AIMesh Recommnedations

[Rpadilla65]

This is my setup, I have a GT-AXE-16000, two RT-AX92U, three Lyras and I recently purchase a GT-AX6000. The AXE-16000 has the beta firmware and I enable an IoT and guest networks. After enabling it, the two RT-AX92U started individual, open, guest networks, when they connect as most of the time they are showing as not connected. I am using the AXE-16000 as the main router and the rest as nodes. My wifi connected computers are not even doing 10 mbps now. I reached out to Asus support about the two open guest networks and it has been escalated. I wonder if I shoud use the AX6000 as the main, no beta formware, and the AXE-16000 as part of the nodes. I would like to retire the Lyras, but I have one in my shed. I would like to use the AX92Us for the shead and back patio, if I can get them to stay connected. Thoughts about how to optimize my setup?

 

[kuki68ster]

Question? How big is your place? Could you show us the basic layout?

Do you use Ethernet to connect the different nodes?

It seems to me that you are using too many nodes, perhaps...

 

[Rpadilla65]

Thank you for replying, let me address each question, then I will tell you were I'm at. house is 1,898 square feet, one story. Main router is in my home office, placed horizontally at about 5.5 feet from the ground. I have one of the RT-X92U's connected to ethernet, on a 1GB switch, switching it soon to a 2.5GB switch as I have 2GB symetrical, averaginf .2.3GB. Now, how are things going, I installed new frimware on the RT-U92's. I used the asus-wrt firmware from gnuton. After the upgrade I have not experienced disconnects, I don't see the open guest networks I was seeing coming from the RT-X92U's. I retired two of the Lyras, one used to be wired, replaced the wired one with one of the RT-X92U's. The other Lyra I retired was the one in my shed, I put the second RT-X92U there. I kept one Lyra in the garage. it shows a good connection and I have several IoT devices there which will benefit from having a 2.4 network closer. The speeds situation was improved tremendously with my PC in the shed doing close to 500mbps. I will wire the Lyra and the RT-X92U in the shed eventually. One of my questions was if I should use the AX-6000 as my primary instead of the AXE-16000, I learned yesterday that the AX-6000 is Dual-Band, while the AXE-16000 is a Quad-Band, so I will leave them as they are. Browsing the forums here has given me some direction, I appreciate everyone's contributions. Here's how nodes look:

 

[Tech9]

house is 1,898 square feet, one story

Five routers? Must be bomb shelter style structure or a cave carved in stone.

 

[Rpadilla65]

Well, none of above, but I had nodes showing "WEAK" connections and some disconnecting. All showing great, I can access all of the 21 Wyze cameras, even the z-wave mailbox sensor is showing a good signal, the connection was spotty at its best before adding the GT-AX6000. Maybe there are better ways to accomplish getting a good signal all around the perimeter with less routers, working 180+ days out of home, and out of the country, I worked the quickest, easiest solution I know of. Willing to learn as time permits. And with a forum where people are patient, nice and helpful, I'm sure I will learn a lot.

 

[Tech9]

I can't recommend any AiMesh wireless mix between dual/tri/quad-band devices from different generations with half of them EoL and running different base firmware. This is not a network I would invest in and not a network I would rely on working from home 180+ days a year. Sorry, someone else may want to assist you further. To me it's just adding more equipment on top of accumulated over time e-waste.

 

[Rpadilla65]

My apologies if I implied I was asking for your help. I knew from the initial comment that you were not going to be of any help, thus the sarcasm on "patience, nice and helpful". I just clarified why so many routers in my bomb shelter.

 

[Tech9]

Don't get me wrong, but your devices have low compatibility between each other. Some of the features will be limited to single device. On every wireless hop to shared backhaul devices you lose 50% of the throughput due to retransmissions. Your main router GT-AXE16000 is the only one with 6GHz band. Your RT-AX92Us were designed for dedicated AX wireless backhaul with AC to clients otherwise they have to run with shared backhaul. This model is now EoL. Your Lyra runs 384 firmware with early AiMesh 1.0, the rest run AiMesh 2.0. Lyra is EoL for years. Your 2Gbps ISP service is basically going nowhere after the main router. There is no room for optimization here. If you want better performance you have to rebuild the entire network.

 

[Rpadilla65]

That's very insightful as I now know which devices need to go. I guess my ideal setup then would be two GT-AXE16000's. The rest can go to storage or recycling.

 

[Tech9]

I would start with exploring infrastructure options first. Having Ethernet cables to locations you need extension of your network will allow the use of lower price purposely built devices with overall better performance and user experience. Wireless backhaul is always plan B. Then you need a system scalable with your requirements. Consumer AiMesh is not the best choice. It has very limited configuration and tuning options, uses all the same shared wireless channels, has a limit of nodes. About surveillance cameras - wireless is easy, but a RF jammer takes them all at once. This thing needs planning if you want it done properly. If the Wi-Fi environment is challenging and 4-5 APs are really necessary - asking for professional help pays off at the end.

 

[Tech9]

I guess my ideal setup then would be two GT-AXE16000's

Don't do it, this high price tag router has firmware support issues. Much lower priced AX-class devices were moved to 3006 firmware and have few releases already, AXE devices have some issue Asus is trying to resolve for quite some time and stuck on 3004 firmware. Expensive is not necessarily better.

 

[kuki68ster]

That's very insightful as I now know which devices need to go. I guess my ideal setup then would be two GT-AXE16000's. The rest can go to storage or recycling.

Maybe go to Unifi and check what they offer... Like it was said, mixing different Asus devices won't give you great results...

 

[Tech9]

Infrastructure first and then Omada or UniFi as lower cost SMB options. Somewhat realistic expectations have to be set because with 2Gbps ISP and 2.5Gbps all around network the price will jump much higher with negligible overall user experience improvements. If the walls are really hard to penetrate I wouldn't even bother with 6GHz band. Wall penetration will be even worse. One way to deal with this type of environment is multiple low power APs serving specific areas. Wall plate style APs with LAN ports are good choice.