this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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[Request] Internet Routers (aussie.zone)
submitted 1 month ago by 18107@aussie.zone to c/buyitforlife@slrpnk.net
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Request: I'm looking for something with high reliability rather than high speed. It needs to support 30+ devices.

Additional information: My house is about 30m (100ft) long, and the internet comes in by ethernet at one end of it. I'm happy to use a Wi-Fi extender if needed.

Context: I've been having issues with both my current and previous routers. Devices are randomly unable to communicate over the network for several seconds at a time. Both ethernet and Wi-Fi are affected.
I live in Australia, so even the slowest router should be more than fast enough.
I have a large number of automated devices that need to stay connected at all times - even 5 second network dropouts are difficult to deal with. Internet dropouts are handled gracefully.

Any suggestions are gratefully received.

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[–] agegamon@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

Huge shout out to Louis Rossmans's guide. wiki.futo.org

Taking the plunge into pfsense or opnsense is very much worth it if you are as done with home/consumer router BS as I am. I got committed after even my ubiquiti router began acting up even after being reset. I followed that guide and am now running pfsense and by far the happiest I have ever been with a "home router."

I am by no means an expert at tech stuff, i have basic working knolwedge which is plenty if following a guide like this one. It's intimidating at first but definitely doable!

I didn't have a spare PC floating around and didn't have time to build one out so I bought a used Intel n5105 based mini-pc with dual gig ethernet ports. Its less modular than I'd like, but it's apparently easy to port a saved config over to a new machine. I was a little worried about performance before I got it, but its plenty fast. More than enough for my network with 30+ devices and it hosts OpenVPN for my phone when not home.

I recommend hardwiring as much as possible, or at least hardwiring to wireless APs and not using crappy WiFi repeaters. I picked up some used ubiquiti APs a while back that are still working well and are very reliable.