Synology MR2200ac Mesh Wi-Fi Router

I'm a professional network engineer and deal with commercial grade wifi installations and support every day. I literally feed my kids by using and understanding how wifi works in the real world. There are dozens of variables that influence the wifi coverage and speeds in your home or business.The MR2200AC is stellar as a home or small business wifi access point. It has almost all the commercial grade features I see in the Cisco, Meraki, and Ubiquiti gear I use every day, but it's all neatly hidden in the gorgeous little Synology interface. It also costs hundreds of dollars less while providing those features.For most single level ranch-style homes or offices with sheetrock and stud construction, a single one of these will likely be adequate for a 2000-2500 square foot home or space if you can centrally locate it. It could even provide some coverage, at a lower rate and range, for areas above or below the area it is installed in.Where it really shines though, is if your space has two or three levels and/or more challenging materials such as metal, brick, and plaster/lath. Particularly in older buildings where you cannot or do not want to modify the structure itself to run wires, you need a couple of these devices to take the place of hard wired connections. The Synology devices communicate with one another via a dedicated wifi band and can pass traffic between them with little impact to your user traffic. It's not as fast as a cable, don't be fooled. But it is far easier for the average person to implement without specialized help.I have my pick of commercial grade gear to run at home. Because commercial gear often has 24/7 hardware replacement support, it's expensive to buy and license for home use. Good news - you don't need it! My space is 3 floors with plenty of brick and rock surrounding and throughout the space. Combined with about 40 other wifi networks in my area (office park right behind my home), it's a very challenging wifi environment. I have tried many different solutions, but nothing can beat a Synology SR-2600AC with one or two MR-2200AC mesh points.So if you are frustrated with crappy wifi coverage in your home or office and don't want to pay a mint to have a commercial grade installation done, just grab yourself one or two of these, or a 2600 and a 2200 and you're in great shape. I use this combo and it is fantastic. Solved every single one of my challenges with zero fuss. They install easily and just run and run and run. They truly are commercial grade devices without the huge price tag. Buy them and give all your friends and neighbors a smug smile when they tell you that you have amazing wifi everywhere. :-)

Why did you pick this product vs others?:I bought this to act as a mesh extender, teamed with my RT6600ax primary router. The two work seamlessly as a pair, utilizing one of the two 5GHz bands for the wireless backhaul, and providing strong and fast connectivity throughout my home and our small detached guest house. Management is a cinch with Synology's SRM GUI interface.

The MR2000AC HW has a nice design with no pointy antennae, and has 4 cores. The setup/configuration process was fairly straightforward and is not so smart that you can actually have an advanced network downstream of the device. The LAN and WAN ports are clearly marked and usable - no forced magic in trying to determine the router interface, though it can do that. Initially during setup the MR2000AC unit wants to be "the router" and communicate directly with the modem, but this step can be skipped. Ultimately, I want the pair (I bought two of the same for a mesh) to be just an AP (access point) - I already have a openbsd firewall gateway for my network. I was able to setup the wifi address range and carve out the high end of class C for DHCP, using the same class C ip range as my old netgear unit, but only allowing the synology the high end of the IP range - made for an easy migration. I was also able to connect/direct the synology wifi MR2000AC to talk to my local router, and then it all just started working! It took less than an hour to setup and adding the sub unit was a snap. Confusingly, I had difficulty with the manual in setting up the sub AP - that extends the mesh - I could not find the area in the manual to do it. But, after walking through the software - it looks like a virtual desktop in a web browser - I was quickly able to connect the 2nd MR2000AC via the "Wi-Fi Connect" applet. It's so cool that the MR2000AC uses a 5GHz back channel to talk to the main unit; that's how mesh works I guess . The software has a nice javascript overlay box with the status on each of the MR2000AC units, and you can observe and inspect bandwidth, mac, and frequency of each device connected. I notice it has support for SNMP, SMB, and can likely act as a sort of low redundancy NAS. I 'saw' the SMB endpoint on the network in my roku or firestick when trying to scan for screen mirroring. The software is extensive, and easy to use. I was able to upgrade the firmware easily and it's smart about it - staging the download before you install. A very polished product. It's only been a week, but I love the HW/SW. Our old netgear was getting crushed physically by the covid19 zooming, etc, and migrating to the MR2000AC pair resolved streaming problems. I placed the mesh units physically separate as to enable the 1300 sqft as best as possibly with minimal effort. The entire house is now covered, onto the deck, and into the backyard, and upstairs as well in the furthest room - still has sufficient connectivity. I put the MR2000AC synologyrouter in the basement connected to the gigabit switch, and the 2nd MR2000AC is on the first floor on the other side of the house - say 20 ft from the synologyrouter. It seems like clients reconnect to the other units with no disconnections. It's awesome.

I've been a Synology fan for many years, starting with the RT2600 which is still in use at the office, and a RT6600 / MR2200 at home as a mesh network. One thing I've liked about Synology was they frequently update, years after other routers are end of life. Both routers are several years old, and just keep working, have many features and options for configuring and network devices, that the others are just now catching up. I also don't trust many oversea devices, as some of them are unsecure and can be compromised. I've got several devices connected, and have my wireless cameras and other IOT devices isolated on their own network. Lots of features, updates and dependable are a win/win.