I bought my Airport Time Capsule mid-2016 and it may be dying. Or it might be the cable modem. Or something else. Though I guess wireless base station is it because sometimes it kicks out every connected device.

What I need in a router:

• 802.11ac support, tri-band which is faster. Do I really need max speed? It does come in useful when doing Time Machine backups over the air. Though then again what will I use for a Time Machine backup drive?
• Attached printer via USB. Although I suppose I could move the printer to the computer area.
• 3+ Ethernet ports for server, Ooma Teleo, Hue base station.
• Good management software would be a plus. I liked the Airport Utility but you couldn't really get any data on who was connected and how much bandwidth they were using.

Apple Store only has mesh wireless routers. You can buy the base and use it alone though maybe you're paying for extras you'll never use. Anyways they sell 3:

Netgear Orbi ($260) - which has a built-in cable modem, kind of sexy. No USB port.
Linksys Velop ($180 for Tri-Band version) - another router that is a nice white rectangle. Only two ethernet ports (and one will be for a cable modem) and no USB ports.
Linksys MR8300 ($180) - looks like a more normal (ugly?) router with four antennae. USB port is for expansion not for connecting a hard drive or printer.

So looks like none of these are quite what I need.

The next place to look is Wirecutter and they have a Best Wi-Fi Router and Best Wi-Fi Mesh-Networking Kits. Top pick for Wi-Fi Router is TP-Link Archer A20 ($200). Tri-Band with 6 antennas, 4 ethernet ports, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, quad core processor with 512 MB RAM. Supports Time Machine, has a VPN server (OpenVPN or PPTP), can share fires over the Internet using ftp (?!?), has an iOS app to control the network remotely.

Actually looks like a pretty cool product. Only drawback is it's a Chinese company.