Router for modest home wifi

[Icaros]

This is a basic how-much-do-I-need question for my parents home wifi.

They have a good 50 mb fiber connection and the household run about 3-5 computers and 3-6 mobile devices at a time, possibly more with time.

It's a 1400 square feet single story house and it would be nice to have a nice range extending into the back garden - the fiber modem is in one end of the house and the back garden is at the opposite. Most of the computers and things requiring speed is fairly close to the modem location though.

They're on a budget, so I'd prefer avoiding anything too fancy and expensive. The most taxing thing the network's used for is probably streaming (Netflix and the HBO Nordic (I think that's similar to 'GO'). But there should be room to grow as streaming gets higher bitrate.

So: how much should they be spending? Which features should I look for? How much extra range can they get by investing a bit more?

 

[ylin0811]

To be honest, this question is a little difficult to answer. Wireless, unlike wired, has many factors such as snr, antenna orientation, signal strength, and noise floor that comes into play. Without doing a site survey using spectrum analyzers, it would be difficult to guarantee an ideal signal coverage across the entire house. This is the reason why a lot of consumers have issues with their wireless that drops in and out.

If you don't mind the factors mentioned above, I would recommend Unify AP Pro that works well in my experience for my house and several large data center deployments. The price is unbeatable for features offered compares to other vendors.

Unify AP Pro comes with poe capability, so you will need 3 poe injectors if you want to mount them on the ceiling. You do have to make sure you overlap 20% of the cell coverage for each AP so you don't run into issues with roaming.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

The new Amplifi system from Ubiquiti would be a nice fit. It comes with 2 wireless extenders that simply plug into any existing power outlet, so putting one in the middle and one in the rear of the house would be ideal and should give coverage to the garden. At $199, the basic 2.4GHz Amplifi system should be sufficient without breaking the bank, but if you want 5GHz N (LR) or 5GHz AC (HD) you'll need to drop some more coin.

Amplifi website