Looking to replace my Samsung SmartThings Mesh Routers

If you wire the nodes, I highly recommend deco x55. Can’t beat value per $ and this is TPL’s best selling and best supported mesh product. It’s also capable of delivering gigabit speeds to modern clients. Its weakness is its 2x2 160mhz radio where you see a major drop if you don’t wire the backhaul. Assuming 6ghz does not help backhaul due to distance, XE75 is in the same boat there.
Eero7 has same radios but better throughout at 5ghz due to wifi7. Deco BE25 set will beat it in price. Eero only wins for child controls.
If you don’t use wires, and want a high quality mesh, you need to go up to higher radio counts and spend a lot more money. Cheapest good option is x95 and goes way up from there.
You don’t need a super high quality mesh to enable better TV watching on the patio, any will do, but if you pay for 500mbps fiber or more, it’s nice to mostly get what you pay for. Also, a wireless $2000 mesh set will still not match a wired $150 set in connection quality. The expensive units are also much larger and uglier.

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You don’t need a super high quality mesh to enable better TV watching on the patio, any will do, but if you pay for 500mbps fiber or more

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I get where you are coming from, but philosophically, given that 4K streaming only uses between 25–50 Mb/s, then paying for a modem or router that can push gigabit speeds is somewhat unnecessary. While we like to think about them, peak speeds isn't really the number we should care about (assuming if we don't have a service that utilizes those speeds). What matters is consistent throughput and good distribution of that bandwidth across your network. For most households, knowing that TVs are the most data-intensive devices we use, ensuring steady coverage where they’re located makes a bigger difference than max download speeds.

But those aren't the numbers manufactures publish.

2500 square feet is doable by the average router, except maybe the TVs on the patio.

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Can we assume that none of the access points are hardwired/backhauled to the main router?

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I'm only using one port on back of the main router that's going to an 8 port network switch for other devices.

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I'm only using one port on back of the main router that's going to an 8 port network switch for other devices.

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What else is plugged into the switch?

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I think it's equipment because this issue just started within the past few weeks. Before then, I never had any problems.

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Being recent doesn't indicate the likelihood of equipment vs environment. Environment is always changing.

Ironically (or not), this popped up in my youtube recommends this am...



I think the take home message here is the mesh router congestion issues that most people don't think about...

I would replace stuff every 5-6 years anyway just due to technology advances, but as for degrading it's really hard to say what's happening.

It could be environmental as pointed out.

It could be software issues, either bugginess where your specific setup wasn't tested well or digital "cruft" accumulating that a factory reset might remedy.

It could be hardware issues. Consumer networking gear is expected to be silent thus usually have no fans, so they rely on heat sinks attached with thermal paste/adhesive which doesn't last forever. It eventually degrades and chips begin to throttle to manage heat which reduces performance, if they don't fail altogether.

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OK thanks - Now that I have run Cat6 cable to 3 different spots in my house (2 down stairs and 1 upstairs) in addition to the ATT fiber router itself what Wi-Fi hardware would be best today for 3 new Wi-Fi units?

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I really love my Unifi In-wall APs and their regular APs I have had now for 5 years.

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