I recently bought an R7000 and installed FreshTomato firmware on it and I'm very happy with the setup (but could I be happier? I've got nothing to compare to). I bought it to fix an issue with the crap router provided by the ISP and, to make a long story short, the landlord has said he will reimburse me foranotherrouter for £30-50 (I paid ~£30 for my R7000) and install that as a 2nd AP this year, as long as I set it up as a "normal" router before I leave (1 year tennancy - student house). That way we get "double" wifi coverage this year and future tenants don't have to deal with the crap provided by the ISP (but "only" one router). Now, my question is whether to get an R8000 or another R7000. The routers will be used in opposite corners of the house and one will be used as a "dumb" AP only (with Cat5e wired connection to the first router).
I'm asking because a) I cannot find much relevant advice that isn't out-of-date by now and b) there's a lot of conflicting advice out there regarding these two routers. I can get either router for about the same price used (and I'm not paying anyway) so that's not a factor really.
So, do I get another R7000, or do I get the R8000?
Now, my question is whether to get an R8000 or another R7000. The routers will be used in opposite corners of the house and one will be used as a "dumb" AP only (with Cat5e wired connection to the first router).
Why do you want another router in AP mode when you could buy an access point/extender designed for that purpose?
I'd probably just go with another r7000. Reason why is the r8000 triband has 2x 5ghz channels. Meaning that 1 of those channels is going to have overlap with the r7000 you have and potentially cause interference. If you go with 2x r7000's, you can have one on the lower 5ghz and one on the upper 5ghz channels.
but either could be made to work fine. If you went with the r8000, you could always turn down the broadcast power to reduce interference.
