I will preface this with I really struggle with shopping for home network equipment and TVs. So I apologize if this seems silly or if there are other posts (feel free to link them) that already have a great answer.
I have had Google Wifi (not nest) in my house since we bought it (almost 3 years ago) as it was a simple solution to get reliable wifi going while dealing with all that comes with buying a house.
I am hoping to replace Google Wifi with some sort of router / AP combo. I currently have a 1gb down speed plan with comcast. After reading the sticky, I would love to keep my budget under $300 if that is realisitc.
Here are kind of the basics I am looking for:
-coverage for 1500sqft
-not sure if this is a thing but I need the signal to be reliable vertically. The big struggle currently is that the router has to be located on the 2nd floor but the main media area of the house is the basement. I am also finishing up adding ethernet access to each floor of the house which I think should help as well.
-wireguard support
-can support atleast 20 devices
I do have an Asus RT-86U, which does not seem supported by openwrt, and an Netgear R7000 which does seem to have support. If I could use one of these and a recommended AP or two I would be happy to do that as well.
…only technically, if you disregard its barely supported wireless side (54 MBit/s max.).
Neither of these devices are sensible choices when it comes to running OpenWrt, as they're both all-Broadcom designs (and support for Broadcom wireless is between completely non-existent to close to non-existent) - your google wifi satellites actually have a better chance of being supported (depending on the exact model).
But there's not really anything provided to give you advice, as you don't really raise the topic why your google wifi is lacking (e.g. which aspects you're hoping to improve), nor if you have a wired backhaul in place to connect your APs. Wifi coverage in an existing house always depends on the exact circumstance, building materials, number of walls and floors, kind of a rough idea of the floor plan (the more you diverge from a cube (well, sphere), the more this matters) - the number of square metres doesn't really tell a story.
In general, you can expect the characteristics of most 'normal' wifi router antennas to be donut shaped, meaning they're optimized to cover your floor horizontally - not vertically. While you can typically get relatively good reception in the room directly above/ below the router, the adjacent rooms in the other floors tend not to have good coverage.
A wired backhaul/ backbone of your network always trumps wireless backhauls between your satellite APs (repeater effect), regardless of any advertising promises given by your vendor. Meaning you should really look into the feasibility to use wired ethernet at least between the different storeys (and ideally to the places where you need it most, e.g. TV/media room, office, etc.), using one wired-AP per storey (with a good channel plan, optimized (==lowered) tx power settings, etc.).
If you have to resort to connecting everything wirelessly, that is possible - but far from great.
As far as dealing with 1 GBit/s WAN is concerned, this still applies (especially is you add VPN connectivity to a commercial VPN provider to the wish list):
These days I would look into alderlake-n/ n100 based mini-PCs with four 2.5GBASE-T ethernet ports (roughly starting around 130-250 EUR), with as many wired APs as you need (if you can rely on a wired backbone, these may even be rather cheap, if not it's going to be more expensive).
why your google wifi is lacking (e.g. which aspects you're hoping to improve)
-no admin page / lack of advanced features
-no wireguard support
-I am generally trying to move away from google products
nor if you have a wired backhaul in place to connect your APs
Yes in the near future.
kind of a rough idea of the floor plan (the more you diverge from a cube (well, sphere), the more this matters) - the number of square metres doesn't really tell a story.
split level house. The modem and router would be located on the 2nd floor in an office. Currently there is a Google wifi AP on the main floor in the kitchen, and one on the basement floor. The kitchen is directly below the office. The basement is adjacent to a laundry room that is directly below the kitchen.
In terms of building material, the house was built in the early 1940s so the majority of the house is wood and drywall.
I can provide more detail if there is something else that would be helpful.
These days I would look into alderlake-n/ n100 based mini-PCs with four 2.5GBASE-T ethernet ports (roughly starting around 130-250 EUR), with as many wired APs as you need (if you can rely on a wired backbone, these may even be rather cheap, if not it's going to be more expensive).
Ill look into this.
I really appreciate the reply and any further info you can provide. Thanks!
Looks like these could both be good options. Originally thought they would be used as a combo (ie use the asus router and zyxel as aps) but looking at it, the ZyXEL is its own mesh wifi system if I am understanding it properly.
I might be able to just "borrow" a POE injector from work so hopefully that would save a bit of cash as well. I do have an 8 port switch already but depending on how all this works out might need to get a bigger one.
Sorry if this is a silly question but what would be the benefit of getting a router without wifi? Is that just simpler if the plan is to have every device hard wired?
Performance.
There is very little beating low-power-consumption x86_64 systems in terms of performance - and you need a lot of performance for 1 GBit/s wan + VPN.
But x86 and other high-performance ARMv8 SBCs don't make good APs, so you need to augment those with APs.
The wsm20 makes a good AP (preferably wired), but they aren't all that fast as router (2*880 mips 1004Kec), while the tuf-ax4200 can at least bring 4*2.0 GHz cortex a53/ ARMv8 to the table.
What's the model of your Google WiFi? One of the older generation has OpenWrt support (AC-1304, which I am using now), if that's the case, you can save 1, put this AC model into the room that doesn't need very fast WiFi, and just buy 1 AX with OpenWrt in major room, this can save some budget.
Besides the above suggestion, the Netgear WAX206 is also a very good one (it's marketed as small business desktop AP and signal coverage is very good even it doesn't have ext. antenna)
100% concur with the suggestion - particularly for a 'power user' - to completely separate routing functions from a wireless AP. Dedicated solutions for each will result in best-in-class performance, 'jack-of-all-trades' combining wireless and routing functions will result in very poor performance in nearly all areas.
You can get a VERY effective, line-rate-QoS solution with something as basic as a 1GB CM4 module combined with this:
and a very inexpensive switch. If you're less of a do-it-yourselfer, there's this that's also fully supported:
and also quite powerful for the job.
I'm not as familiar with Google WiFi, but were I you, I'd either see if I could get a third to act in an AP mesh and put one on each floor with the 'main' one physically located near a mini-router as above (to provide maximum coverage and maximum function) or, depending on where your cable modem can be placed, put it, the dedicated router, and a switch in the basement (where you're probably not seeing a lot of wireless use) and use the two APs you've already got in a mesh without having to buy another Google unit.
There's a lot of ways to skin the cat, but all of them (that are worth a damn) involve cleanly separating wireless radiation from basic route/firewall functions.
OP mentioned that the hard wiring between floors will be done, so AP mesh isn't really needed, a more simple AP roaming would be enough.
CM4 with that IoT carrier board I believe it's still quite expensive (the price of CM4!), and heat dissipation during load is also a question (acrylic case, no space for heat sink?), also lack of USB3 ports, the NanoPi R4S is doing a lot better here.
1 GBit/s wan AND expecting VPN throughput close to that is firmly in the domain of x86; RPi4/ RPi5 aren't bad, but prices don't make this very competitive (while being more questionable to cope), r4s performs slightly below these.
With mesh, hard-wiring (which is expensive and difficult to do after-the-fact) would likely be entirely unnecessary, an important consideration.
CM4 1Gbit without flash is $30 US, not really a bank-breaker. The combined carrier board and acrylic case with heat sink is another $50.
There's no question about heat dissipation - there's a very large heat sink that's part of the acrylic case package, and under full-duplex gigabit load for 24 hours straight in an enclosed basement closet, temps never exceeded 52 degrees celsius.
It doesn't have a USB 3.0 port, that much is true (it has a single USB 2.0 port), but tbh I'm personally not trying to turn it into an ultra-low-cost 'server'...I use it as a router, and I let it route. Just as I believe it's a better play to use a router as a router and an AP as wifi, I leave server duties to, well, servers.
The x86 discussion is kind of done to death by now - IF you don't mind many-years-old hardware and you can live with the (relatively) extraordinary power draw, it'll certainly work, but it's most often not so different from grocery shopping via 18-wheeler...it can be done, but should it?
Wireguard for me will hit about 800Mbit/s in a closed-loop environment...given the other end of the connection is extremely unlikely to be unloaded gigabit, it makes absolutely no real-world difference.
Since OP is almost done with hard wiring, I do not see why OP should go back to wireless mesh, cable connection is simply stable, and you don't need to worry about any obstacle in between.
USB 2 isn't a problem, but if it's USB-A type would be a lot better, I connect this to UPS as NUTS server which is great.
Not to mention I am in Japan which can't even get a single CM4 (the Pi4B is still expensive indeed), so last time I got the 4GB NanoPi R4S which has more memory to run LXC PiHole together, which works great.
@fakemanhk just so I understand - I could get something like the R4S as the router and then just use something like the wsm20 that @ed8 suggested as APs?
I could then possibility add another switch in the basement to have devices down there hardwired so that basically only phones and IoT would be wireless.
Thanks everyone for all the replies! I really appreciate how helpful everyone is trying to be.
Yes, R4S is a great choice indeed (I also own it), if I am not upgrading internet to 10G probably would be continuing to use it. Remember to get the 4GB version (1GB version can't boot with OpenWrt, it's different thing, also don't pick R4SE the eMMC can't be used), it has more than enough memory that I also used LXC to run PiHole inside.
