Apologies if this isn't the best community for this question, I wasn't sure where else to put it.
I am looking to replace my WiFi router. It will only have a few devices on the wireless side, with the majority of my network data going between wired devices. Any gaming or latency-sensitive stuff will be on a wired device as well. The range doesn't have to be all that much, the total square-footage it needs to cover is pretty small, and there is nothing wifi-blocking to deal with (no metal/brick internal walls, etc). The only part that might be somewhat picky is: I either want good customization/configuration options or the ability to install a custom router OS (last I checked, openwrt is still popular?). Also, there are a couple older devices that I want to be able to connect still that only support up to 802.11n. I am very price sensitive.
From my looking so far, I've found
- TP-Link Archer A7, which supports openwrt, but I don't think supports WiFi 6
- TP-Link Archer AX10/AX1500, which does support WiFi 6, but I can't find info about openwrt support
- TP-Link AC1200 A6 V3, which is dirt cheap but I can't find info on openwrt support, and I can't tell what WiFi version it supports
I don't think I've used a TP-Link router before so any opinions there would be welcome (apologies if I butchered the naming scheme on the routers, it seems they all have several A___ numbers associated with them); they are at the top of my list currently due to their price and having the features I need.
Have you considered getting a wired router and separate access point? That's what I do. I don't like my router, ERX, it's great, just not what I want. I pair that with a unifi access point. That way I can add more if needed.
I had that thought in passing, but I've never managed such a setup and I (perhaps baselessly) assumed it would work out to be more expensive. Also, I've never looked at wired(-only) routers except when I have had to deal with rack-mount ones.
In theory though that could work perfectly. Do you have some starting points for me to look at wired routers, and APs? The Ubiquiti APs seem rather expensive, more than the all-in-one wifi routers I was looking at.