Top choice for a small apartment is a compact router with strong coverage and good performance.
Top choice for a small apartment is a compact router with strong coverage and good performance.
Ubiquiti gear is awesome. Your choices are a dream machine which will limit you to wifi 6 and gigabit, or a dream machine pro SE with an access point. Which will give you poe for cameras and 10gb networking via sfp+. They just came out with a wifi 7 access point for $189. The dream wall is an option also, but is overpriced IMO.
Although numerous gadgets are linked, they don’t require constant communication with the router. Therefore, I’d leave out wifi-enabled lights and power outlets from your overall device load, since their usage is minimal compared to streaming video or computer tasks. Understanding your internet speed would be most beneficial. Are you on a 1.5 Gbit connection? If not, and you don’t perform wireless file transfers or backups locally, performance improvements are unlikely. Wireless 5 (AC) supports 1.5 Gbit, but typical download speeds rarely reach 150 MB/s consistently. This could eventually cause lag as more devices connect. With so many connections, consider extending your beacon interval to the highest allowed on any router you choose. Beacons transmit radio signals containing network details like speed and capabilities. By default, they’re sent ten times per second, with 5 Ghz at 300ms (three per second) versus 100ms for 2.4 Ghz. Lower frequencies like 5 Ghz penetrate obstacles better and maintain stronger signals, making them ideal for dense Wi-Fi environments. While 5 Ghz offers slightly less range, it handles much higher throughput and is perfect for areas with many devices. Don’t stress about connection stability—raising the beacon interval already improves it. Wireless devices respond to all your beacons. Aim for a maximum setting of around 1000 ms, roughly one second. This limits radio energy use when idle, even without any data transfer. DTIM controls whether the router wakes up or sleeps based on incoming signals. At 100ms, your phone reacts quickly to ten beacons per second; at 300ms (5 Ghz), it switches every ~0.3 seconds. Setting DTIM to 1 lets the AP alternate wake/sleep rapidly—ideal for dense coverage. Changing it to 1000 or 1 second means only one signal per second, which can extend battery life by reducing constant wake cycles. High DTIM values may delay sleep signals, but they usually don’t hurt performance much. Adjusting it wisely helps balance responsiveness and power efficiency.