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+1,

My ASUS AC86U will loose Merlin support by end of this year.

Once ASUS always ASUS. I don't think there is a replacement at all considering the fact that you can install Merlin and customize it to the way you want. Added the devices are sturdy and last really long. Invest today and next 10 years you will not need any upgrade.

I have a Netgear R7000 model which I updated with Merlin firmware RT-AC68U and have got a AX11000 recently. I have a Home Mesh setup with the two connected using wires and I find no dead spots at all.

My suggestion would be to get an high end ASUS and update it to Merlin. Then you can establish a Mesh at home using the old and new router.

There are hardly any devices available in India which has good openwrt support. If the device is supported, it will either have limited flash memory like 16MB. I recently ordered Xiaomi ax3000T wifi 6 from bangood to replace my Xiaomi 4a gigabit version.

Pleased with the purchase. Software updates are regular with TP Link. I have not attempted any third party upgrades so can't comment on that. I don't really meddle with the router apart from setting up the network with a strong password.

I get the feeling that their beam forming tech does work to a degree. We live in a house where the floor plan is more rectangular than square. My study is a corner room where wifi reception is not 100%. I still manage to get a stable video call connection when I work from home.

Note that my house walls are made from wood and gypsum board so you may find a slightly different experience from mine.

Thanks. I have ordered the TPLINK TLWA1201 with access point option. This is the only option that was available. Hope this solves my problem.

If looking for wifi6, go with this model and don't forget to disable wifi on Jio router and plug LAN cable from one of Jio modem/router to the WAN port of the TP-Link and change the operation mode to access point.


TP-Link Archer AX23 AX1800 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 Router (1800 Mbps Speed Gigabit Wireless | Beamforming OFDMA | Next-Gen Platform Dual-Core CPU | One Mesh Easy Setup) Black https://amzn.in/d/aJDIsLR

How can one order from Bangood? I used to buy but now they don’t ship!

They ship very limited items and luckily this router is one of them.

[₹3,948.83 45% OFF]Xiaomi Router AX3000T WiFi 6 Mesh Technology 2.4GHz 5GHz MiWiFi ROM Efficient Wall Penetration Protection Repeater Signal Amplifier Networking from Computers & Office on banggood
https://banggood.onelink.me/zMT7/vm7lgeg6

Probably discussed in depth,

but what is the best, easiest and effective way to boost the range to other floors of the house. I have the router set up in first floor and it gives poor signal strength in ground floor. How do I improve it? Range extender, or Mesh, a better router in first floor or another router in ground floor? A little confused on what should I go for.

Range extenders are useless.

I know mesh solution works in homes that don't have thick concrete walls. Our houses are built different so I am not confident that a mesh solution will solve your problem.

Stick to another dedicated router for the floor thats having issues. You'll need to wire it to the main router thats receiving the broadband connection. Run the cable outside the house.

If you can pull LAN cable on each floor either through conduit or from outside, then it is very easy. Just buy any router like the wifi 6 one suggested above or any mesh router which has lan option.

Mesh and wire are not mutually exclusive.

We have a two-router Mesh setup, and the Mesh "backbone" is an ethernet cable. Of course, it can use wifi too, but the point of it is that it is in a place where the wifi signal from the main router is terrible --- or else it wouldn't have been needed in the first place!

In case you don't have to support a usecase where you need to switch seamlessly between the first floor and ground floor networks, just pull a cable and link it to a another wifi router in bridge mode.And if you assign the same SSID and passwords, you will have a near seamless switching.

You can still have a mesh. Frankly, we don't have that need, and it was a bit of extravagance on my part, going for the two-router mesh.

Sometimes, one wants the superior techie solution not because it is needed but because... just because :D

This is what I have. I have a main router that serves one floor. An Ethernet cable to two other floors that runs outside the house and power 2 more routers. Each floor has its own router. The only problem with this approach is that, sometimes your device may get connected to a router say in 2nd floor but you are in 1st floor. In such a case you manually need to switch the network on the device (say a phone). This problem will not arise if you have a fixed usage where devices will only use their networks from a particular floor - for example a computer that will always be used from a certain floor can be configured to only the right router. The problem happens when you may be moving across all the floors and need different routers while in different floors.

This is the problem that mesh routers fix. As long you can live with the above issue, this will be cheapest and easiest fix for your problem.

I would suggest to avoid giving same username/password with out having a mesh routers because it can be very confusing and hard to switch networks if required. Consider you are walking up from ground floor to 1st floor and your phone gets connected to the ground floor router. As you go to first floor, it will stay connected to the ground floor router unless the signal strength becomes too low. So when in 1st floor, the phone will still be connected to the ground floor router and it's even hard to recognise this situation because the router names are same.

However, if using a mesh routers (I don't have much experience) but I believe the mesh routers fix this not only by having the same names but also by actively switching the device to the router that has the best signal strength. I don't know how they do it though.