
GL.iNet
GL-MT6000 (Flint 2)
OpenWrt enthusiast's choice; good value, but lacks 6GHz.

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I just upgraded from a Nighthawk R7900P to a R9000 and it made a noticeable difference in both speed and stability. The old R7900P is now in AP mode for the other side of the house. Here’s the best part: I picked them both up at the local thrift store. Threw the latest firmwares at them and they’ve been great, other than the older 7900 being a bit slow to respond and taking longer to boot, etc. I feel that buying older equipment that has had time to get the necessary updates, has lost its value and otherwise has had the outright failures weeded out tends to work better for me. Sure, they aren’t the latest and greatest, but most of us don’t need that. We just need reasonably stable devices that support the devices and features we use and provide the security and support to keep us reasonably safe.
yeah I stopped buying gaming routers 4 years ago. I was on my 3rd nighthawk - they would no joke die consistently 2-3 months after their warranty expired. 3 of them in a row, like clockwork. I went with a mesh system and I am very pleased with it. it allows me to have solid fast wifi in my detached garage, which wasn't possible with the gaming router. and I have overall way better signal on the other stories of my house. I get close to 1 gig on wifi now. the mesh system, which includes 4 routers, was also cheaper than my nighthawk. never going back tbh
You can totally get away with 1 router. How I have it set up, is I have a 5HGz router (nighthawk) controlling all my home WiFi needs. Off the back of that router, I have a Ethernet cable going to another router (my BE9300 TP link) and that’s in my room. My BE9300 broadcast its own WiFi 6GHz network, aka my dedicated VR network that nothing else is on it. A common misconception is that streaming VR to your headset uses your internet connection. This is completely false. It just used the WiFi band AS its connection to your headset uses set. This is how you can play WiFi with no internet on standalone games completed disconnected from the web. What can cause issues is when multiple devices are fighting for the connection and it can intermittently interrupt the VR connection from time to time making to jarring. When I used my 5GHz network on my nighthawk there was noticeable hitches and high latency issues at times. Ever since I swapped to my 6GHz BE9300 it’s been flawless. So your set up would be like this: Modem > Router (for home WiFi) > ethernet to VR router > VR router Ethernet to PC If you want to try without a dedicated VR router it’s this: Modem > Router > Ethernet to PC It’s pretty simple and isn’t complicated as people make it out to be. I’d recommend watching this if you’re interested in the VR router setup. But if it’s in the same room that you’ll be gaming on, you can probably get away with a router that just does triband (2.4,5,6GHz) networks https://youtu.be/9Ugy8ZC26tE?si=YojtyVEOvNc--3GB
I moved from a Netgear Nighthawk router and extender to an Orbi network... Well worth it to me.
IMO the ubiquity lacks cpu power. You will get latency spikes as you load them up. The ROG is a good choice, same with the Nighthawk. A great setup would be to setup one central ubiquity for all low priority devices on 2.4g then use the ROG for all the high priority devices on 5ghz
You just need to create an account and load an app on your phone to set it up. I find the Unifi app to be substantially better and more intuitive than the Netgear Nighthawk app I had for my last router. Lots of youtube videos on how to set it up too. Super simple. Only warning I will give you is that the system will tend to grow over time. I started with a gateway, switch, and two access points a year ago. Now I have a NVR and 5 cameras too, as well as a couple outdoor AP’s.

GL.iNet
GL-MT6000 (Flint 2)
OpenWrt enthusiast's choice; good value, but lacks 6GHz.

Ubiquiti
Dream Router 7
Advanced management, but limited Wi-Fi 7 range, SFP+ issues.

Ubiquiti
Dream Machine Series
Comprehensive control, stable for large homes, but slow support.

Ubiquiti
UniFi Dream Router (UDR)
Modular, user-friendly, but tricky advanced setup, poor penetration.

GL.iNet
Beryl AX (GL-MT3000)
Travel king, versatile, OpenWrt, but bulky power adapter.