Five years ago I got a pair of Linksys Velop [insert one of the many model numbers they go by] mesh access points, which were promising to be suitable for a home on two levels and play well with HomeKit. They turned out to be super hard to keep working reliably and I had to periodically reset them, until one of them just refused to connect, so it’s been sitting there unused for a couple of years. The HomeKit integration is kinda pointless, and the admin software (both the app and the web interface) is buggy, visually outdated, and sometimes simply refuses to work.
I wish I could have a Fritz!Box like I do in the other home, where it’s been working flawlessly for two years, but it’s just not a thing in the US. Alternatively, I’ve been wanting to flash the Velops with OpenWrt, but either the correct version didn’t exist until recently or I just didn’t look for it hard enough—or I was afraid of voiding the warranty, which at this point is no longer an issue.
The other day I finally did it! And it worked! The first time around! The admin interface is decent and does all the things I want it to do (if I accurately ignore anything I don’t understand, which is most of it), and I feel like I won’t have to invest in new wi-fi infrastructure for a few more years. The more complex part was configuring the second access point as an extension, but it seems to work fine even though I have it currently set up only on one of the three radio interfaces. One step at a time, I guess.