Linksys LN1301 WiFi 6 Router (Open Box)

1-week Update: so far so good, no failure or drop out. Coverage inside the house is decent; coverage outside (or at exterior walls / extreme corners) not so good. I tried a couple of range extenders but they are still slow. Router signal to exterior garage is still not great. But good router in all other respects, so I will keep in service. At $25 each I’m tempted to buy a 2nd to try as à wireless node at the extreme end/corner of the house.I have been using the TP-Link routers for the past several years. They work fine but when I saw this special deal ($25 !!!) I decided to give it a try. Wasn’t 2-day delivery but it arrived the day before my trip. I was going to wait but I just couldn’t. 😄The instructions are very sparse, just a 2-page pamphlet. There’s a QR code at the bottom that takes you to the Linksys Smart WiFi webpage to manage the router. This required me to enter my name and email and other information that should not have been needed. Then for some reason it didn’t even work properly. So instead I downloaded the iOS app, entered the router’s password (on the bottom), and that seemed to work much better.It picked up the Internets from the cable modem ok, and after 2 tries it let me set my SSID and WiFi password to the same as that of my old router. That way all of the devices would reconnect. Only a couple did not right away, and one still does not for some reason. (Upon further reflection this might not be the fault of the router.)As far as information for diagnosis, the router has a single colored LED on top, nothing else. I have my router set high on the top shelf in my closet to provide the best coverage; the LED on top is therefore not directly visible. I can sort of see its reflection on the ceiling, but not so much in bright sunlight. I wish there were more LED’s like other routers, and on the front or side. It’s basically a single minimalist tower, with no external antennae.It gives just a little higher speed than my old one. It’s supposed to be WiFi 6 capable but it seems to assign the same channel as the old 5 GHz signal.What I care about more is network signal reach and strength/stability. Inside the house seems to be ok but I was hoping the signal would do better reaching out to my detached garage. The door opener hub didn’t quite work at first; but I was able to unplug it and plug it back in which seemed to correct it. My outside camera also had a hard time connecting until I restored my range extender.The app has a lot more options for configuration and status than that of my old router. I haven’t tried the webpage on my PC yet to see if there are more (signal strength, VPN, DNS, etc.).It’s not clear if this has mesh capabilities to provide more coverage. It lists itself as a “node”, implying that other “nodes” could be added. Whether this is true, or how they get added, is not clear. If I were to get a second one of these, would it need a physical Ethernet connection, or would it connect via WiFi? I think even the product information on Linksys’ website implies this is not mesh-capable. (I would bet a lot of people initially bought this thinking it was, only to be disappointed, hence the clearance price.)Overall meh. For $25 it’s a really good value if you need a new router and want an easy setup. Also nice if you want something simple , elegant, and minimalist. For somewhat more advanced users I’m not sure if this fits the bill. But the options for those users are FAR more expensive. Really this is not much better than my old router, if at all.