I have an Ubiquiti Amplifi HD wifi router today, but I don't get reliable whole home coverage in my new apartment
It is 100 square meters (~1000 sq ft), L shaped, with the router located on the inside bend
Do I need mesh or would a newer modern router be sufficient?
FYI in the furthermost room to the router has a 2.4 GHz wifi scale that do not get reception, but a Zigbee device does from a Zigbee router located besides the wifi router
Do you think I need mesh for this? Or would the GL.Inet Flint 2 that I see recommended here be sufficient? There's no retailers in Norway that carry it, so it would not practically returnable if I purchase it
It all depends on the environment the router is going to be placed in. Some questions which come to mind: Are there thick concrete walls? How noisy is the wireless environment? Where is the router placed, centrally or somewhere on a side of the apartment?.
That being said, a properly placed and properly configured router should be able to cover 100 square meters. If you live in Europe and are somewhat technical I would recommend you to look into the Zyxel T-56.
2.4 is a wall of noise in most urban places. A 2.4 only device might need an AP in the same room with it. Protocols like Zigbee are designed to trade bandwidth for range.
And 2,4 is only round radio so there is no beamforming either.
But iot devices (which the scale is) always by themself has tremendously bad wifi hardware so many times it isn’t even enough if the ap and the iot stand beside each other.
The apartment is on the top floor of a an apartment constructed in 2018, so likely not the worst interference environment compared to lower levels in the building. I don't think there are any concrete walls inside, and the router is already quite centered
I will first check if I can get another used Amplifi HD for cheap, as they support mesh, and then I don't need to set anything up again
edit: Turns out there's some concrete walls and the poor reception area is on the other side. Got a used Amplifi HD for 30 USD and set it up as an additional mesh point and that fixed it.
So I won't transition to OpenWRT just yet, maybe next time when this hardware dies
