AiMesh setup issues with RT-AX88U and RT-AX58U. Looking for suggestions.

[L&LD]

No, and you?
We all know that you have been worshiping GT-AX6000 for several months. Probably in a few months you will fall in love with another model, maybe even GT-AX11000 Pro.

How many RT-AX58U in how many real networks in different locations have you checked?
I'm successfully using multiple RT-AX56U in different real networks in different locations. I have no reason to believe that RT-AX58U will be worse.

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No, I don't worship routers. Though I do give a nod to the models that offer the best bang for the buck, the GT-AX6000 still provides that today. And of course, I'll do the same for any future router that significantly upgrades my network too.

After I tested the RT-AX58U in my network and found it lacking, I thought that in other networks with less than 1Gbps service, it may be passable, but that proved to be wrong too (that model lasted less than half a year at most, for over two dozen installations). A few of the models are still being used in Bridge Mode, but not as a main router or as an AiMesh node.

The model most people upgraded to was the highly superior RT-AX68U or better. Most let me know how they noticed the difference in how responsive and stable their network became then.

In those first 6 months with the RT-AX58U installations, I got to repeatedly visit the same people multiple times. Afterward, I haven't seen them for over a year now. The issues were 'devices not connecting', 'devices disconnecting', and 'devices having slow speeds, randomly' with the RT-AX58Us.

Yes, they seemed to work initially. But proven to be not recommended in the long run.

Of course, later firmware may have fixed those issues and that may be why you're seeing the results you do with the RT-AX56Us, but I have found much better replacements already and don't have the time to go through that 2-year-old dance again today.

 

[drabisan]

Keep in mind most people will not contribute to any forum when everything is alright with their setup. Most vocals will the ones that are seeing/saw problems.
It is strange you start having problems one year later. It may be a router/node that upgrade itself?

I didn't read carefully the entire thread. You may want to check how busy are the channels you're using. Maybe a neighbor brought a new router (from a country with higher power under regulation) and it may be "killing" the channels you're using. I would definitely start digging into how many SSIDs you're seeing on the same 5GHz channel you're using.

I will not argue with L&LD's statement: RT-AX56U was since day one a fairly strange product.

 

[Ola Malmstrom]

Did you upgrade the FW? Could there be something related to this upgrade?

You might try to skip the AImesh stuff altogether and use the AX58U in AP mode instead. That way you can use Merlin FW on the AX88U and standard FW on the AX58U. You can use different bands for the router and the AP (to avoid congestion) as well as have different SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands (to avoid roaming between the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands).

I've had this setup for a long time now and have no problems. We have ipads, Iphones, PCs, Samsung phones and a Linux based wireless print server. The connection speed between the router or the APs and the client is above 300 mbps wherever we are in our house.

However, the WAN speed is 250 mbps so maybe there will be problems if we upgrade to 500 or 1000 mbps.

I agree that the AX58U was a mistake. I got it second hand for a very good price and since it works, I'll keep it until I decide to upgrade to an Zenwifi XT12 Pro (or something better when the time comes). Maybe then I can get rid of the APs. If not, the AX58U will be the first AP to go.

 

[ramishka]

Thanks for the helpful responses so far.
To update on my situation, before I made any purchase I was lucky enough that one of my friends gave be his AX 11000 Pro to try it out in my home. Results:
- The WiFi download speeds are almost identical between AX11000 Pro vs AX88U (400-500 mbps on both routers when tested with phone next to the router).
- There is definitely a signal coverage improvement on the 11000 pro vs the 88U. But still not enough for the entire home so i still need to go with a mesh solution.

I also tried GT11000 Pro and AX88U on AiMesh with wired backhaul. Results are mixed:
I tested on the location on the house which had the weakest signal with AX88U - 58U mesh setup. Previously i got around 200mbps wifi download speed on this setup when it worked well.
With AX11000 Pro and AX88U wired backhaul:
- Connection speed for the most part remains the same as before (around 150-200mbps).
- However, I noticed couple of times when the speed drops. When i do the speed test, the speed will slowly increase from 10-20mbps to around 150. But it feels very sluggish and slower compared to the previous setup. I noticed this a couple of times.

My options are
- Buy a GT-6000AX anew (costs about $480)
- I can likely get the 11000 Pro for free, from my friend who is migrating. This is a brand new unused unit which I have been testing with.
So now its come down to 'Is 11000 Pro a bad choice for my situation, even if I get it for free?'.

My concern is on the Tri Band/Dual band mesh setup as @L&LD had mentioned earlier.
AX11000 Pro has two 5Ghz networks 5Ghz-1 and 5Ghz-2 . I thought these networks used different channels.
AX88U has one 5ghz network.
If you know how the AiMesh bridges these connections, please help me understand.

- Can I simply turn off the 5Ghz-2 band on 11000Pro and use it like a dual band router with somewhat better signal strength? Does turning this off limit my 5Ghz network even worse than before? Is there any kind of downgrade I'm doing to the 5Gh network by doing this? I dont need the wifi backhaul because routers would always be connected via Ethernet.
- What other demons am I looking at if I go with Triband/Dual band wired backhaul mesh setup?

 

[Ola Malmstrom]

Why do you need the mesh? If you use the AX88U as a router and the AX58U as an AP it will work just as well or maybe even better. You will get rid of any mesh-related problems, you can use different bands for the units and you can use Merlin FW on the router. I also recommend switching off SmartConnect. It isn't as smart, it only disconnects if it thinks it should which means your client may go from a 5 GHz connection to a 2.4 GHz one.

 

[ramishka]

Why do you need the mesh? If you use the AX88U as a router and the AX58U as an AP it will work just as well or maybe even better. You will get rid of any mesh-related problems, you can use different bands for the units and you can use Merlin FW on the router. I also recommend switching off SmartConnect. It isn't as smart, it only disconnects if it thinks it should which means your client may go from a 5 GHz connection to a 2.4 GHz one.

I primarily need the Aimesh because with AP and same SSID, I leave it for the devices to connect to which node - I realised sometimes the devices are not good at connecting to the best possible node under the same SSID. I used AiMesh to bind certain devices to a node in this case.

 

[brobin]

As for the Samsung S22 dropping Wifi, I had the same problem after upgrading of of my nodes.
SOLUTION:
1. Turn off the phone and reboot.
2. Open WiFi Settings and FORGET your SSID.
3. Select and login to your SSID.
Should be good to go after that. Something about changing the node confused it.

 

[Ola Malmstrom]

You can use the blacklist in AP mode to secure that a client doesn't connect.

I saw someone writing that aimesh supports 802.11r. Does anyone know if this is really correct? I can't find anything about this now. AFAIK 802.11r requires a RADIUS server. Is this really included in aimesh?