Personally I don’t buy routers from Chinese company. They are cheap for sure in price but I worry about data leak from those routers back to mainland China.
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Replace Airport Extremes with what???
- Thread starter icemantx
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Ubiquiti is really the best.
I was in a very similar position, having to restart my extremes more than I had to. They were all getting pretty old though. I opted for a Ubiquiti Unifi setup. I ended up running new Cat6 around the house to places it didn't exist before as my previous wired network setup was pretty ghetto, but worked. Now I have ports in every room in the house running to a central location patch panel where I have my network gear. I purchased a Unifi USG3 to handle WAN duties as I have FTTP with a PPPOE connection, 3 AP LR (wifi 5 as wifi 6 was out of stock) to ceiling mount (ground floor, first floor, second floor) and, a Unifi Switch 8-60w for PoE and a handful of dumb switches running off the switch 8 to cater for all my connections until I buy a 24 port switch.
Significantly better throughput to my devices and I never have to power cycle anything. Great management tools too which I host off my MacMini. All in all, a great solution and can be upgraded and expanded should the need arise (when running cables I ran extra so I can install PoE CCTV cameras for my property.)
Significantly better throughput to my devices and I never have to power cycle anything. Great management tools too which I host off my MacMini. All in all, a great solution and can be upgraded and expanded should the need arise (when running cables I ran extra so I can install PoE CCTV cameras for my property.)
I love Ubiquiti, but I have really struggled to source any products as they are all sold out and being gouged on eBay. Been trying to get a new Dream router for months, to no avail. The older dream machine was great too which is out of stock of course.
A year later they seem to be in stock on their site, but I read a review that says the Ubiquiti products require having an account with the company just to use the devices, and I immediately lost interest.
I’m here looking at wifi routers to replace my 2 AirPort Extreme 5th Gen units to get HomeKit & Thread working correctly with 3 Nanoleaf lightbulbs (the connectivity and performance sucks and is only ever in Bluetooth mode, and it’s actually gotten WORSE since I updated to Apple’s new HomeKit, after replacing my iPad Pro with an Apple TV 4K as a Home Hub).
I don’t even know if the wifi router type/model is an issue with Thread networking, since the only requirements mentioned anywhere are to have a Thread hub (I have an Apple TV 4K wifi, which Apple says works as a Thread hub but the Nanoleaf app says there’s no Thread network detected).
I can’t find any info about Thread in relation to Apple Airport units (they are wifi 4, from what I’ve read in charts of wifi versions, while the current is wifi 6).
I had the same question as the OP...
In my setup I have nearly 40 devices connected to my network. I have about 25 HomeKit enabled devices either directly, or through homebridge. And Apple TV 4K (wired) with a few Thread devices also. I stream in 4K to a couple of devices. And my wife and I work from home often with a lot of streaming or download/upload of video files.
One of our computers has no direct wifi access, it would require the intervention of the IT services from work if I add a WiFi dongle. And I have yet to establish a VLAN for that specific computer, I hate for them to have access to my whole network. And that computer is too far for me to run a network cable to it.
I have a wired TP-Link router in the basement to which my AE 6th gen is wired. It connects wirelessly to another AE 5th gen wired to the WiFi-less computer.
I also have an old 2009 MacPro 5,1 with OCLP which serves as a (wired) server for various stuff.
I just upgraded my internet access to 400Mbps and I was hoping to increase my WiFi speed with a more modern system...
What a disappointment...
I installed OpenSpeedTest on my server and bought the Lynksis Velop MX12600 with two satellites. After careful installation and validation, maximum throughput was around 80 to 100Mbps. Needless to say I returned them promptly.
I then bought an Orbi RBK752 mesh with one satellite. Although the throughput is much better at around 500Mbps download and 370Mbps upload, I will return them.
My current AE setup has a 568Mbps download speed and 602Mbps upload speed !
In terms of speed I have absolutely nothing to gain by retiring my Apple Extremes.
With the mesh systems :
I'm keeping my AEs until they die ! 😊
In my setup I have nearly 40 devices connected to my network. I have about 25 HomeKit enabled devices either directly, or through homebridge. And Apple TV 4K (wired) with a few Thread devices also. I stream in 4K to a couple of devices. And my wife and I work from home often with a lot of streaming or download/upload of video files.
One of our computers has no direct wifi access, it would require the intervention of the IT services from work if I add a WiFi dongle. And I have yet to establish a VLAN for that specific computer, I hate for them to have access to my whole network. And that computer is too far for me to run a network cable to it.
I have a wired TP-Link router in the basement to which my AE 6th gen is wired. It connects wirelessly to another AE 5th gen wired to the WiFi-less computer.
I also have an old 2009 MacPro 5,1 with OCLP which serves as a (wired) server for various stuff.
I just upgraded my internet access to 400Mbps and I was hoping to increase my WiFi speed with a more modern system...
What a disappointment...
I installed OpenSpeedTest on my server and bought the Lynksis Velop MX12600 with two satellites. After careful installation and validation, maximum throughput was around 80 to 100Mbps. Needless to say I returned them promptly.
I then bought an Orbi RBK752 mesh with one satellite. Although the throughput is much better at around 500Mbps download and 370Mbps upload, I will return them.
My current AE setup has a 568Mbps download speed and 602Mbps upload speed !
In terms of speed I have absolutely nothing to gain by retiring my Apple Extremes.
With the mesh systems :
- You have to register and sell your soul to be able to use their app which allow full monitoring of your network. Although there is a local web access available, you have to go through loops to access it.
- There is no way to have a separate SSID for 2.4Ghz on the Orbi. Most "smart" home devices use only 2.4Ghz. Sometimes to configure specifically a device you need to have your phone on 2.4Ghz. Without separate SSIDs you're f****.
I'm keeping my AEs until they die ! 😊
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I have a three-node Linksys Atlas Velop Wifi 6E system. It works great for me with my 400mbps Internet service. I get full wire-line Wifi speeds through out my >3000 sq.ft. house. The big thing on the Mesh system is to make sure you're using a wired ethernet backhaul. I first tried to extend the Wifi coverage wirelessly between the routers and that caused much slower end-user Wifi performance. With the gigabit ethernet backhaul I get full 400mbps performance almost anywhere in my house.
Linksys supports having different SSIDs for the 2.4/5/6 networks. But neither Linksys nor Apple recommends that configuration. So for my main home system all the bands share the same SSID. But I have some smart home products that want to be on a dedicated 2.4G system. So I used an older router to set up a separate 2.4G-only network and then only attach the smart home items to that network.
My iPhone 15Pro attaches via 6Ghz Wifi 6E only in certain conditions. I'm looking forward to getting a new MBP that will hopefully be able to use that band effectively.
Linksys supports having different SSIDs for the 2.4/5/6 networks. But neither Linksys nor Apple recommends that configuration. So for my main home system all the bands share the same SSID. But I have some smart home products that want to be on a dedicated 2.4G system. So I used an older router to set up a separate 2.4G-only network and then only attach the smart home items to that network.
My iPhone 15Pro attaches via 6Ghz Wifi 6E only in certain conditions. I'm looking forward to getting a new MBP that will hopefully be able to use that band effectively.
until vendor releases an Access point with 2.5 GBe backhaul its pointless to upgrade to WIFI 6E, you would be bottlenecking yourself to 1GBe backhaul or using wireless backhaul which I wouldnt recommend either. Unless you have a big need to move large files quickly on wifi, WIFI 5 is just fine for todays use.
I replaced my Airport Extreme with eero 6E last year. Easy install. Placing the hubs in the house in the most effective way was a bit finicky but I got it worked out after a day or two.
Never looked back. Zero issues, zero reboots, great bandwidth.
It just works.
Never looked back. Zero issues, zero reboots, great bandwidth.
It just works.
Asus wifi routers are very easy to setup with a wired backhaul, assuming you already have the wire pulled.
You would have to decide how much of an upgrade you want to pay for. You could go for WiFi 6E on all three routers but at a total cost of about $1000. Asus does allow you to mix any of their routers in a mesh network. You can use cheaper routers in places you don't need 6E if on a budget.
In any case, you really need to use Ethernet cable or the interconnect between the routers eats up your available bandwidth.
I ended up going with a set of TP-Link 6E mesh routers from Costco and they have been working well since I picked the up in August 2023. I would still prefer if Apple kept updating the Airport, but this setup works well so far and did not break the bank.