@Lemur21 

 

Hi I have 3x ax72

 

1 as my main and 2 as my satellites in AP mode. 

 

All my routers have same settings in terms of ssid's and passwords once I went through the setup, 

 

All new routers come with different ssid and passwords you then can change the ssid in the setup process. 

 

 

You can have seperate ssid and password if you want 

 

As far as I can tell my devices only see 1 ssid when doing a wifi search. 

 

Generally I don't have many issues when roaming  to each router when I go between areas of my property, 

 

I get the odd occasion where some devices that want to hang onto say my top floor AP instead of changing onto my downstairs (main) router so I flick wifi on off my device and all good again but its mainly my kids nintendo switch and sometimes their tablets that do that

 

In terms of your deciding whether or not tp replace your main router for a new router that's a decision only you can make, If  your current router is upto the standard that you want like wifi6 ect. 

 

I would suggest looking at the easy mesh topic that's on here as tp link have been enabling that feature with their routers but not all support it at the moment depending on the router and what version number ect so I would suggest checking that page out to make sure which ones work in mesh mode as that's another option over AP mode before you potentially buy 2 new routers 

 

Hope this helps. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  @Basboi85 

 

I think mesh is overkill for me -- I'm probably good with getting one router and setting it to AP mode.

 

The shame is the TP Link router will be far better than the router my ISP gave me -- but that one can't operate in AP.

 

Either way -- they both handle 1gig speed; so ....  it might be okay :)

 

Thanks so much for that comprehensive reply though! Super-helpful!

  @Lemur21 

 

I think iirc if the main router is on say 192.168.1.1 the router tagged to it will have to be on 192.168.1.2 or above but not encroaching the DHCP pool number which normally start at 192.168.1.100.

 

If the routers both do Easy Mesh this is probably the best way to go, be aware Easy Mesh & One Mesh aren't the same thing so don't get caught out that way so it's always worth a read up before buying, I'd suggest an AX55 upwards as the main router and an AX10 for the Meshed one but please check both support the same Meshing format, obviously if you want the hypothetical high speed wifi then both routers will need to be able to boot it out fast which means 2x AX73's and upwards.

 

As far as AP vs Router modes go the AP mode turns off a few useful functions where the Router mode keeps said functions active, whenever I've used this method nothing has slowed down or been a problem, just remember as said above to be able to get into each router page they need a different addy each cos you can't log into 2 devices from one device with the same addy on both, hth.

My current router (from ISP) is a ZTE H196Q I'm looking to add a TP-Link AX1800 as the AP.

  @Lemur21 

 

No worries 👍🏻 

 

And no matter what isp your with I'm pretty sure all isp supplied routers are pretty useless compared to buying your own