- 1350 sq ft home with basement.
- Vinyl siding / drywall home
- 300 mbps Internet (may upgrade to 1 gig)
- Device count: 7-8, streaming and occassional big game downloads make up the heaviest network usage
- Budget is basically whatever’s reasonable or $150 US
- I’m in Canada
From what I read about Wi-Fi 6 it seems like I don’t really need it and it won’t offer any benefits with my low device count. I considered getting Edgerouter X (see below) and two APs (one each for main level and basement) but maybe a wireless router would be better, and expand with an AP if necessary.
Also, I’m a networking newb but two of things I want to do is
a. setup two separate networks (vlans?), one for PCs and phones, the other for IoT
b. setup something like Masquerade to redirect hardcoded DNS used by some devices to pihole. With the exception of Edgerouter, I’m not sure which devices allow this, or if third party firmware is needed.
The most affordable WiFi router (that I’m aware of) that supports VLANs right out of the box is the GrandStream GWN7062, currently listing at $187 CAD on Amazon. It can be meshed with other GrandStream devices.
It’s probably not as flexible as the ER-X, but should be able to handle all of the basics.
Another possibility is the Synology MR2200ac.