Synology RT2600ac Wireless Mesh Router

I have been fighting against Wi-Fi dead spots at home for a long time, and this is my first time victory.Previously I have been a long term Linksys user since the golden ages of WRT54GL. I have also used Linksys EA6700, and even flagship like the EA9500. I have also tried various Wi-Fi repeaters (range extenders) of various brands, but they all shared a common issue: any device in the area where signal strength is about the same from two signal sources (one router and one repeater, or two repeaters) would intermittently drop package because the device decides to switch signal source, even when it is not moving. This is a pain because it results in dropped video calls and stuttering live streams. The so-called "seamless roaming" is totally useless and cannot avoid periodical and temporary disconnections. The lesson learnt here is that only a single router without any additional add-ons like repeaters can be the most reliable, robust and consistent solution.When it comes down to fighting against the Wi-Fi dead spots at home, the options narrow down to a single router with the best 2.4GHz range. I have done my research online for many days, and eventually found a tech geek doing tests and reviews at smallnetbuilder. The measurement data seem legit to me from a prospective of engineering, at least not biased/subjective as other reviews with merely vague descriptions. It appears that by looking into the "Throughput vs Attenuation" charts, this Synology RT2600ac holds best against signal loss, i.e. it will penetrate most walls among all routers they tested. Further looking into their routing performance spreadsheets, I have noticed that this Synology RT2600ac has least number of retries for TCP and least number of lost packages for UDP under stress tests, and beats the flagships of other brands (e.g. Linksys, Netgear, ASUS, TP-Link etc) by several orders of magnitude.I decided to give it a try by myself and see whether it is really that good. As a long term user of Synology NAS, I like the consistent UI offered by this RT2600ac. The initial setup procedure has been very smooth and I updated the OS to SRM 1.1.4-6509 straight away. The result is very satisfying: I can confirm that the dead spots in my bedroom are now gone finally, and the signal strength bar has been obviously improved with stable connections compared against the bulky EA9500 with 8 antennas! It just proves that the measurement data from smallnetbuilder are telling some truth. My devices also no longer intermittently drop connections! I have tried to stress test with multiple computers downloading from the internet and at the same time uploading to my Synology NAS, and everything went smooth and stable! The router has been up and running for a week now and I have never had to restart anything.Pros:State-of-the-art hardware specs: 1.7GHz quad-core + 512MB RAMBest 2.4GHz range as of H1 2017Extremely stable connections without maintenanceSynology's SRM router OS with next generation UI and functionsVery fast and easy to set up out of the boxCons:Maybe a little bit pricy?

With more and more devices becoming internet-connected, most ISP routers are just not set up to get the most out of them nowadays. As an EE broadband customer, I have had no real complaints with the routers they supply, other than the fact the control over devices is a little poor - for example, the EE SmartHub does not really allow you to manage DHCP reservation based on MAC addresses any more, but their older BrightBox 2 did. As I have a number of IoT / smart home devices at home, I have started to become a little more security conscious over what is connected to my home network.Also, as media streaming is becoming the norm, I started to notice a few issues with performance between my EE SmartHub and my NVIDIA Shield Pro, even over 5GHz WiFi. I started to look for a new router, and this kept cropping up but seemed a little pricey. As a Synology NAS user myself, I was attracted by the OS that Synology uses, and it is a fantastic improvement on the standard late 90's stuff most ISP routers seem to ship with nowadays.I decided to get the RT2600ac router over the MR220ac because I wanted to ensure I had the best available for my money, plus the extra horsepower is always a good thing in my eyes. Whilst the RT2600ac is a little on the big side, our router sits above our fridge in the kitchen so it's not a huge issue for me. Setup and installation was a breeze, thanks for Synology's well thought out OS, and I was up and running in no time.There are so many security features on this router, it really makes a difference. I opted to create a separate 2.4GHz network for my Chinese IoT devices and kept that isolated from other devices on my 5GHz / ethernet network - something you can easily do with the RT2600ac.I also decided to install some network cable in the form of Cat6 ethernet, and thanks for the various ports on the RT2600ac, this was straight forward.I only recently purchased the MR2200ac to add to my network to make it a mesh network, which has also significantly improved connectivity issues for devices on the edge of WiFi transmission - even setting that up was as simple as clicking a few buttons in the OS!Whilst it's a relatively ugly router thanks for the 4 antenna, it performs amazingly well. If you want a nice looking mesh router, then go for something else, but if you want performance and affordability, the RT2600ac from Synology is a must have.