Well smooth is not what’s happening here. Across the 388 codebase (ASUS or Merlín) WiFi has been a headache.
After a flash, the 5Ghz channel doesn’t come up, requires a second reboot to be visible, yet in the GUI it shows on and regardless of toggling the on/off it doesn’t come up without the second reboot, on the AX86 mesh nodes. AX88 on 388.1 not having that problem. Across every 388 codebase on AX86 regardless whether ASUS or Merlín it’s happened.
Using ASUS Firmware on the Mesh node due to a GUI bug showing no connection but as a status, connection is great, wired backhaul
This version of firmware has the devices bouncing from one AP to another, even though they are bound to the physically nearest AP (same room in most cases).
Had to pick specific channels for both 2.4 and 5 versus Auto to keep it somewhat stable under 388 code base.
This morning had one AX86 mesh node, on this release just stop working, requiring an on/off cycle to get working again. Then another 15 minutes to have the final device connect (even after a unbind/bind, to get it to connect.
Since the move to this release for the AX86 mesh nodes (AX88 on 388.1 as router) I’ve had to reboot (actually power cycle) a number of WiFi devices, cameras, Tablets, Soundbar as they would show connected then a few seconds later, disconnected only to show as connected after a few more seconds, and repeat that cycle non stop until restarted (power cycled).
When it’s working well, seeing about a 150Mbps to 250Mbps difference on Ookla Speedtest when connected to a AX86 mesh node vs AX88 router. Different runs, different servers, throughout the day on the same device (using ASUS app on iPhone to confirm which AP it’s connecting on to get an average. Hero numbers, 840Mbps download (Ookla and Netflix Fast) only to get to 550Mbps when connected to the AX88. Usually I’m running 650Mbps across both prior to the 388 codebase, 1GbE wired backhaul from each AX86 to the AX88 with AT&T 1Gb fiber.
Seriously considering going back to 386.7-2 on everything just to have some WiFi stability.
Would help matters somewhat if AiMesh nodes would forward their logs to the parent router, make it selective if needed to not overrun the router. But it would sure be nice to have a Wireless log that showed the detail across everything. Not to mention the system log to correlate incidents across devices.
Now just waiting for the next incident to force the decision to move back to 386.7-2 on the router and nodes, though remaining hopeful I won’t have to.