I have 1GB up/down fiber connection, with a R4S as router, 2x R7800 AP and a RT-AC68U which I just use as managed switch. I need a few more wired ports, but debating if I should actually get an AP with 80211ax support instead of a switch, so that WiFi is going to be a bit faster and I get a bit better signal everywhere (although not sure if that actually helps to get an extra AP currently signal strength seems to be good enough everywhere, maybe its better to upgrade one AP and use one of the r7800 as switch). Any suggestions ?
Few requirements:
a) 4(+1) ports should be enough.
b) 1 Gbit should be enough (as the rest is 1Gbit), but maybe preparing a bit for the future makes sense and get 2.5 Gbit?
c)(obviously) needs to support VLANs on all ports.
d) available in europe
You won't find much difference in range between ac and ax since they both operate on 5GHz, and certainly won't have better performance if none of your clients actually support ax in the first place. Same goes 6E since it's basically ax but with additional 6GHz radio.
If you can wait, and maybe want to "future-proof", then get a Wi-Fi 7/be AP when OWrt support is available. If not switch seems to be a more solid upgrade.
Sorry, I don't have much managed switch experience, none in case of one running OWrt.
As for 2.5 GbE, what exactly is your use-case here? You've 1 Gbps service, so 2.5 GbE switch will only benefit your LAN devices, so you're doing something in your network that can take advantage of it, by all means, you should do so. But again, does your LAN devices have 2.5 GbE interfaces? Are you planning to upgrade to 2.5 GbE interfaces down the line, maybe even 10 GbE? Also, if whatever you're doing is enough to saturate 2.5 GbE, the processor of those devices must be sufficiently beefy to handle that much traffic. So just upgrading your devices to 2.5 GbE might not be enough to actually get that much utilization of your network.
Also, may I ask why do you need a managed switch? How many VLANs do you have on your network?
That's what I mean, will whatever you're doing be able to push 2.5 Gbps in the future? Do you plan it to? If not, 1 GbE switches will be fine for the foreseeable future.
I think there is no 2.5G switch that is managed, they are meant for low end purpose.
For AP, Netgear WAX 206, or Zyxel WSM20 could be a good choice, former one has 2.5G uplink with 4x4, later one is cheap enough.
Ok so 2.5 switch is out. Leaves 1gb managed switch or maybe something like the wax206. But well the wax206 is not really available anymore over here... Any other suggestions for a 1gb switch or ax AP?
Regarding 'Supported' Managed Switch: do you mean actually running on OpenWrt firmware?
=> If running on OpenWrt firmware is desired then look here for more info