Replace AirPort Extreme?

I also have an AEBS 5th gen (802.11n / wifi 4) from 2012 and have been looking to upgrade for some time. Initially I was going to get an ubiquiti amplifi wifi 6 router, but of course started looking into a more sophisticated unifi setup. There are no unifi APs with wifi 6 yet, so I’ve been holding off.

Then, last winter I heard about wifi 6e and the huge bandwidth improvement that will bring to the table. Other than OFDMA (which wouldn’t help my network at all and most APs don’t support yet) I’m not sure of the benefit to wifi 6 over ac especially wave 2 ac.

Meanwhile my AEBS has no performance issues. Most of my high-bandwidth devices are wired, anyways (two Nintendo docks, two smart TVs, synology NAS, my desktop in the office). The wifi is plenty fast enough for our two laptops (neither of which has wifi 6 anyways, although it would be a cheap upgrade as wifi6 chips like the ax200 are around $20 now).

Finally, I have most of the fancy features such as BTMM and any port forwarding rules or other holes turned off. So the WAN attack surface is quite small. Coupled with the fairly obscure embedded OS these things run (VxWorks) I’m not overly concerned about WAN security. It is still getting regular security updates from Apple.

So all that said, why bother upgrading?

This is always the problem with new networking technology. An advanced router doesn’t help if you don’t have devices that support the new tech. Until you get a critical mass of devices, there’s no point to upgrading.

802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) is one of these technologies. Until you get new laptops, phones, tablets, whatever that support it, it’s just an expensive buzzword.

If my existing router would break, forcing me to buy a new one, I’d definitely look for some Wi-Fi 6 devices, since I will want it to support new/future devices. But there’s no way I would replace a working router before I have any such devices in my home.

Until you get new laptops, phones, tablets, whatever that support it, it’s just an expensive buzzword […] there’s no way I would replace a working router before I have any such devices in my home.

My Airport Extreme has been serving our home for ten years this July. The WRT54g it replaced spent years on the same shelf. Routers last a long time in our house – somewhat longer than wireless-networking standards. :wink: The equipment connected to it (MacBooks, iDevices, gaming consoles) lasts much shorter periods of time.

It strikes me as very likely that the Wi-Fi 6 router I purchase sometime in the next year eventually will serve Wi-Fi 6 devices as they are upgraded. To buy a non-6 router now and want to replace it in a couple or three years when the devices connected to it can run 6 (and we will want them to) seems to me a waste of money.