Anyone add an XT-9 to an existing XT-8 Ai Mesh?

[NorVanWifi]

Hi Everyone, before my question I want to thank everyone for all their help, I'm fairly new dealing with complex mesh systems.

I have a fairly large 3 story house (5,700 sqft) with a lot of walls, glass, and cement separating the different areas of the house, in addition to a separate outdoor office located 30 feet away from the main router. I've slowly added nodes to get coverage in all areas of the house, and have one main AX-8 plus four additional AX-8's acting as nodes. I'm running Merlin firmware and using a dedicated 5 GHz wireless backhaul for the nodes vs. ethernet. I've occasionally had some issues with the wireless backhaul moving to 2.4 GHz out of the blue, but moving to the Merlin firmware has seemed to help.

I'm now using the back corner of my basement more often and the signal there is very weak in comparison to the rest of the house. I wanted to add another node to boost the signal in that area, and it seems the only models available now are the XT-9's, XT-8's for sale are two packs which I don't need or are more expensive. Question - is it worth replacing my current XT-8 Home router that connects to my modem with the XT-9 as it's a newer model with better output? Or will it not make that much of a difference and I should just add the XT-9 as an additional node to the current setup? The XT-8's don't have the 160 GHz frequency that I've read is better for wireless backhaul and I'm not sure if there is any advantage to the XT-9 having that and connecting to the XT-8 nodes that way? Trying to figure out if it's worth resetting and redoing everything because I will now have an XT-9. Thanks so much for your help!

 

[paul85eng]

Personally i would put the xt9 as the main router.

I think it has slightly better cpu and as the main router probably does the most work makes sense to have your best device doing that job.

I dont think much else is different and as for the backhaul radio you will have to match settings or the devices wouldn't be able to communicate.

I am not an expert though and suspect any gains would be minimal.

 

[glens]

The XT-8's don't have the 160 GHz frequency that I've read is better for wireless backhaul and I'm not sure if there is any advantage to the XT-9 having that and connecting to the XT-8 nodes that way?

The only "160" the XT9 has that the XT8 doesn't is on the 5-1 radio, as a result of the XT9 having DFS channels enabled for that radio. The XT8 can only bond 80MHz of channels on 5-1. Other than that there should be no discernible difference. The 5 GHz backhaul is via the better 5-2 radio which should be the same for both models.

If you use an XT9 as a mesh node to a controlling XT8 I doubt that 5-1 160 MHz channel bonding will even be available on the 9 since the 8 doesn't know anything about it, thus cannot direct it. And if the 9 is the controller with the 8 as a node, either the mesh's "AI" could effectively disable the 5-1 radio on the 8 by picking a control channel the 8 doesn't have, or the "160" will be unavailable even on the controlling 9 since the 8 can't do that and "mesh" uses the same radio settings for all meshed units. Or at least so it seems.

 

[PureSpeed]

So the difference between the the two is very slight. The XT9 has a marginal faster cpu speed difference and available 160 channel width on the 5.1 band it really wouldn’t matter much how you set them. The differences are very small. The XT9 is what the original idea for the XT8 was supposed to be but Asus made the XT9 instead of a firmware update to give us the 160 channel width on the 5.1 band for the XT8

 

[hegs81]

So the difference between the the two is very slight. The XT9 has a marginal faster cpu speed difference and available 160 channel width on the 5.1 band it really wouldn’t matter much how you set them. The differences are very small. The XT9 is what the original idea for the XT8 was supposed to be but Asus made the XT9 instead of a firmware update to give us the 160 channel width on the 5.1 band for the XT8

What did you end up doing in your case? I'm in the same position i have a mesh XT8 system (2 units) and want to extend the range at the house to include garage area. I was looking at getting a third XT8 but they are getting harder to obtain but i see XT9's around.

I also had a secondary concern that adding another node may slow the system down as i've hardwired the two XT8 but this will not be an option for the third unit so i'll have to use the wireless backhaul which i presume means wireless for all three? Pardon the newbie question.

 

[jksmurf]

Hi,

Not specifically answering your question(s) but I thought I’d chip in a few comments, based on a prior post about the differences.

The comment was to maybe consider configuring the XT9 as your main Router and putting it in the most used range of the house; XT8s as AIMesh off the XT9, one wired, one wireless BH.

Reason for this was just because the XT9 has a slightly faster CPU and a wider 5GHz band. Means reconfiguring your system resetting the XT8s (screen cap the settings first …you shouldn’t use the XT8s config file on the XT9).

I really don’t know if this would be any more stable or faster than just putting the XT9 in the garage but you could try that first and see. It just makes more sense to me that the more powerful unit is configured as the main router.

btw not sure if the power plugs are the same dia but if so don’t get them mixed up … it seems the XT9 is 12V and the XT8 is 19V…

 

[hegs81]

Hi,

Not specifically answering your question(s) but I thought I’d chip in a few comments, based on a prior post about the differences.

The comment was to maybe consider configuring the XT9 as your main Router and putting it in the most used range if the house; XT8s as AIMesh off the XT9, one wired, one wireless BH.

Reason for this was just because the XT9 has a slightly faster CPU and a wider 5GHz band. Means reconfiguring your system resetting the XT8s (screen cap the settings first …you shouldn’t use the XT8s config file on the XT9).

I really don’t know if this would be any more stable or faster than just putting the XT9 in the garage but you could try that first and see. It just makes more sense to me that the more powerful unit is configured as the main router.

btw not sure if the power plugs are the same dia but if so don’t get them mixed ill … it seems the XT9 is 12V and the XT8 is 19V…

Thanks very much for the reply and yes i had thought of using the XT9 as the main hub and the two XT8's as nodes from it but i wasn't sure if it was optimal. I also didn't know i could mix and match backhaul with one wired and one wireless. I suppose if i leave the backhaul option set to auto surely the node which is wired will default to that connection and the wireless one will have no option but to use wireless.

In theory using the above scenario would that work in your opinion?
I'm also wondering am i crazy adding another Wifi 6 unit this late in the game and not just start saving for a Wifi 7 system to take over networking duty but obviously thats a much bigger outlay.

 

[jksmurf]

Thanks very much for the reply and yes i had thought of using the XT9 as the main hub and the two XT8's as nodes from it but i wasn't sure if it was optimal. I also didn't know i could mix and match backhaul with one wired and one wireless. I suppose if i leave the backhaul option set to auto surely the node which is wired will default to that connection and the wireless one will have no option but to use wireless.

In theory using the above scenario would that work in your opinion?

Well it should, if it works as designed. Whether it will, I really don’t know. I like ASUS Routers and Merlin FW on them in particular but recently the whole saga with Guest Networks, then Guest Network Pro and now VLANs without knowing which FW version on main/node will propagate more than the main Wi-Fi and ONE Guest Wi-Fi (GN1j … I really don’t know. It bugs me because I want IoT on GN2 to propagate to all the nodes because it just makes sense that you have IoT devices spread throughout the house.

What I would suggest is you take the opportunity to hard (WPS) factory reset ALL of them (having first updated the FW), then configure the main with the absolute minimum tweaks (I.e. leave Smart Connect on), then add the nodes in turn, auto everything, run it like that for a while. You can add the wireless XT8 node using an Ethernet cable first then just pull it out and stick it in the Garage. It should then just find the main router wirelessly... famous last words…

I'm also wondering am i crazy adding another Wifi 6 unit this late in the game and not just start saving for a Wifi 7 system to take over networking duty but obviously thats a much bigger outlay.

No I don’t think so. It’s nice to have the latest fastest most beautiful devices, but I think ASUS unleashed these things without properly debugging them and their connectivity with older (and even the same generation) of devices; and do you really have sufficient clients that can use all that extra speed; do you have apps operating or files that you absolutely must upload or download in an instant; is the family complaining the internet is not fast enough?. Are you willing to pay for a whole new set of devices to take advantage of the FW they have on them? What will you do with your old set?

Hopefully you got a good deal on the XT9, certainly compared to the original price. If you went the Wi-Fi 7 route, the way it’s looking is that nodes would all need to be Wi-Fi 7, TBC, because Asus aren’t saying, although I recently read that even the XT12 (not Wi-Fi 7 admittedly but still a very expensive unit) won’t get VLANs.

Even if you bought a Wi-Fi 7 unit now, used the XT8s as nodes, they would be the units constraining the system and then by the time you get around to replacing them, the main router might have been replaced by a better Wifi7 model (or turns out to be the ugly stepchild of the models on offer…).

k.