What to buy for new home network - Obi? Mesh? Nighthawk? etc

[moonwatcher64]

Morning all. Used Netgear for many years but jumped ship last time to Linksys for their flagship wifi router. Waste of time & money.

But now want to start from scratch with a fast top end router & wifi for medium size house & garden but am totally confused and stuggling to differentiate between Netgear options.

What we have currently: 

- Linksys wifi router feeding a QNAP NAS, an old Netgear 48 port switch, 2 x TPlink PoE switches

- a lot of RJ45 outlets around house (90 % devices hard wired, we mainly rely on wires) to a Netgear 48 port switch. Switch is full and heavily used & coping well.

- some PoE (12 devices CCTV) on TPLink PoE switchs (will be moved to a new second Netgear 48 port switch with PoE)

- ISP is proper fiber (Virgin Media) and a reliable 100mb supply

All working well but would like to replace the wifi element and upgrade. Trouble is I cannot work out the best way to go. All read well .... top end Nighthawk, Obi, Mesh!!!

House is three floors and medium foot print. There are dead spots wifi wise. Roku TV sticks in 2 bedrooms struggle for example. Also we would like use strong wifi in garden. That also is a struggle right now. Was thinking add a wired extender into the shed end of garden. Have RJ45 into shed.

So what to buy?

What is the very best configuration to invest in from Netgear?

Which is fastest?

Which is most flexible to add to? Which is fastest? 

..... they all read similar to me.

Would be grateful for an explanation ... best, 2nd best, third etc ...  and why?

So if I wanted buy the fastest best wifi router, what would it be? And would I add Obi or Mesh in our configuration? It just does not jump out at me. And whilst have budgeted to 'buy the best' ... I cannot afford to get that decision wrong either.

As a secondary question, if I choose to upgrade the 48 port switch, what would a good one be for home racked use, ideally with PoE as well. Would prefer pension off the TPlink switches even those they have worked well.

Appreciate any help or direction from Netgear staff or members of the community to get the right 'buy decisions'

Many thanks

[michaelkenward]

One of those impossible questions. Too many choices.

I'd start with these.

Orbi: Whole Home WiFi System for Better WiFi Everywhere | NETGEAR

Wifi Router | Wireless Routers for Home | NETGEAR

Plug in your requirements, see which look good and ask for experience with them.

That helps to narrow down the options.

[moonwatcher64]

Thanks Michael.

Seems very odd that there isn't a more definitive tier or comparison table to assess best, better, optimum.

Of course depends on the application I guess but even then you would think Netgear might have some model scenario's. 

I'm reading and reading but still struggling to differentiate anything meaningful.

But thanks for the link and direction anyway.

Cheers

[michaelkenward]

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@moonwatcher64 wrote:

Seems very odd that there isn't a more definitive tier or comparison table to assess best, better, optimum.

Come on. All devices are "best" and "optimum" by definition.

The product pages are good for narrowing things down to the dimensions of your premises and the load you are putting on the things.

I forgot to say that you should also consider your budget.