Hello,

I'm new to the forum. I've been trying to set up my routers right, but nothing I try seems to work.

I have 2 routers, a TP-LINK Archer AX21 (AX1800) and a TP-LINK Archer A6 (AC1200).  What's the best way to set them up?

I have a house with 2 floors and a basement.  The basement is not in the ground, it is only 2 feet deep from the ground.  Each floor has 4 bedrooms in each corners of the house.  So the 3 floors have 12 bedrooms. The house is sitting on a square shape base, so if I put a router in the middle it would reach every room by the same distance.

The building next door has a verizon fios gigabit router, and I ran a 100' cable to this house from it.  I put the router in the middle of the basement so it's equal distance from the rooms.

I have like 40+ devices connected when the whole house is full of people (I'm running an Airbnb business).  I got 10 smart TV's, 3 smart locks, 1 smart thermostat, about 16 cellphones, the rest are laptops or tablets.

First I had the A6, but it was not enough.  Seemed like it could not handle all these connections.  So I replaced it with the AX21.

People on the second floor were still having issues with the signal, the speed was not bad, but there was a lag, and it disconnected often.  So I added the old A6 to the second floor.  Set it up as a separate router with its own IP and DHCP, on a different SSID.  I used smart connect on both routers, so 2.4GHz and 5GHz has the same SSID and password on the same router.

They say the signal is still not stable on the second floor.  Only when they sit next to the router.

Now I'm thinking of hooking up the A6 to the AX21 as an access point.  Would this be better?

Is there maybe a Wi-Fi signal interference?  On smart connect the frequencies can only be set to auto.

Also I'm thinking of moving the A6 to the middle of the first floor so it will be equal distance from all 12 rooms.   Or maybe putting the stronger AX21 there instead, and take the A6 out alltogether.

What would be the best way to set everything up?

Should I have one single router in the perfect middle of the whole house so it's the same distance from all 12 rooms?  Should I get a stronger router?  I'm looking at the AXE5400 or the AXE7800.  Or is the AX21 enough if it's in the middle of the house?

Or should I have multiple routers on different floors, the AX21 and A6 connected together, and the A6 being an access point?

Or should I have both routers set up as completely separate routers, both coming straight from the verizon router next door?

How can I have stable connections throughout the whole house for all 40+ devices?

Thanks for the help.