Apple - AirPort Extreme 802.11ac

Ask yourself how much of your bandwidth goes over ethernet, and how much goes over wifi. You don't need fancy wifi that supports 100% of your Internet service's speed over a single client if you don't want or if that's not your use case. A decent NAT router with 802.11ac may be able to handle your full Internet speed just fine, but split up over several clients simultaneously, for example. Since you don't give the speed of your Internet, nor the kind of wifi you're using, we can only guess. A used 802.11ac Airport Extreme, or an inexpensive, slightly older Netgear, or a newer TP-Link NAT router and wifi device would likely do just fine, and could be had for $40 USD or less.

Ask yourself how much of your bandwidth goes over ethernet, and how much goes over wifi. You don't need fancy wifi that supports 100% of your Internet service's speed over a single client if you don't want or if that's not your use case. A decent NAT router with 802.11ac may be able to handle your full Internet speed just fine, but split up over several clients simultaneously, for example. Since you don't give the speed of your Internet, nor the kind of wifi you're using, we can only guess. A used 802.11ac Airport Extreme, or an inexpensive, slightly older Netgear, or a newer TP-Link NAT router and wifi device would likely do just fine, and could be had for $40 USD or less.

I am using for HomeKit an Apple AirPort Extreme 802.11ac and an Apple AirPort Express 802.11n (2nd Generation). I have 6 Philips Hue lights, 7 HKSV cameras, 4 HomeKit power outlets, 5 HomePod speakers, and an Apple TV as Home Hub. Never have a single non-responsive device and never have any HomePod connection or dropout issues. Best HomeKit access points I have ever used, but understandably unrealistic to go out of your way to acquire them these days. In the past I was using an ISP provided router and I often had a 5 (sometimes 10) second delay between sending a command and it happening, I was also only using a HomePod mini as a Home Hub back then so that might contribute. I got annoyed with it and started looking into dedicated routers/access points and remembered I had a few AirPort base stations laying around, hooked them up for HomeKit and I just can't praise them enough. No unresponsiveness, no downtime, totally stable 100% of the time.

Get a old Apple extreme router or get a high powered AP

My first router was a links's years ago. Worked great until I replaced it with an Apple AirPort Extreme. It held up great for almost 10 years . I had some issue with a Deco X-55 as a router so I repurposed them to AP'S and stuck them behind the Airport extreme, I replaced the AirPort Extreme with a TP Link ER 707 M2 only because I wanted to go to 2.5G. So far it is working well. I think Tp Link routers are fine but their Mesh systems do not measure up as well.

Unifi. I have our home and my parents on Unifi gear. Flawless with HomeKit at both, and flawless generally. Prior to that I was on Airport Extremes (which I liked), and these are up a good amount even from them.

Router: Eero Pro mesh (3 access points). Apple TV 4K as the hub. Size of setup: 73 devices in the Home app. A mix of bulbs, sensors, switches, sockets, cameras, and most recently a robot vacuum. House is an average size 3 bed semi, garden goes back about 8 meters, driveway extends about 5 meters. There’s lights out front and back, and devices in the attic, so it’s all fairly spread out. A mix of HomeKit and Matter. Wi-Fi and Thread. 1 device on HomeBridge. Experience: In the 6 or so years I started my setup it’s been almost entirely rock solid, except for the first couple when I was clinging on to an old-ish AirPort router. As soon as I swapped that out for Eero it became stable.

I use the small TP link routers or an apple airport. Get an extra power cable and rig up a jumper so you can pickup power from inside the panel