Question Recommendations for a decent wireless router to replace my TP-Link C4000 ?

[bobbee25]

I just want a decent wifi router for tvs and movie streaming, Lately I am having issues with my tplink.
I don't need the latest and greatest, just one that sends a decent signal. I favor tplink as I have always had them in the past. and I have a tplink extender for a tv at the other end of the house.

Walmart is close and has has the TP-Link ax1500, c54, 6, ax1800, and ac1900.

 

[bill001g]

In general the tv is going to be the limiting factor. The tv likely only has 2 antenna and likely is what is called wifi5. This means if it was a router it would have a 1200 number on it.

So pretty much any of the router you list will work fine. The somewhat faster routers in your list might have 3 antenna or support say wifi6. Your current router for example has a 2 5ghz radio chips but since the tv can only use 1 at a time it does not really run any faster.

There is likely no difference in the distance the signal goes between routers. The maximum legal transmit power is the same no matter how you encode the data. It is the radio power the is the key factor in how far the signal goes. Almost all routers transmit at the full legal power. Your tv also likely use the maximum allowed power. Some smaller battery powered devices might not. The key thing that affects the wifi coverage is how your house is built and how much signal the material absorb. This is why comparing routers reviews is impossible. The house makes far more difference than tiny difference in routers. Things like the distance between antenna on the router can cause some routers to work better or worse in some houses.

One key concern is the placement of your repeater. It does not go in the remote room with the other tv. If it was a big open house you would place it 1/2 between the router and the remote device. With walls/ceilings etc in the way you need to plave the repeater where it can get strong signal from the main router and still provide signal to the remote room. In general if you can not use any repeater it will be best. Repeater you trade bandwidth for coverage. It may not matter in your case that you lose 1/2 your bandwidth. A tv might need say 30mbps maximu for 4k data streaming.

 

[bobbee25]

The last week or 2 I noticed that my media server has been slow starting and occasional buffering, I assumed that it was something amiss with the media server, but now no wifi. However when I check the network with the roku network setup is shows all the numbers with an excellent connection, just won't allow apps to run as no no network message. (Etherent is normal)
I have tried all the standard troubleshooting steps, even switched to 2.4
Placed a wifi device next to the router, no wifi signal detected.

Was that an indication that something was going a miss with the wifi part of the router ?

I ordered the

TP-Link Archer AX1500 4 Stream Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 Wireless Router, Up to 1.5 Gbps Speeds,​

Primarily because I can have it within 3 hours from Walmart. I just don't feel like spending hours researching all the new routers.

 

[bill001g]

It is not uncommon for the wifi chips to fail in a router. It is strange in your router that you would lose 3 at the same time. Could be something else.

The router you ordered is fine. It is only pretending to be wifi6 it does not support the most important feature of 160mhz radio bands. Then again even the ones that do support it did not work very well because of the restrictions of the 5ghz band. Wifi6e does show a improvement because of all the bandwidth on the 6ghz radio.

It doesn't matter your end devices can't used the features anyway. You buy router mostly on price unless you need some very special feature...like say vpn. All the so called improvement on wifi over the last 5 years or so does not really make much difference to your average user. The manufactures just want to convince people they need to give them more money for a box with a bigger number on it.

 

[bobbee25]

Walmart express delivery failed so as compensation they gave me a$25 credit and I upgraded to the AX1800
Looks like the main difference is faster 2.4 than the ax1500

Thanks again

 

[bill001g]

But if you look at the details it will still run at 300. First it must use the wifi6 data encoding methods which your devices likely do not support. Then it must also use the extremely dense qam1024 data encoding. Even if your devices support wifi6 qam1024 pretty much only works in the same room fairly close to the router.

Wifi numbers are most smoke and mirror things that marketing guys like.