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  • Operandi - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    Do people really spend this much money in the plastic consumer networking space? $600 is insane for a consumer router. Really anything beyond $200 and you should start looking at building your own gateway, switch, and AP network.
  • calc76 - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    Where are you going to get all that with 6/6E APs for not much more than $600.

    Or do you mean that if you are going to speed over $200 you might as well spend several thousand?
  • Kevin G - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    Not OP but I think the point was disaggregating the devices into multiple, cheaper units. A stand alone AC class AP can be had for $150 but that doesn't include any router functionality. I'm actually waiting for basic AX access points for consumers to appear but not expecting pricing to change much ($200 to $250?) Grabbing a small PoE switch ($250) and basic wired router ($100) can bring the total to the same $600 price range.

    The difference is scalability and simplicity of management. One router that does it all for a small network (fast wi-fi and a few wired ports) works for most consumer users in terms of devices for small living spaces. Going the dedicated AP route scales up as it permits greater coverage area and room for more wired devices as that factor is purely in a switch. The a-la-carte approach does have require a bit of extra work in configuration that consumers tend to avoid even if it'd better suite their needs.
  • Operandi - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    I'm not sure what the rest of the market looks like but the Ubiquiti Unifi stuff that deploy is pretty easy to manage. Not really any harder than your average high-end consumer router that is loaded with a metric ass load of features anyway...

    Figuring out what you want to buy in terms of hardware is obviously more complicated vs. one component that does it all but if you are looking to actually use these types of features you should be able to figure that part out.
  • w1000i - Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - link

    Huawei AX3 Pro for 95$ much better deal. I got 1400mps speed on my old mate 20 pro which even not wifi 6.
  • vladx - Wednesday, January 13, 2021 - link

    Yep can confirm, Huawei AX3 Pro is great and I paid only $75 in my case. Just make sure to get the Chinese version as the EU version is crippled in order to comply with EU laws.
  • Operandi - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    Thousands??? Wi-Fi 6 APs start at around $100, a small business class gateway is $200-$300.

    Anyway.... what I'm really questioning is the idea spend $600 on plastic consumer grade router. In my opinion at this price level it makes far more sense to build out a separate gateway and AP based network that is likely more capable and more important upgradeable to future standards and capacity.
  • notR1CH - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    Especially when most routers end up in bad locations since that's where the cable / fiber demarc is. You really want a separate AP you can put in a good location to maximize coverage. I also wonder how often a consumer router like this will see proper security updates.
  • calc76 - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    Even a single 4x4 160MHz 6/6E AP isn't anywhere near only $100.

    The cheaper WiFi 6 (11ax) routers, like the Xiaomi AX1800, only do a small fraction of the speed of a good 160MHz band 4x4 router. They are barely faster than a decent WiFi 5 (11ac) router. A good WiFi 6 router will be multiple times faster.

    Perhaps you need to look at the 11ax spec closer, not all WiFi 6 routers are even remotely comparable.
  • calc76 - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    To go into a bit more detail about the differences between cheap routers and good routers...

    The cheap WiFi 6/6E routers are 2x2 which is only 1200Mbps per band, so can get roughly half of that due to overhead. These have been tested to get around 600Mbps actual bandwidth when next to the router but it drops off further away. Good but older WiFi 5 routers could already get well over 500Mbps.

    The good WiFi 6/6E routers are 4x4 which is 4800MBps per band, which can go well over wired gigabit speed and is why they include 2.5Gbe ports on the routers.
  • Operandi - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    Nothing you are saying is wrong is factually wrong but does lend any validity to a $600 consumer router making any sense? I don't think so.

    Yeah, it has powerful antennas and probably capable of a lot of speed but as others have pointed out (and anyone who's dealt with wi-fi will know) thats all highly dependent on the location of the AP in relation to your clients. Unless you live in a small apartment or a very small house odds are the location of where you would put this is going to cause issues with speed, limited coverage or both.

    You don't have agree with me but I think high-end consumer routers are the dumbest thing ever and there are better options for high performance home networking.
  • PaulHoule - Tuesday, January 12, 2021 - link

    I worked at a place that had a overgrown consumer Netgear router that looked embarrassing but performed pretty well -- if I was the first one to show up in the morning I'd set up in the supermarket across the intersection and have no trouble downloading Docker images and such.

    Unfortunately most sheeple think that wiring stuff with Ethernet is like putting your hand in a toilet so the market for an multi-AP solution that takes advantage of space and frequency diversity will always be suppressed.
  • jhh - Monday, January 11, 2021 - link

    I'm guessing the ceiling is the best spot for these APs. Who has a black ceiling which would allow this to blend with? And how does one hide all the cables this box requires? A single Ethernet cable (perhaps 2.5Gbps) with Hi-PoE, connected through the bottom would allow ceiling/wall mount. With 6GHz, the chances of working through walls go down, so building the router into this seems short-sighted. To serve something bigger than an apartment, an AP design with mesh routing becomes more valuable than a router solution.
  • krisvdvijver - Thursday, February 25, 2021 - link

    ..."bigger than an apartment, an AP design with mesh routing becomes more valuable than a router solution"...

    Isn't it possible to use a fast 6E router in the room where you need the most speed, and connect the router to mesh satellites in the other rooms?
  • SchmoeJoe - Friday, January 29, 2021 - link

    If this is going to hit the market in Feb 2021...they better get on the ball...

    https://imgur.com/a/gpGdXsY
  • DTaibi - Tuesday, February 9, 2021 - link

    @Ganesh, has anyone in the WiFi Tech industry discussed the possibility of a Quad-band WiFi 6E router? With the 2.4 GHz, 2 X 5GHz, and now 6 GHz bands, it seems like Quad-band is a possibility and may be welcome for maximum backwards compatibility and operation in RF dense environments. I'm trying to time my next tech refresh and would prefer to wait for a Quad-band 6E router if there is even the remotest of possibilities on the horizon. Thanks!
    -Dan

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