Hello dear selfhosters,
I'm planning to step up my WiFi game and after some research I feel a little lost. do have questions.
At the moment with an all in one router (a fritzbox ) and a WiFi range extender the coverage is not sufficient and the extended connection not reliable enough. So I plan to get two wireless access points. That would be all for now, in the future I am thinking about switching to opensense to get vlan support - I'd like to have one for iot devices, one for kids, one for guests.
The questions for now: If using access points with a software controler (I.e. T-Link EAP653 or UbiquitI U6+) can I just plug these into the router, turn WiFi in the router off and have the access points handle the WiFi? But IP addresses will still be assigned by the router, right? I don't want to leave the router WiFi running with the same ssid because this will affect the smoth transition between access points managed by the software controler? If the software controller is down for whatever reason, will the WiFi still work?
Questions for later: Will opensense be able to handle vlans for WiFi connected decices or do they need to be configured in the controler software? Are the access points I mentioned suitable? I want WiFi6, not willing to spend more then double for WiFi6e, max 15-20 devices in the network, no cloud controller, generally I prefer open systems. Any better suggestions for devices?
Answers also to a single question are very much appreciated!
Nice hints. Never really heard about the banana pie routers. Great to hear from someone with extended knowledge! You gave lots to read and think about. Setting up a mesh network requires some work but seems doable. Have you used it? Does it work for you once setup smoothly? Sounds great all in all but not sure if I can motivate myself for the extra effort (and the negative feedback for breaking the internet). Do you use the metal cases from banana pie and their WiFi antennas or are there better options? It will be in the living room and a not to techy look is required.
Mesh works if the hardware supports it, no problems there. I do use the metal cases and their antennas, they're reliable and solid options.
As I said somewhere in this post the BPI-3 is overkill if you're just looking for an AP, there are older older or newer commercial AP/routers that are cheaper that can also run OpenWrt. https://lemmy.world/comment/4971502