It's been a while since I have come back to this site and clearly the answer is to have wired where ever possible and then wireless for those devices that just don't support wired
I'll go away and do further research on this topic ... finding the balance without ripping up the house is going to be key.
Once you scratch the surface the whole topic of wireless becomes a lot more complex than most folk imagine. On top of AC, Dual Band and MiMo there's 80MHz channels, 256-QAM, Beam Forming in both explicit and implicit (universal) forms and of course whether or not your other wireless devices support some or all of this technology.
Before investing in WAPs (and especially if you're considering any such WAP that connects wirelessly to the router) you might want to have a look at how your current router stacks up against the
best-in-class products out there. I'll cut to the chase here: If your router was supplied by your ISP then fir wireless it sucks. Yes, even the BT Infinity-and-beyond super-duper wireless hub sucks at doing wireless. It might be better than the other free wireless routers from other ISPs, but once measured against decent
paid-for routers in the £100-£200 price bracket. Changing your home router might just solve your problems.
Coincidentally, my Netgear N wireless router has just died so I'm in the market for something b/g/n/ac myself. It would be easy to spend £300-£400 on a top-of-the-range wireless router but the benefits would be wasted in my home. Besides which, most of the performance gains of an AC7200-speed router with WiGig are vapourware since they're only consistently achievable in lab conditions. Having said that, I know that a £50 router won't cut it either as it will become outdated too quickly (if not already).
My feature short list centres around the following:
(a) good compatibility with my legacy gear (b/g/n devices), which means I'm looking for something with good beam forming so that the wireless signal "targets" those devices. That might mean a router with external aerials, and this will help WiFi speeds both on short range and long range connections.
(b) something that supports 2x2 and 3x3 data streams for 256 QAM support. This is wireless compression format that packs more data into each wave. Smartphones and tablets are likely to be the main beneficiary; my Samsung Galaxy smartphone for example
(c) MiMo is a given. I want 2.4GHz (b/g) devices to work without interfering with or impeding the speed of 5GHz
devices
Stuff that I know will be of limited benefit: 40 and 80MHz channels. There's too much competition from nearby routers so I can't have almost the entire 5 Ghz channel to myself.
Something like the Netgear R7000 or a
D-Link DIR-868L would probably tick most of my boxes. Both of these would wipe the floor with anything supplied as part of an ISP contract.