Aimesh - Did anyone give up?

[Grisu]

Great summary!
We had at one time 3 Asus routers in AiMesh, it got the better of me
I honestly think AiMesh is not for prime time, too many things are not clear, at least to me.

- Channel sharing, why? Nodes/Router should be on separate channels
- Ability to assign individual clients to either nodes or router...
- Needs to be as stable as an individual router setup

I may be completely wrong though.

Nodes must use same wifi channel as parent router, as it will change from LAN to Wifi backhaul as they are available.
Running on different wifi with LAN backhaul and loosing connection it first has to change channel and connect to parent wifi, all clients have to change channel too, that all wont be seamless.

I think thats the reason why they decided to do it this (not best) way.

 

[KennethF]

Great summary!
We had at one time 3 Asus routers in AiMesh, it got the better of me
I honestly think AiMesh is not for prime time, too many things are not clear, at least to me.

- Channel sharing, why? Nodes/Router should be on separate channels
- Ability to assign individual clients to either nodes or router...
- Needs to be as stable as an individual router setup

I may be completely wrong though.

Agree, and I am constantly evaluating. Not hard to find arguments to support the claim that it is not ready for prime time.
Right now things are stable, the wife and kids are happy, and therefore so I am
Been lurking on the Netgear Orbi forum for a while, and not everything is pure gold over there either, so don't know...maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side?

Edit: Typo

 

[Trentors]

Agree, and I am constantly evaluating. Not hard to find arguments to support the claim that it is not ready for prime time.
Right now things are stable, the wife and kids are happy, and therefore so I am
Been lurking on the Netgear Orbi forum for a while, and not everything is pure gold over there either, so don't know...maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side?

Edit: Typo

It is isn't. Tried the Orbi AC3000 with two satellites and was shocked on how unstable it is and how low the satellite range is compared to a normal router. The firmware is also odd sometimes. The Orbi seems constant drop clients and it very annoying.

 

[karma]

It is isn't. Tried the Orbi AC3000 with two satellites and was shocked on how unstable it is and how low the satellite range is compared to a normal router. The firmware is also odd sometimes. The Orbi seems constant drop clients and it very annoying.

The orbi was a nightmare. I tried it and returned it. Maybe at launch with the original firmware it was good but with the revision I tried it was unusable. Review sites should really revisit a product which receives updates because i'm convinced they wouldn't rate it very highly now compared to it's launch.

I wouldn't trade my two rt-ac5300s for 50 orbis

 

[tallytr]

Noticed my single RT-AC86U is now noticeable cooler when touching vs the same router in AiMesh configuration before, maybe just perception?

 

[Tech Focus]

Hello all,

I’m new to ASUS routers but Aimesh concept was so intriguing I had to give a try. Previously, I had Orbi and Eero Pro. Orbi as mentioned here was a nightmare. I had constant drop of devices. Speed when working was great but unstability made it unusable. Just a few weeks ago, I wanted to give a last try before selling, and still the same.

Eero on the other hand was amazingly stable. No single drop out with system constantly running months without any single issue. But it was slower than Orbi. Since I recently got 1 Gbps service in our house, I wanted to get better mesh system.

I got two ROG GT-AX11000. Initially, lots of node drop outs and gave me flashback with the experience on Orbi. But after digging into logs, I found node connection tried to switch to wireless despite Ethernet cable attached. This makes some sense in Auto mode as Ax to Ax device can theoretically get over 4Gbps wireless connection. But I place my node at location where poor wifi reception, hence the placement. So I switched to Ethernet mode from Auto mode. It’s been only couple days but I have speed and stability so far.

 

[Shah Saad]

Initially it did give me a headache but after reading the tips here for making it work properly, its working okay now.

 

[Grisu]

did anyone decide to give up on their Aimesh endeavors and go all in on something else such as Orbi, Google Wifi or similar? If so, did that improve things?

YES I did right now!
just sold all Asus routers as Aimesh wont be useful to me without guest-WiFi support and all those problems with timeouts and SmartConnect not possible with my combination 86U/68U though both are advertised to be Aimesh compatible.
Going with AVM Fritzbox all fine now and even 160MHz support, guest-Wifi, USB-HDD NAS well too.

I am finished with Asus for the next 10 years at least!!!

 

[Shah Saad]

Aimesh wont be useful to me without guest-WiFi support

That's the only drawback I am having with AiMesh atm

 

[OzarkEdge]

Going with AVM Fritzbox all fine now and even 160MHz support, guest-Wifi, USB-HDD NAS well too.

'Fritzbox' would not be a wise marketing term here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ont4.htm

OE

 

[Grisu]

'Fritzbox' would not be a wise marketing term here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ont4.htm

no problem, afaik they are not sold in US (maybe some in UK) and in opposite known to be reliable!
Build in Germany only for EU Fritz is meant to be a 'funny' nickname (german short for Friedrich=Frederic), not more or less.

Do you really think FORD is better than Fritz?
Fix Or Repair Daily ... and it's known to be truth!

Should/could be used for Asus

 

[RMerlin]

Should/could be used for Asus

Just because *you* had a bad experience doesn't mean everyone does. This is a screenshot I took a few days ago of a customer's small office router. It also handles remote OpenVPN users.

That's right - over one year of uptime without any reboot, and it's still going strong, handling wifi, routing and remote workers over OpenVPN. Their LAN has a mixture of Windows and Macs, on top of smartphones.

As I always say, if someone has issues, they need to start by troubleshoothing their LAN instead of immediately laying the blame on the router or the firmware. The vast majority of problems are from misconfiguration or broken clients.

Also, that other customer who kept having connection issues with his two Apple hotspots hasn't had a single issue since I replaced both of them with a pair of RT-AC66U_B1 set in AiMesh mode about a month ago.

 

[RedFox]

Hi all

Have got a DSL-AC68U working for FFTN/VDSL and on the verge of removing DDWRT from a RT-AC68U as I couldn’t get Repeater Bridge working with security.

I was going to go Merlin but now thinking about trying out AIMesh with stock firmware. (I’ve used Merlin before and was impressed - friendly nod to RMerlin above)

Besides reset/update firmware/reset and then setup modem and router - any other advice?

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hi all

Have got a DSL-AC68U working for FFTN/VDSL and on the verge of removing DDWRT from a RT-AC68U as I couldn’t get Repeater Bridge working with security.

I was going to go Merlin but now thinking about trying out AIMesh with stock firmware. (I’ve used Merlin before and was impressed - friendly nod to RMerlin above)

Besides reset/update firmware/reset and then setup modem and router - any other advice?

See my install notes. Use separate SSIDs with the 68Us due to no Smart Connect node band steering support. Use the latest firmware and factory default reset all around before configuring from scratch. The router's webUI restore/reset/initialize will purge old log data, so a bit cleaner before configuring AiMesh. Don't restore stale settings from previous firmware.

OE

 

[L&LD]

Hi all

Have got a DSL-AC68U working for FFTN/VDSL and on the verge of removing DDWRT from a RT-AC68U as I couldn’t get Repeater Bridge working with security.

I was going to go Merlin but now thinking about trying out AIMesh with stock firmware. (I’ve used Merlin before and was impressed - friendly nod to RMerlin above)

Besides reset/update firmware/reset and then setup modem and router - any other advice?

Clarifying, flash the firmware you want to use first, then do a full reset to factory defaults followed by minimal and manual install.

 

[Grisu]

and some got Aimesh even working with Merlin (few SSH commands to activate it), not supported but they didnt see any complications.
If you are brave you can try it, and if you have any problems just deactivate it again.
But generally Aimesh isnt running smooth for now.

Be aware there is no MERLIN for DSL-types - they all only for RT !!!
User GNUton compiled a DSL-AC68U firmware with Merlin features, only this you can use on your DSL-modemrouter!

 

[OzarkEdge]

Clarifying, flash the firmware you want to use first, then do a full reset to factory defaults followed by minimal and manual install.

Clarifying, flash the latest firmware!

OE

 

[RedFox]

thanks guys, have read up on a few different forums too about the above, and did see those who got the Merlin versions working DSL / AIMesh - but might give it a miss for now.

Bit knackered from work so will sleep on it and try the official firmware with OE’s steps.... or even feel brave and try the unofficial Merlins.

Brave bit dealing with “why is the internet down again from the Mrs...” when I brick it or something silly.

cheers all

 

[RedFox]

So whilst I was half asleep and decided to change firmwares and setup AIMesh.
(yes Mrs let me know the net was down).
The DSL and RT are wired connected and functioning but I haven’t tweaked much.

One thing I have noticed is the 5ghz has dropped from 400Mbs to 100Mbs, even though the wireless settings are the same.
I’m thinking firmware as if I stand next to the router it doesn’t change.
Using Version:3.0.0.4.384_56087 on DSL-AC68U

Any suggestions?

Edit: I tried another firmware found from an ASUS rep at Whirlpool, this fixed my Mbs. Too early to call anything else. Its not an official release: 9.0.0.4.384_56087
DSL-AC68U firmware link https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/2719867?p=4#r62
The reason I had this related to ISP connection issues.

Have everything running at the moment no issues at this stage. Now have upto 400Mbs on 5Ghz
Thanks for the assistance all

 

[RedFox]

the 400Mbs was short lived, have gone to latest firmwares and believe its something to do with the DSL 100Mbs will do until sometime in the future