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I currently have a Netgear WNDR-3700 running DD-WRT and while it's been pretty solid over the years, it only does 802.11n and doesn't reach the farthest corners of our house very well, so I'm looking for something new. Preferably a mesh router to better handle the coverage issues.

I also have some static routes set up on the router for the purposes of, let's just say, enhancing my TV viewing experience here in Canada.

Are there any mesh routers available today that provide the ability to add static routes? This doesn't seem to be something that's even mentioned in feature/spec lists and when asked in forums (Google, AmpliFI) there's either silence or no support.

I know most traditional routers have this capability these days (even in the stock firmware) but I'm worried I'll still have coverage issues if I upgrade to one of those.

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    Even though they're marketed as routers, are you sure they are IP routers and not simply Wi-Fi access points?
    – grawity_u1686
    Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 19:52
  • @grawity — OK, now that you mention it I guess I'm not sure.
    – Peter
    Commented Oct 3, 2018 at 20:05

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I know most traditional routers have this capability these days (even in the stock firmware)

Well, it's the core function of a router – and it's always present in the core OS. Sadly some manufacturers of home-market routers don't feel the need to include it in the configuration UI...

Fortunately, the function of IP routing is completely separate from that of serving a Wi-Fi signal. So even though these 'mesh' products are marketed as routers, they are primarily just smart Wi-Fi access points1, and although their central node has barebones IP routing functionality, it can usually be disabled. (My knowledge about them is very fuzzy though.)

So this means that you can keep your Netgear for IP (static routes and all) and just connect additional Wi-Fi access points to it, after disabling their IP routing part if any. (Either these new 'mesh' devices, or traditional wired-Ethernet APs such as UniFi or a "range extender".) Indeed that's what your linked AmpliFi forum post discusses.

Admittedly, by doing so you'd lose some of the fancy features bundled with your new device that are done at IP level, such as device prioritization mentioned in Google WiFi docs, but usually it's not that big of a loss.

1 (Well, it might also refer to layer-2 "routing" across the mesh. But that is generally invisible to IP at layer-3 anyway.)

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