I especially love it when the entire network is down after I changed the schedule for one WiFi network.

Or after everything, including the gateway trips over itself when I reboot one of the switches.

Or when it decides to run two APs, pretty much next to each other, on the exactly the same channel after a daily scan.

Or when I wake up to the WiFi down because it decided to turn on the automated firmware upgrade.

Yeah, they're almost out of the alpha phase.

lol u posted that before idk man I run a home lab different use cases

Yeah I’ve used them for years - I get some people have different experiences and people occasionally get lemons but I don’t remember the last time my UniFi gear was the source of an outage that wasn’t caused by my misconfiguration.

I’ve had only a simple / reliable setup experience with a great UX

Unifi WiFi has been highly reliable for me in simple set ups.

An elderly friend had high-speed Internet installed in his farmhouse. The lath and plaster walls were reinforced with chicken wire mesh, and ISP’s WiFi router box couldn’t penetrate it. I thought maybe he would need a few UAPs, but a single UAP-LR puck has been serving reliable Wi-Fi for 10+ years with no need for a unify controller. I’ve repeated this installation for other elderly and non-technical friends. I get absolutely zero service calls.

Anything you’d recommend instead?

You could always go with the buzzword bingo "secure network architecture designed for AI" by Cisco, whatever that means*:

“With intuitive technologies, we optimize IT experiences, secure locations, and seamlessly connect people, places, and things.”

https://meraki.cisco.com/

* What they say it means, here: https://blogs.cisco.com/news/the-ai-ready-enterprise-buildin...

It looks like their cheapest WAP (CW9172I) costs $1,300 + $250/year for licensing?

That’s not really an alternative.

OK, a more serious answer.

If we're talking "homelab", consider TP-Link Omada, or maybe Aruba:

https://evanmccann.net/blog/2022/3/tp-link-omada-overview

But for most homes, Eeros.