Request: I’m looking for something with high reliability rather than high speed. It needs to support 30+ devices.
Additional information: My house is about 30m (100ft) long, and the internet comes in by ethernet at one end of it. I’m happy to use a Wi-Fi extender if needed.
Context:
I’ve been having issues with both my current and previous routers. Devices are randomly unable to communicate over the network for several seconds at a time. Both ethernet and Wi-Fi are affected.
I live in Australia, so even the slowest router should be more than fast enough.
I have a large number of automated devices that need to stay connected at all times - even 5 second network dropouts are difficult to deal with. Internet dropouts are handled gracefully.
Any suggestions are gratefully received.
Hi, depends of your knowledge level I can suggest you 2 alternatives.
If you are tech savvy I recommend you to setup your own router and then install something like opnsense, then you can use wifi extenders to make sure you reach all the corners. For the hw there are a lot of router boxes in Amazon for 200€ with powerful cpus and 16 gb ram that should be future proof for the following 15 years. Opnsense (for the Sw) also has a very long record of supporting x86 architecture for ages.
In case you are more limited kn tech skills try to get a top of art router from a reputable manufacturer and make sure you can install openwrt on it. Openwrt is more limited speaking about features but it is a more router oriented Sw which can be easily understood. It also has a good record of supporting legacy hw.
As somebody else suggested, the obsolescence of the electronics is more related with the Sw and regulars updates than the hw itself. A good made hw can last >25 years without any probelm. Assuming that the performance is still good for your needs.
I hadn’t even considered open source software for routers. I’ll definitely have a look at that.