Hello, currently I'm using a R7800 with ACwifidudes 22.02. The router is connected to a Vodafone Station Modem and a 1Gbit contract. Besides one Laptop one smart home gateway and one RPi3 (Smart Home Server+storage), all other devices are connected via WiFi.
Since a couple of month the whole setup is far away from stable, e.g. wifi disconnects . And to be honest, I didn't know what causes the issues. As the modem was already replaced, I could be the R7800.
Therefore I'm looking for a replacement. Also I have the feeling that the R7800 is not the perfect fit for 1Gbit?
While doing research, I learned that I should focus on component based network. Does that mean modem, router, wifi AP and LAN switch seperately? Or any other combinations? Especially as I also have the Vodafone Station, which I use as modem only.
I saw that for 1Gbit I need to use a x86 device, correct? What would be a less expensive possible available in EU/Germany? Or can I use my RPi3?
Since I'm not a super tech guy, it should be fairly easy to configure. Can I also get my smart home server on the device and replace the RPi3?
Is the R7800 a sufficient device to be used as wifi AP? If yes, with stock or Openwrt FW?
What would be necessary as a LAN switch? Knowing that I don't push constantly high volumes through it.
RPi3??? It doesn't even have gigabit ethernet......physically already not fitting this 1G routing task.
Use R7800 as AP is OK, maybe get NanoPi R4S as main router (not sure how much in your country)
And the Netgear WAX206 for sure can route 1G (I tested with WiFi, I got ~1.3Gbps)
Hey, thanks for all the answers. So I understood that replacing the R7800 would make sense, even if it is still working fine?
I also found, that replacing options would be WAX206 or DL-WRX36.
However, both are not "really" available in Germany. But I'll be in the US in a couple of weeks and could buy one there. Which one would be the option to get?
Hmm. The Asus TUF AX4200 is available for 120€ in GER, while the WAX206 and DL-WRX36 cost about 80USD + EU Power plug. Furthermore I understand that the AX4200 is not fully supported by OpenWRT yet and flashing is not straight forward as serial console is required. Would you still go for the next generation of Mediatek?
I read the linked thread and noticed, that it was closed. Which brought me to the question, if it is a bit outdated and the new "all-in-one" router generation is sufficient for home usage? What would be use cases for x86_64 and what for like WAX206?
I'm not sure if x86 would give me benefits. I know that @frollic found this one for 150€ https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BLY1DR42/ which seems to be a good deal. But in addition I would also need a LAN switch as well as Wifi AP. The question is, if this setup would be better for me compared to one of the devices mentioned above?
Thanks for the quick reply. May I ask you for the reasons? x86 would require three seperate devices incl. power supplies, more costs and probably also more effort in configuration. Furthermore, I would also need to keep all devices up to date. For me it feels like an overkill looking at my needs, but I'm not sure about that? That's why I asked for the different use cases. Just flashing a e.g. WAX206 to OpenWrt and configuring it the same as my R7800 sound much more straightforward?
Sorry about that. My usage:
-R7800 wifi covers all required rooms
-Typical remote office work, e.g. video calls, email with max. two devices in parallel. Usually via Wifi. Sometimes one device via LAN
-Movie/TV streaming 4k/UHD (e.g. netflix) with usually only one device (max. two in parallel) via wifi
-One HDD connected to router via USB for easy backup and data sharing. No complex NAS in use. Data is exchanged via wifi and LAN
-One RPi3 (Smart Home Server) connected via LAN. As mainly sensors are used, not much data volumes used.
-Few smart home assistants are used (e.g. echo, google HA)
-Ad hoc usage, e.g. simple internet browsing with mobile phones, tablet, wifi printer
-Guest wifi with very limited use
-Running wireguard server to access home network, e.g. check smart home etc. No regular data intense use.
I would still buy my E8450 again, or WAX206 for now that the Realtek 2.5 Gbps bugs are fixed. These devices are easy to install and well supported OpenWrt capable devices.
The performance is more than enough for SOHO usage of a single digit number of users. If your use case really needs more power I would think about the new MT7986 devices. But they may not be as mature as MT7622 with MT7915 devices.
From my point of view it's not important to actually exactly get 1.0 Gbit/s line speed with SQM. MT7622 will get up to 800 Mbit/s with SQM fq_codel.
You will not use 1 Gbit/s in real world with typical SOHO usage of downloads, office usage, video conferencing, streaming and general usage. Even if you have a small office of 4K YouTubers: use ethernet instead of wifi and everything is fine.
With vnstat2 you will see how much bandwith you are really using all day long. I would be suprised if your daily average will be above 500 Mbit/s. If so, then yes please go ahead and buy x86 routers for 1 Gbit/s SQM line speed. If not and you are below 100 Mbit/s average most of the active hours/minutes I bet MT7622 will be a good all in one choice.
I suffer from agency bias - I use one as my home gateway router - but if you want a router that will handle just about anything up to 1 Gbps, I still think the NanoPi R4S (4GB memory, in the metal case, and without the unique hardware MAC address chip) is one of the best available options currently supported by OpenWrt. An R4S should also have enough headroom to pick up your RPi3 home server functions. Connect an all-in-one AP to it and you have added an AP and managed switch ports via the ports on the all-in-one.
If you don't need router hardware that can wring almost every bit of performance out of a 1 Gbps ISP connection and one AP covers your space, I agree you and odrt have the right idea. Mediatek MT7622/7915 all in one options are affordable and may handle the majority of your requirements by themselves.
I have no experience with Filogic targets, but having recently upgraded from EA8500 AP's (similar to your R7800) to WiFi6 capable AP's (I've tested out an RT3200, WRX36 and Reyee RG E5), I can say I've been a bit underwhelmed by the "ax" experience at longer distances. In my use (longer distances) the external antenna Reyee is the champ, followed by the internal antenna RT3200...and I was left wondering what the attraction of the internal antenna WRX36 may be as an AP (it was by far the worst WiFi AP performer of the three in my use, though in its defense, it has the best gateway router capability of the three). Unless you are after 802.11ax bragging rights on clients a short distance from your AP's (or have a real use for same), I don't think you will be missing out on much keeping your R7800 a bit longer as your AP on 22.03 based OpenWrt.
And there is the rub with your R7800. With each new stable release of OpenWrt on a newer kernel, reports of progressively degrading performance on ipq806x hardware crop up. I think this hardware (ipq806x) is starting to show its age. Not telling you anything - you've clearly concluded same.
Thanks for all of your answers. That was a big help. I think I will just stay with my R7800 a bit longer and see if it remains stable and wait for the next generation of Mediatek MT7986 and MT7981 devices (or at least until they get proven to run stable).
Even though I am a little sad, because I was looking forward to something new and I would have the chance to buy a device in the US. But common sense won out in the end
Common sense today is MT7622. Stable and faster than ipq806x, ARMv8 vs. ARMv7, 802.11ax vs 802.11ac. Supported hardware offload vs. experimental NSS offload. My R7800 is now my backup device.
There is always a next generation in development. Filogic 830 and 820 will also get successors, for example with 802.11be Wi-Fi 7. You could always wait for the next generation to become stable. If next gen is stable then the successor generation is in development.
I think I will just stay with my R7800 a bit longer and see if it remains stable and wait for the next generation of Mediatek MT7986 and MT7981 devices (or at least until they get proven to run stable).