ONe nice thing about it is that you can hardwire off the repeater if you want. I have the repeater in the game room where my three boys do their PC and console gaming and NetFlix YouTube watching. For whatever reason the wifi antenna in the PS4s is for shit so they hardwire them. Same if they want to do a faster DL onto PC.

Yeah, using an old router re-purposed as a standalone AP gives you (usually) 4 ports of switched ethernet AND additional wireless coverage. You CAN do this with wireless backhaul but wired backhaul is easier (other than physically pulling the cable), faster, and more stable.

I had that ASUS just sitting there when I replaced it with the Nighthawk. When I read about being able to use it as a repeater it was a no-brainer for me to try it as it didn't cost me a dime. Pulling the cable was definitely the bitch of the bunch.

I've been running DD-WRT for a few years now so my setup is pretty straightforward. Right now, my main DD-WRT router is a Netgear R7800 and the coverage is good enough I don't really need any AP's. However, I plan on adding back my old Linksys WRT1900AC as a switch/AP (running DD-WRT) at some point to handle a cluster of devices which includes a desktop PC and 2 printers.

Your networking kung fu is several belts higher than my own.