Looking to replace R7000 for a wifi router with better range

unni

Adept
I live in a 2 bed room 900 sqft house. My current router is a Netgear R7000. The router is located at one end of the house (cannot be moved since the internet optical fiber equipment is kept there). I get poor signal in one of the bed rooms and a bath room, and sometimes, no signal at all. Android phone would show exclamation against wifi with some message saying not using wifi until connection quality improves.

R7000 has both 2.4 ghz and 5 ghz access points. At the time of this post, Wifi Analyzer Android app shows signal strength as:
  • 2.4 ghz: -80 dBm
  • 5 ghz: -67 dBm
I was under the impression 2.4 ghz has better range than 5 ghz, but right now I seem to get better signal in 5 ghz. This is not always the case though, sometimes the 5 ghz one won't even show up when I scan for wifi.

So, now I am in the market for a better wifi router. My use cases include:
  • Around 10 wifi connected devices
  • YouTube/Hotstar/Netflix streaming on TV (through wifi)
  • NAS access through wifi (I backup photos and videos regularly, and would like to achieve maximum speed)
  • 50 mbps internet connection

Please let me know your thoughts on whether a new wifi router would help me solve the problem. If yes, which would be a good option? My budget is upto 14k, but I would prefer to spend as less as possible. Please note that running a gigabit lan is not possible since I don't own the house.
 
If you get a new router, can you connect it via a wire to the R7000? One is definitely not enough for a large house. I have 3 to cover the entire house.
 
If you get a new router, can you connect it via a wire to the R7000? One is definitely not enough for a large house. I have 3 to cover the entire house.

The house has only 1 plug point per room. So, if I have to connect another router or even move this router to the center of the house, I have to either get a power cable extender or run the ethernet cable all the way to the next room. Do you have any recommendations on DIY cable hiding methods?

Hi, try merlin xwrt firmware on your router. You will see improvement in range and performance and lots of other goodies.

Thanks. Will give it a try. I had tried DD WRT last time, but didn't notice much improvements.
 
I will strongly recommend buying another router and connecting to your current primary router via an ethernet cable. I did the same In my home even when my main router is in middle of entire house. My house is also around 900 Sq feet but with only main router, the signals won't reach bedrooms especially with bedroom doors closed. Even if the signals reached, the bandwidth was under 1 Mbps when my connection is 25 Mbps.

What I did was that in the bathroom area (which is between main router and bedrooms), I got wire pulled from another switch (no plugs there) and got a new board fitted there. Connected my second router to that point and now my bedroom too has full 25 Mbps. Since I have TV In bedroom too, this was needed as eveything there runs over internet.
 
I had the R7000, when it was new it was good. But the 2.4ghz started to drop just after the warranty, with lots of IOT devices connected. The 5ghz also didn't have the range, netflix sometimes would buffer or drop to lower resolution, this tv is on another floor.

I then upgraded to R7800 this router has more range and the tv on the another floor has no buffering. It has a higher clocked 1.7ghz dual core processor from qualcomm vs the 1 ghz dual core broadcam processor of the R7000.

The newest router from netgear is xr500 it has double the rom space so it has better UI, otherwise is basically the same hardware as the R7800.

I also use it as a NAS infact have connected a 8tb drive external powered, running 24x7.

I even reduced the 2.4ghz transmission power on the R7800 because of the higher range.
 
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Get either the TP Link 941HP or 841HP. Don't know if it will be good enough for your bandwidth requirements but it will most definitely provide you a great signal everywhere.
In my house it is placed on the groundfloor of a 950 sq ft house and I can srill get decent signal on the second floor. Also, I can get a signal on the same floor as far away as 300ft away from the home.
 
The r7000 has one of the best coverage on the 2.4 ghz band although the 5ghz is middling
if your 2.4 is giving you issues in a 900sqft single floor then either there are several competing 2.4 radios in the neighborhood or your hardware is failing.

to eliminate the obvious, i am presuming you have run a channel scan and set the 2.4 channel to the least noisy of channel 1, 6 or 11
if not, try and see if that resolves the issues

if not , and given wires are not possible, i would recommend a tri-band mesh Orbi
(i too was on a r7000 with a few blind spots- several alternate dual wired routers later, i eventually bit the bullet on mesh 2 yrs ago and wish I’d done it sooner)
 
I was on a R7000 which died on me and I moved to a Asus RT-AC68U. in a hurry without much research. In my internet snooping regarding full coverage without a wired backhaul the Netgear RBK50 seems like a very good option if you don't have too many devices using CAT cables.


Each node has 1 WAN and 3 LAN ports which is one too few for my use case. It has a dedicated backhaul over a separate5 GHz wifi channel so congestion is a smaller issue.

 
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Please let me know your thoughts on whether a new wifi router would help me solve the problem. If yes, which would be a good option? My budget is upto 14k, but I would prefer to spend as less as possible. Please note that running a gigabit lan is not possible since I don't own the house.
Was it adequate before and of late has become bad ? this isn't clear from your opener.

I have a R7000 and range is quite good.
 
I was on a R7000 which died on me and I moved to a Asus RT-AC68U. in a hurry without much research. In my internet snooping regarding full coverage without a wired backhaul the Netgear RBK50 seems like a very good option if you don't have too many devices using CAT cables.


Each node has 1 WAN and 3 LAN ports which is one too few for my use case. It has a dedicated backhaul over a separate5 GHz wifi channel so congestion is a smaller issue.

It's a trivial problem - you just need to add a cheap gbe switch wherever you need more ports
 
Check the recommended channels in Wifi Analyser and change the 2ghz to that channel. Install a custom firmware too. It would also be good to move it to a position that's more central. You can perhaps take the cable through windows to another room more central and place r7000 there. If R7000 gives you issues, the only upgrade is a mesh wifi. I have 2 R7000s running Advanced Tomato.
 
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