Hi, long-time OpenWRT and LEDE user here, but it has always been with my home wifi routers. I currently have OpenWRT installed on an Archer C7v2, and while the routing part works great, the wifi suffers due to some sort of wireless driver bug that many other people on here have witnessed. Therefore, I'm in the market for a wireless access point to use instead of the Archer's built-in radios.
Should I just get any old WAP to get stable wifi, or is there some advantage to also installing OpenWRT onto the WAP? I'm unclear on why I would want OpenWRT on an access point, though, since I thought most of the heavy lifting occurs in the router, while the AP just beams a signal to wireless devices. What's the benefit?
Also, any recommendations for an AP? We use both 5GHz and 2.4GHz in a 1600 sq ft single-story house. The Archer has a hard time getting reliable wifi to the far bedroom that is currently my wife's work-from-home office; it's not physically too distant but there are several walls and a closet in the way. She gets her work done but sometimes it gets slow and drops to one bar. I was hoping a dedicated AP would have just enough extra oomph to make it stable.
Thanks!