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Ask HN: Decent Internet Router Recommendations?

by axismundi on 6/3/22, 5:59 PM with 5 comments

Hi

My Asus AC86U gave up after 4 years and I am in the market for another router. I used to run the AC86U with Merlin software, so I'm not shy of tinkering, especially if I can improve my security and privacy. I sometimes work from home, but mostly watch Netflix while my kid plays online games. Now I'm back to Virgin Media Hub 3, but it's worse in terms of range.

Do you have any recommendations for a replacement?

  • by rektide on 6/3/22, 6:10 PM

    I'm a long term openwrt user, finally even set up DAWN[1] to orchestrate multiple APs (sometimes a win, sometimes worse than manually picking among each AP & each band (2.4/5) having it's own specific ssid/name).

    I really hate to say it, but even for the geeks, I'd generally recommend some kind of mesh product. A roommate installed a parallel Google mesh product & it worked so well, had such great coverage. Google spent hella time making this product good, thanks in part to Google Fiber. There's a great talk on their finding from Avery Penarunn back at the first netdevconf[2]. I'm sure many of the competing products are also very very capable. They have a level of reliable, just works intelligence, even over wifi mesh, that makes me envious.

    There's sadly little new news in the OpenWRT space. There's some on-the-cusp work with some new Qualcomm chips that might start working in mere weeks or months. But we've been running the same wifi4 & wifi5 hardware for half a decade now, basically, with no real options. The Netgear X4S R7800 is still the go-to openwrt router. MediaTek has some wifi6 capable routers[3] targeted to the low end, which are nice & available & cheap & modern, which is great, but decidedly low end.

    Mesh just makes sense. Most devices have terrible wifi performance. Making them chat across weak or noisy links will hurt everyone. For most users, mesh products are quite affordable & imo a good improvement.

    [1] https://github.com/berlin-open-wireless-lab/DAWN

    [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZcHbD84j5Y

    [3] https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi

  • by axismundi on 6/3/22, 6:33 PM

    I am considering mesh device, but also looking at wifi 6 support, since we have smartphones that support it, and I can add wifi 6 expansion card to my kids computer - they are quite inexpensive nowadays.

  • by comprev on 6/3/22, 7:24 PM

    Draytek 2133 has served me well for years - ISP-provided wireless broadband router (in bride mode) feeds the WAN port with a public IP.

    Personal and WFH networks are isolated too via VLANs.

  • by wharfjumper on 6/3/22, 9:31 PM

    Personally I prefer to keep wifi separate from routing so use Ubiquiti Edgerouter 4 + a couple of AC Pros. Works well.