eero 5

Yes, updating to a meshed solution will ensure smooth roaming throughout your house. I like the Eeros for two reasons: 1. It’s set and forget. There is very good logic built into it to better manage your airspace. 2. It’s compatible with all other generations of Eeors. Find a dead spot? Get a cheap, used Eero five from Facebook marketplace. As others have said, use ethernet wiring where you can. Between nodes and to individual devices. The reason being a wireless device looses 50% of available bandwidth for each wireless hop it takes to your Verizon router. Would you notice it on your cell phone? Probably not. Running a media server or gaming platform, probably so.

Hmmm, there maybe something in the way blocking your signal like a hot water heater. Anyways… I like the Eero’s. The larger models come with meshed nodes that have ethernet ports to wire into your office devices. They also use a concept called “out of band” backhaul. Meaning, node-to-node traffic doesn’t share the same frequencies as your normal LAN traffic. Look for this in any mashed network solution you deploy. And ultimately, Eero is easier to setup and maintain. Set and forget. If you want to play with and tweak your WiFi settings, look at a UniFi solution.

I’ve deployed meshed and stand alone APs fo my family, all with wireless back haul. From an end user’s perspective, people can’t tell the difference. From your prospective as the network admin, meshed systems have logic that enables them to be self-sufficient. They can auto manage your wireless devices and optimize your airspace. Stand alone APs require manual manipulation. A lot of folks here like that. As do I, but not for family. I hope this helps. Ps. I recommend you look at Eero. They have the best auto-logic.

Gotta say my Eero 5 has been bulletproof since buying when it first came out years ago. I was looking forward to getting past that Wi Fi 5 bottleneck and on to Wi Fi 7.

I’ve had my Eero 5 for 9 years now, it’s been bulletproof. I want to upgrade it and looked into using my T Mobile service’s mesh system but read it doesn’t work nearly as well as other mesh systems so I’ll be sticking with Eero, I’ve got no good reason to change.

I've had several meshes, all using wireless backhaul. First I had the Netgear Orbi mesh (wifi-5) that worked well for a few months, then Netgear made firmware upgrades mandatory, and put out some really bad firmware. Went to eero (wifi-5) after that, and that one never did work well for me. It worked, but not as well as I thought that it should have. I tried the eero Pro 6 mesh (wifi-6), and that was never stable. After that it was the Asus ZenWiFi AX (wifi-6), which worked really well here. The mesh that I'm using now, the ZenWiFi BT10 (wifi-7) is also working really well...the wireless MLO backhaul is very fast and has been stable. About as close to wired backhaul as I've seen, the speed at the remote node is very close to my ISP's provisioned speed. The latest firmware for the BT10 mesh has been great, but it took a few versions to get the degree of stability that I want. So, for me, yes, there have been ups and downs, but the Asus ZenWiFi meshes have been the best that I've had. Both have worked great with wireless backhaul, which is what I need. And have been stable and have provided whole house wireless coverage.

That happened to me with Eero 5s but I was just able to buy one new in box on eBay for a reasonable price.

The suggestion to buy the hardware used is excellent. Older Eero routers can also be used as wireless extenders. I started initially with an Eero 5, then bought an Eero 6 to use as the router. The Eero 5 was moved upstairs to be used as a wireless extender. Eero sells refurbished routers directly. Woot unpredictably has Eero and other brands for mesh network. There is an Eero outdoor router but that seems like too much for your needs.