Which mesh routing system did u have that was flaky? I just closed on a home and have been thinking about going mesh. Ideally would like most stuff hardwired but I’m being lazy
Another problem with mesh networks in general is that they're very sensitive to placement, because they need to be able to see each other (in an RF sense, not visually) to form the backhaul. It adds an additional constraint on your physical topology beyond the regular one of wanting to use the laptop on the couch and in the kitchen. So you end up moving the mesh nodes to corners of the room where you didn't really want them to be, aesthetically. At a certain point you ask yourself whether it would have been easier to run the damn cable through the ceiling than to play musical chairs every few weeks.
I ended up going for in-ceiling AP's, having the house wired for Ethernet, and powering them with PoE. Now the network is faultless.
Speeds are much faster and (more importantly) far more stable.