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Combining the WiFi with the router never made sense to me. Routers can last a long time and WiFi gets new versions with new capabilities every few years.

I would rather just connect a separate wireless AP to my switch, preferably also with PoE. And then I can upgrade and expand that as needed while leaving the perfectly fine router alone.

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I just bought a house and this was the conclusion I came to. A cheap PoE-capable multigig switch and a single Omada access point cost about the same as a cheap WiFi 7-capable router would have. I did opt to run the Omada Controller software on a Raspberry Pi instead of buying a hardware controller (to save a few bucks); maybe if I had a lot more hardware it'd make sense but for my one AP it's more than capable. So far I'm quite pleased, it gives me the peace-of-mind knowing that WiFi upgrades are effectively plug-and-play - plug in the AP, adopt it in the controller, add it to the site, and the existing network is already being broadcast - no more router reconfiguration every few years!

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