Question New device to expand wifi

[Kipper34]

Hi guys,

I'm looking for another router to expand my wifi (wired to main).

Here are my options, used device (low cost) and flashed with ddwrt on day one.


Netgear Nighthawk X6 R8000
Netgear Nighthawk R7000
D-Link DIR-882
D-Link DIR-890
Asus RT-AC3200
Asus RT-AC68u
Linksys WRT1900ac
Linksys MR9000
TP-Link Archer C7


Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

What are you currently working with? Are you looking to expand vertically or horizontally?

 

[Ralston18]

And I will ask what is the make and model of the existing router? Is it DDWRT also?

 

[bill001g]

If you are wiring a second router to your main router you are running the second router as a AP.

When you run as a AP the traffic will not even pass through the router chip so your firmware makes no difference. You are only using the wifi radios and basic switching to get to your router.

All the wifi function runs inside the wifi chipset. These are small dedicated cpu that the router loads with firmware on boot. Because of the limitation placed by the FCC no thirdparty firmware has any ability to change the software that run in the chipset. If you look at the actual third party source code you will find they load a binary image into the wifi chip.

In some ways the factory firmware might have advantages they tend to get the updates to the wifi chipset much faster than the third party images.