[ghporter]

No, my base station is not giving me trouble. But it is elderly, and the model was discontinued over 12 years ago, so it is definitely worth while to plan to (eventually) replace it.

I have a variety of WiFi-equipped devices, and some of them are not particularly new, either. I don't know if that makes a real difference in selecting a wireless router, but maybe?

Anyway, what's out there that has dual band WiFi, a built-in guest network, and hosts shared (USB or other connection) hard drives?

[Thorzdad]

I’m soldiering along with the same router, and am similarly interested in what could adequately replace it. I bemoan Apple getting out of this market. I’d buy an updated AE in a heartbeat.

[subego]

If you can brook Amazon shenanigans, I’ve been happy with Eero.

[reader50]

I went the business-router solution, with a Zyxel USG Flex 50W (USG20W-VPN). It was their introductory small-office router at the time.

I wanted per-computer bandwidth controls, and per-computer firewall options. It delivers all of those. Turning on firewall does not affect throughput - the router can keep up with the extra processing.

Though the expert interface is hard to figure out - I never did figure out how to turn the wireless on/off. Ended up using the simplified interface to do that, then return to expert mode to tweak settings. And the wireless speed wasn't the best - I ended up turning off the built-in wireless and slaving a residential router as a dumb access point.

Oh, and I continue to get firmware updates years after the fact. Both for security and feature updates. I'm happy with it overall.

[ghporter]

I should have also mentioned that I have an Airport Express (1st gen) extending the network. Which makes me think about the whole “mesh” thing. I haven’t seen any “real” explanation of what mesh networks are, just sales speak, so I don’t know if I want mesh or not.

I don’t get a good sense that Eero is going to fit the bill. Amazon shenanigans or not, it just seems like these products don’t do the jobs I want…

reader, the features make that Zyxel router look great, except for the (current) price tag. On the other hand, those features…wow.

So for lots of features, I looked at Cisco. Unfortunately under that brand they only have “routers” and “access points” (both pretty much industry standard setting stuff). They bought Linksys in 2003, and it looks like Linksys retained the feeling that they offer great features at decent prices. Plus it also looks like their interfaces are still as (fairly) easy to use as way back when, when I had a WRT54G.

I’m glad I’m researching this now, instead of when I suddenly need to replace something…

[Waragainstsleep]

As I understand it, most of Apple's Airport team ended up at Ubiquiti. I love their gear but you need a controller of some kind in order to look after it. You can do that on any computer though if you have one that stays on all the time.

[Brien]

Or just bite the bullet and buy a Cloudkey.

[Timo]

I went with Ubiquiti with a router/controller in the cellar and a bunch of WAPs throughout the house, some hardwired, some mesh.

I did keep two Airport Expresses for streaming music duties.