, see below).
Then use your current router only as an access point, plugged into the new router, so you can still get value out of your old investment! Almost all routers have this capability.
Boom. Your problem is solved, you can now connect hundreds of devices if you like. But, why go half- baked? Spend $30 every 6 months to slowly grow it into the below! And the TP-Link TL-ER7206 is only about $150: https://a.co/d/awQ4D5B
Then, put Cat6 cables at strategic locations throughout your home, from the router or to a location where you can put a switch (which is then connected to your router (switches are very cheap). Cables are cheap and it is a one-time hassle and maximizes the speed of your whole network.
Then, for very little $ you can then buy a couple access points, one at a time as budget allows (less than $ each (that work with the all-in one paradigm mentioned above, mine are labeled “Omada”, only and always each one plugged directly into the Cat6 cables)). They are POE (Power Over Ethernet) but come with a power injector adapter so you don’t have to have POE in the CAT6 cables you are running in your home. I went with their lowest class Omada access points, the EAP225 ($59: https://a.co/d/a9WCmwc). They have indoor and outdoor models too! The main difference between the EAP225’s and their fancier models is the the EAP225 does not offer WiFi6 - but when I looked at the specs, WiFi 6 is much more speed than most of my devices now or in the future would ever need by a long shot!
At this point to then get everything visible in one place (which TP-Link calls the “Controller”, for the TP-Link “Omada” paradigm, they have a few inexpensive options). They have a “software” controller which you can just run on a PC in your home (and the software is free) - not sure but I don’t think that needs to be running all the time. Then they have a couple of hardware controllers, the OC200 and OC300. These use very little power and give the all-in-one web interface that allows you to control all the Omada equipment in one place. I went with hardware so I could leave it running all the time. Someone tried to steal my identity and as you will see later this is why I started this journey (strong VPN handling). A VPN provider is only something like $30 per year so that’s not an issue.
I decided to go with the OC300 because it is able to share the processing load with the TL-ER7206 and because of its much faster throughput than the OC200 - for only $50 more!
I had an old switch laying around that I used for a long time (did not have to be Omada) to split the CAT6 cables so there was a dedicated cable to each wireless access point. Later I did buy an Omada class switch (which then allows more sophisticated networking with the access points, such as having multiple vlans (like I use for my iot devices) but not required at all.
Here is the cool part -
When the attempt on stealing my identity took place (I actually did this right after buying the router), I decided to use a VPN service provider to connect some devices in my home to the Internet only through VPN tunnels, managed by my router, for safety so my ISP and others cannot spy on my traffic. I wanted it handled by my router so no software would have to be installed on the end user devices to utilize the VPN tunnel for internet access - it would just “work,” However, I found that any one vpn tunnel offered by the VPN service provider would occasionally stop working - because there was a hiccup on the server at the VPN service provider side. So, I signed up for a second VPN provider and would switch from one to the other (or from one city to another within the same provider).
Then I figured out how to on the 7206, allow access for devices to more than one tunnel at once! So I actually for fun have 10 VPN tunnels running, (5 from each VPN service provider), all grouped together!
Not all devices are on the vpn’s (such as for example my printer is not).
**** So the end result is, the devices in my home that are on the VPNs - every time they access the internet, that access is randomly through one of 10 VPN tunnels that are all up and running at the same time. So it doesn’t matter which VPN tunnel or even provider is down! For instance if I launch a browser on my PC at home, and go to whoer.net or whatismyip.com (or both) - these website show where you are coming from and what your external IP address is. Every time I refresh the browser the IP address is different and the city where I am located in randomly changes to Belarus, Zurich, Riga, Romania, Spain, etc. etc. anywhere of the 10 locations I had set up! How diggity bomb is that!!!
You can on the single web interface turn on or off routing or anything you can think of for any individual or group of devices in your home.
Key to VPN service provider selection is:
Avoid them if their headquarters are in a 14-eyes alliance country - or has a government associated with one - (meaning their government forces them to share data) and
What kind of VPN tunnels they provide. I use L2TP/IPSEC (for the reason below). Not all VPN service providers offer this option, OpenVPN and Wireguard I believe are common, faster and more secure, but Wireguard due to its design cannot be controlled by specific individual routing policies (those are controlled on the other end of the tunnel, not by you for example).
Ok so here are the drawbacks I see with Omada:
The TL-ER7206 can only group together and control routing for - as the most secure option - L2TP/IPSEC tunnels, and there is some functionality for OpenVPN and Wireguard on the TL-ER7206 but it is not as client, but as server (for you to connect into your network from the outside).
The TP-Link Omada paradigm does let you controll all of these setting remotely as well! But, I turned off this capability (and deleted that account) because all that information then is on the TP-Link servers. And, TP-Link headquarters are in Shanghai, CHINA… So I am using a different way of accessing my router remotely in a secure fashion.
So I believe you may be thinking how did someone try to steal my identity? The reason is not obvious from the below statement unless you sit and think about what that means when I make this statement:
One day my boss at work called me up and asked me why the HR department contacted him to ask him why I had applied for unemployment benefits…
YIKES!
Good luck, let us know what you go with
Depending on your budget, look into Ubiquiti Unifi. Fully customizable to suit your needs if you use a router and separate access points.
Ubiquiti Unifi almost twice the price of TP-Link and sometimes much more.
the entry level UDR is about 190 USD, but of course you have more expensive options.
What is UDR?
Hi.
You do n’t mention how happy/knowledgable you are with Network concepts and configuration. That may determine the brand and type of equipment to choose. Even Ubiquiti Unifi kit needs fair networking abilities, and PFSense/OPNSense routers certainly would.
Your choice of Brand and Type of Router/Switch/APs etc depend on
As donburch888 said, the problem is likely too much traffic for your router’s 1 WiFi Access Point to handle, rather than the Router loading per se, but I don’t know your kit or network usage.
With that kind of loading (30+ devices and concurrent use) you need more APs. If, as you say, you “have excellent fast fibre internet” and your router handles that ok, then it’s probably not really the Router that’s the issue, but the WiFi AP inside it.
[EDIT : The other possibility is that your devices cannot talk well with your WiFi because of where it/they are and/or obstacles like walls/metal structures/ WiFi strength setting/ etc. ]
I’d suggest:
If you’ve got any fixed devices with high traffic that you can easily Cat6 cable back to your Router, then that would be good to do. (Always preferrable if possible and much faster too!)
Least cost:
IF your existing Router has enough spare Ports. If not you will need a Switch (see 3.). So:
If your existing Router still proves inadequate, then you might need a better one but first consider 3.
Almost all Routers will only have about 4 Ports, so you will likely need a Switch anyway.
ADD a good Switch with a fast backbone speed. This will give you enough ports out and also take LAN traffic load off the router. The Switch will do most of the local work unless you’ve got a lot of internet or cross VLAN traffic. Connect the Switch to a Router port, and move all your APs etc onto the Switch.
Choose a Switch brand and model that will go with the Router you’d choose if you have to drop your existing router.
Lastly, if you really have to, get a new Router, but not a WiFi Router. Separate Routers are almost always much better at their job than WiFi Routers - and they allow you to put the WiFi AP where you need it.