It's 2021, what is currently the Best Wifi router hardware for an open source router distro?

cyent · 08-05-2021, 06:56 PM

My house has a bit of a weird geometry, and the microwave oven does horrible things to my wifi connection....

I want to replace my ISP provider wifi router with something a bit more reliable and better range.

Any recommendations?

michaelk · 08-05-2021, 08:43 PM

A mesh network would be my suggestion like the following.

https://opensource.com/article/20/2/...twork-freemesh

cyent · 08-05-2021, 08:49 PM

About to click on "buy".... Sigh. Only shipping to the US. :-(

michaelk · 08-05-2021, 09:10 PM

That is unfortunate. Maybe something below is available in your area...

https://www.gadgetreview.com/best-openwrt-routers

jefro · 08-05-2021, 10:11 PM

Wonder about the microwave still.... Normal, safe or what?

cyent · 08-05-2021, 10:17 PM

I believe it's a standard problem with wifi... they both operate in the same frequency spectrum.

Sadly the geometry of my house is such that a line of sight from my laptop to the wifi router goes just over the top of the microwave (and then through some walls and stuff).

I think you can operate in different bands... but my son sadly insisted on an oldish model iPhone.

cyent · 08-05-2021, 10:21 PM

There are no TP-Link Archer A9's for sale near me at the moment, only A10's.....

I had a bad experience with, I think it was, a TP-Link a couple of years ago... it was listed as compatible with openwrt.. but the model number merely describes the package and the price and the feature set... which chipset is actually in the case can, and in this case did, change.

Openwrt is quite insistent on the flash/ram requirements, but I can't see that listed for Archer A10 anywhere.

michaelk · 08-05-2021, 10:35 PM

As I posted in your other thread that it is possible your microwave is leaking to much energy. Did you ever make sure the door seals were clean?

For awhile my router was in the basement basically right below my microwave oven and I use my laptop on the kitchen table all the time. I have never experienced any problems with signal jamming.

Switching to 5 GHz wifi should help fix that problem.

obobskivich · 08-06-2021, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

As I posted in your other thread that it is possible your microwave is leaking to much energy. Did you ever make sure the door seals were clean?

For awhile my router was in the basement basically right below my microwave oven and I use my laptop on the kitchen table all the time. I have never experienced any problems with signal jamming.

Switching to 5 GHz wifi should help fix that problem.

Exactly what I'm thinking, and even many older devices can probably support 5GHz via 802.11a. You might also consider a new microwave - perhaps cheaper/easier than a new router.

cyent · 08-07-2021, 08:11 PM

I think the driver not use 5ghz was someone in the house had an older model iPhone which didn't do that.