I’m not necessarily stuck between just these two options, I currently have a Netgear CM1000 modem that seems to be doing just fine and a Netgear Nighthawk R7800 wifi router that’s not working out for my house.

Admittedly, my modem and router is in the worst place in my house, it’s at the end of a rather long and narrow house and I get poor performance at the other end of my house (webpages and videos are slow to load, or hang until I disconnect from wifi, but the wifi connection doesn’t drop). I find myself having to reset the router more than I would like as well.

My robot vacuum seems to interfere when it runs too.

I don’t really want to hassle with running Ethernet or MoCa, so I figure some kind of mesh setup is the best alternative.

I have cable internet with a 500mbps down plan. I primarily just browse the web and use various video streaming services, but I also have some smart light switches/outlets and cameras on the periphery of the home, a wifi connected car charger, and soon some solar equipment which is as far away from my router as you can get in my house.

I like the idea of simplifying my network equipment and using a modem/router combo, but not at the expense of stability or connection performance.

Frustratingly, the middle of the long house has no good place to plug in a repeater/mesh satellite. It seems to me that the satellites will be either wastefully close, or a bit further than I would like, so I’m hoping whatever I buy has good range between the satellites. If so, I think I can get by with 2-3.

Anyone have a recommendation?