[nbutyllithium]

I just recently went through this myself. Bottom line up front: I ended up with two Belkin RT3200s for $100 a piece (which are just rebranded Linksys E8450) which I flashed OpenWRT onto. They're one of the few WiFi 6 routers that are supported by OpenWRT at this time). One as the main router (handled the DHCP and was connected to my modem) and the other as an access point. I probably would have gone with a PC Engines device like commenter nimbius suggested if the wait time wasn't so long.

Depending on your familiarity with networking (or willingness to learn) will really influence what recommendations you'll get. For example that linked HN thread the author said "I want something simple (no DIY, no OpenWRT), I want my privacy, and no PoE." Are you under the same constraints?

Perhaps you can also clarify a bit more about your use-case. You stated WiFi 6 is desirable but not a must-have. Do you mean WiFi 6E (i.e. 6gHz) or just 6 (i.e. a flavor of 5gHz oftentimes referred to as 802.11ax or just AX). What about other factors? You mentioned mesh or "beefy." Are you in a densely populated area where you're fighting over the airwaves with your neighbors? Are your walls all made of concrete where signal penetration is poor? Or perhaps you just have a lot of square footage to cover? The first two are probably better served by more access points rather than "beefy-ness."

> Things I’m observing from reviews and comments around the internet: Mesh isn’t ready and can have mixed performance on satellites.

Advantages of mesh: they are easier to setup than a DIY system. Disadvantage: your air-gapped mesh router is basically a glorified range extender and comes with the same fundamental limitation that it's got to communicate with the main unit through WiFi. I tested some Google home mesh routers for example and they topped out at ~300 Mbit/s even 6 feet apart (plus they required privacy concessions for more "advanced" features like setting up a guest network).

> ASUS has quality control and customer support issues, but if you’re lucky they can be good.

I'm afraid that seems to be a common theme among other brands as well.

> Ubiquiti sounds good or terrible depending on who you listen to.

Generally I found the consensus to be they at least used to be quite good, now it's debatable especially since you stated privacy as a concern (see many HN submissions about it, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21436356 for example).

[cyberlurker]

I move a lot. I’ve been in big houses and small apartments the last decade off and on. That’s why mesh or beefy (think I can make that term stick?) doesn’t matter too much to me right now.

My most important devices are always hardwired, but I still have WiFi needs.

WiFi 6E would be best but not at the cost of great 2.4 and 5Ghz performance.

I’m not opposed to mucking with networking, I’m technical, but also I can’t do it all the time. I’ve got day jobs. I mostly want to spend a sufficient time setting it up and then mostly leaving it alone besides painless firmware updates.

Thanks for your answer. I’m going to give Ubiquiti another look despite the concerns.

[vineyardmike]

+1 to Ubiquiti. Just don't get their consumer gear its completely different products, get the pro gear.

I move a lot too and own the security gateway (just a NAT/controller with one ethernet port in and one ethernet port out) and then have 2 ap in my apartment. We only really need one but my partner and i each owned an AP when we moved in together. We keep them next to one desks for optimal WFH performance, and one in living room for use there. Def overkill, but our current apartment has metal in walls so it's nice.

They have a great progressively expandable system, so it'll age with you. They support mesh for the AP or hardwired, so you can upgrade/reuse them as living situations/wire access changes.

[nbutyllithium]

At the end of it all you'll probably be happy with Ubiquiti. Pretty flexible spread of products and features that you could likely adapt to a change of living arrangements without major upheaval. For myself I wasn't quite willing to pay the price delta since I didn't need most of their feature set.

When I was looking a few months ago WiFi 6E seemed too new, e.g. higher costs for the (relatively) few supported devices.

> I’m not opposed to mucking with networking, I’m technical, but also I can’t do it all the time. I’ve got day jobs. I mostly want to spend a sufficient time setting it up and then mostly leaving it alone besides painless firmware updates.

I felt similarly. Spent a while on the setup but I've tried not to (have to) touch it since.

Best of luck!