For nearly 20 years, I have trusted Asus routers. During the pandemic, we upgraded our home Spectrum Cable internet (fiber unavailable in our Western New York location) connection to their top speed at the time, 1Gbps. The system I build at the time has been somewhat fraught with issues. The current system pending replacement is this:

  • NETGEAR - Nighthawk 32 x 8 DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem - Black
  • ASUS RT-AX89X AX6000
  • 2 Nodes: ZenWiFi AX 2PK

The Asus system, the apps, the connections, the control, the intermittent downtime, the system resets (turning off the modem and router and restarting the modem then the router) were far worse then when we simply had some older WiFi 5 routers.

I am looking to replace this system, and burn the above devices (I’ve watched countless hours of youtube videos about system optimization). The purpose of the redesigned system needs to support work from home consisting of video conferencing at a fairly high bandwidth, streaming (2 adults and 2 teens), a fairly decent IoT (Hue, Nest, Sonos to name a few).

I am looking to pickup the newer netgear Netgear Nighthawk Multi-Gig Cable Modem (CM2000-100NAS). It is also worth adding that our house which was built about 15 years ago has CAT-5E in the walls, and the modem and primary router will be placed in the upstairs office (maybe?).

The new modem has no inherent WiFi capabilities, and I am uncertain about the best layout for our 3 story home (basement, first floor, and 2nd floor (home office location)).

My inclination is to pair this new Modem with a NETGEAR - Nighthawk BE19000 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router - Black (Orbi is another option though I feel and perhaps I’m wrong, but I feel that I lose some “freedom” when moving to the Orbi ecosystem). I would likely place a second BE19000 router on the first floor in the Family room which is directly above the basement media room.

Using this setup, I am wondering if I even need RJ45 cables for the apple TVs and Sonos devices in the media room or if I will reliably be able to connect over Wifi with this Modem and these Tri-Band wifi nodes?

Any help would be appreciated!

Placeholder for wired switch I’m looking at if necessary:
NETGEAR 5-Port Multi-Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Network Switch (MS105)

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