Asus AiMesh Maximum Smart Devices

[Allen4all]

Hello everyone,

I have over 70+ devices including 50+ smart devices operating on 2.4 and 20 odd devices such as phones, ipads, laptops, on the 5ghz band.

There are three Asus wireless devices configured in my AiMesh.

GT-AX11000 Pro connected to the internet with GT-AX11000 and RT-AC68U hardwired and connected to the mesh. I also have an RP-AC68U hardwired and connected in an access point mode.
Wireless 2.4 and 5GHz are only switched on in the GT-AX11000 Pro, GT-AX11000 and the RT-AC68U. The RP-AC68u only has hardwired clients.

In the AiMesh, if I switch off the wireless network on the AX11000 and the AC68U, most of the devices connect to the AX11000 Pro on 2.4 and 5ghz bands. The client count keeps going up to 50 or 60 devices. This technically means that the single device can support 50+ clients. The same happens when I switch off the wireless on the AX11000 Pro and AC68U and only leave the wireless operating on the AX11000. The client count keeps going up to 50 or 60 devices and similarly behaviour is repeated when only the AC68U wireless is turned on.

This would mean that collectively between the three devices they should support 100+ devices at least. However when wireless is turned on for 2 or even 3 of the ASUS routers, only a maximum of 64 clients are able to connect at any one time. Most of the time the client count stays between 50-60 devices.

The DHCP pool has 150+ IP addresses in the DHCP range and that is not the limitation.

Has anyone found out a way to get around this limitation? I'm not adding any more smart devices since the AiMesh does not seem to be supporting more than ¬60 devices.

Thank you in advance and have a good one!!

Cheers
Allen

 

[bbunge]

Are you using a Guest WIFI?
Are you using Dual Band SmartConnect and if not why not? If any of those 50+ "smart" clients are dual band it will be better to let them and the router/nodes figure out which band is best.
The RP-AC69U and RT-AC68U may be slowing your network down as mesh nodes they will limit the bandwidth and channels of the AX router/node. If you are not using the WIFI in the RP-AC68U replace it with an inexpensive switch.

 

[Allen4all]

Are you using a Guest WIFI?
Are you using Dual Band SmartConnect and if not why not? If any of those 50+ "smart" clients are dual band it will be better to let them and the router/nodes figure out which band is best.
The RP-AC69U and RT-AC68U may be slowing your network down as mesh nodes they will limit the bandwidth and channels of the AX router/node. If you are not using the WIFI in the RP-AC68U replace it with an inexpensive switch.

Hey bud!! Thank you for your reply.

Not using guest WIFI.

Also these smart devices (and most smart devices) mostly operate in 2.4ghz. So having smart connect and dual band on does not help these smart devices in any way.

The RP68U Wireless is turned out and its pretty much operating as a switch.

I have tried turning off the Wireless on the AC68U and the devices just connect to the AX11000s. So that doesn't help either.

Cheers
Allen

 

[DTM]

Hello everyone,

I have over 70+ devices including 50+ smart devices operating on 2.4 and 20 odd devices such as phones, ipads, laptops, on the 5ghz band.

There are three Asus wireless devices configured in my AiMesh.

GT-AX11000 Pro connected to the internet with GT-AX11000 and RT-AC68U hardwired and connected to the mesh. I also have an RP-AC68U hardwired and connected in an access point mode.
Wireless 2.4 and 5GHz are only switched on in the GT-AX11000 Pro, GT-AX11000 and the RT-AC68U. The RP-AC68u only has hardwired clients.

In the AiMesh, if I switch off the wireless network on the AX11000 and the AC68U, most of the devices connect to the AX11000 Pro on 2.4 and 5ghz bands. The client count keeps going up to 50 or 60 devices. This technically means that the single device can support 50+ clients. The same happens when I switch off the wireless on the AX11000 Pro and AC68U and only leave the wireless operating on the AX11000. The client count keeps going up to 50 or 60 devices and similarly behaviour is repeated when only the AC68U wireless is turned on.

This would mean that collectively between the three devices they should support 100+ devices at least. However when wireless is turned on for 2 or even 3 of the ASUS routers, only a maximum of 64 clients are able to connect at any one time. Most of the time the client count stays between 50-60 devices.

The DHCP pool has 150+ IP addresses in the DHCP range and that is not the limitation.

Has anyone found out a way to get around this limitation? I'm not adding any more smart devices since the AiMesh does not seem to be supporting more than ¬60 devices.

Thank you in advance and have a good one!!

Cheers
Allen

Is your LAN subnet mask set to 255.255.255.0

 

[aru]

Is it possible to estimate the maximum number of IoT devices based on the channel utilization (QBSS) of 7% (low congestion)? In the case of my main router, if the current 7% utilization is contributed by 4 connected IoT devices, we can roughly estimate that each device occupies about 7% ÷ 4 ≈ 1.75% of the bandwidth. Under ideal conditions, the theoretical maximum number of supported devices would be approximately 100% ÷ 1.75% ≈ 57 devices.

Additionally, AiMesh nodes can also check a similar metric to QBSS—namely, the busy ratio—using the wl -i wl0.1 chanim_stats command. For example, I observed a value of 11%. Since this figure fluctuates over time, it's recommended to use the highest observed value as a conservative basis for estimation.

If there are any misunderstandings in the above explanation, I welcome any corrections.

 

[Tech9]

if the current 7% utilization is contributed by 4 connected IoT devices

No, channel utilization is for all the devices using the channel including adjacent networks. Your neighbor may decide to install a few 2.4GHz wireless cameras and the channel utilization may jump to 90% tomorrow without any new devices added to your network.

 

[aru]

So QBSS represents the entire channel as a shared resource pool, which is affected by the surrounding environment and nearby devices—including those from neighboring households. Thank you for pointing out this key concept; it has given me a much clearer understanding of what this value truly signifies.