Beta ASUSWRT 386 RC2 public beta with full functions AiMesh 2.0

[OzarkEdge]

With any of these builds does anybody with a Harmony hub find them having a hard time staying connected? Maybe it’s a setting in 2.4 that needs to be off or on - any advice would be appreciated. BTW I have a similar problem with the Phillips Hue Sync Box.

Shooting in the dark, I would disable Airtime Fairness and Universal Beamforming, and raise (less negative) the 2.4 Roaming Assistant RSSI threshold to -55 dBm.

OE

 

[srkbear]

Just to clarify your setup, you have two AC dual band routers connected via a wired Ethernet connection, yes? I’m not completely familiar with the granular specs of the RT-AC88U, but the benefit of using AiMesh over your other proposed solution would likely be the addition of a dedicated, wired backhaul to an otherwise dual-band setup.

If you have currently set up your system by adding your second RT-AC88U as a node to your primary, have you tried changing the settings in the web GUI to an Ethernet backhaul (see photo attached)? If not you may not be taking full advantage of the benefits of AiMesh.

Even if there is no such option available on your specific GUI, I still think the AiMesh configuration is likely to offer you a more stable, efficient, integrated connection than running two separate routers with identical SSIDs and passwords. Under the tethered but non-AiMesh configuration you’ve suggested, you are not taking full advantage of the bandwidth utilization the wired connection between your devices can offer. Not sure what would be going on with client steering and channel utilization between the two wireless radios either.

From my own experience (admittedly with a GT-AX11000 as my main router with two wired ZenWifi XT8s as AiMesh nodes configured with Ethernet backhaul), I’ve tested a nightmarish number of configurations, and utilizing AiMesh with both nodes preferring the AX11000 as backhaul has been by FAR the speediest and stable I’ve attempted. I’ve basically set it up and left it alone, and haven’t had to touch it since.

I guess the only way to know is to try both and see what happens in terms of speed, the ability of your devices to maintain stable 5ghz connections, and the node steering behavior of portables (such as your phones) to automatically and seamlessly connect to the closest node as you travel throughout your house. Please post a follow-up of what you decide!

Thank you for the comments on the firmware stability. The current RC-10 build is listed as stable on the ASUS website for couple of days now.

My question is more generic though. I would like to understand the difference in functionality between my setup that I described and AI Mesh. In short, why should I use AI Mesh instead of running the second router in AC mode?

 

[wags1]

With any of these builds does anybody with a Harmony hub find them having a hard time staying connected? Maybe it’s a setting in 2.4 that needs to be off or on - any advice would be appreciated. BTW I have a similar problem with the Phillips Hue Sync Box.

I'm running XT8's using the current released firmware. I have 2 Harmony hubs, one in my HT and one in my family room two floors apart. I added them both to the Roaming Block tab in the wireless settings since they never move. Haven't had any problems. As someone else recommended I also keep Airtime Fairness disabled but I do keep Universal Beam Forming enabled.

 

[srkbear]

I agree with Ozark Edge on the Airtime Fitness and Universal Beamforming, and do you have Bluetooth Coexistence on, off or pre-emptive selected under the 2.4 ghz band professional settings?

I’ve attached a screenshot of my 2.4 ghz pro Wi-Fi settings. Change “Bluetooth Coexistence” to “pre-emotive”, and disable both “AMPDU RTS” and “Optimize AMPDU Aggregation” *(see below for caveat). Enable “WMM No-Acknowledgement”. I’d get any cordless phones or STB TV access points you might have a healthy distance from your routers and Harmony Hubs if this applies to you.

Other sources of 2.4 ghz band interference that might not be obvious to you include wireless CO monitors or Fire Alarms, smart door locks, and most importantly, your neighbors’ Wi-Fi radios—if you show more than three SSIDs when you search for Wi-Fi options, then ignore my prior recommendation and turn “AMPDU RTS” and “Optimize AMPDU Aggregation” back to “enabled”.

Kindly disregard my MU-MIMO settings because I’m in the midst of playing around with some configurations, despite having way more important things to do.

With the above tweaks, I have had two Harmony Hubs running successfully in my two story home with no issues. Best of luck!

With any of these builds does anybody with a Harmony hub find them having a hard time staying connected? Maybe it’s a setting in 2.4 that needs to be off or on - any advice would be appreciated. BTW I have a similar problem with the Phillips Hue Sync Box.

 

[livefeed]

Thank you all for the help, will make a few changes and see how it goes.

 

[reddeath]

With 2 RT-AC88U routers, 1 running as main router and 2nd running in AP mode, on the last stable firmware that I am aware of ( 3.0.0.4.384_81116 ) from mid 2019, what is the process of getting properly onto the latest official, but presumably unstable build ( 3.0.0.4.386.41535 ) and then if system is not working well enough back to the old stable firmware?

I recall some annoyance with password encryption changes on later 384 and 385 firmwares and the need to factory reset and reconfigure everything by hand, etc. Since then I was very reluctant to upgrade. If I should upgrade now to 386 then it better be as stable as my current version and preferably the upgrade should be revetrable.

 

[juched]

With any of these builds does anybody with a Harmony hub find them having a hard time staying connected? Maybe it’s a setting in 2.4 that needs to be off or on - any advice would be appreciated. BTW I have a similar problem with the Phillips Hue Sync Box.

Also ensure you are using 20Mhz and not 20/40Mhz for 2.4 band.

 

[LexxM3]

You already have the stable mesh.

Why would you want to change to Asus?

You must have the concrete reason.

For me, I'm using Asus because it is cheaper than Netgear things in my country.

Additionally, no other consumer routers would provide OpenVPN client at router level even Mikrotik or Ubiquiti.

So, I think, Asus is the best choice.

Control over binding of STA to nodes is the core reason. This is an essential function that Orbi does not have nor is Netgear showing any signs of understanding how essential it is. It is needed for a) systems like SONOS that don’t play well when they aren’t all on a single AP/node (and SONOS net is not a viable approach), and b) to control marginal nodes that don’t roam themselves well, mostly smart home/IoT stuff. Second reason is the promise of increased performance in a gigabit ISP household over Orbi according to reviews — I had mixed performance results against Orbi in my environment, some faster some slower.

 

[LexxM3]

ASUS has been continually building out this software, and again it is BETA unfinished software. The current software on their production routers, is quite stable and has most quirks corrected, but at same time it went into maintenance mode, as the 386 firmware, is the beginning to some heavy backend updates and more specifically overhauling the AiMesh settings. Being in Beta, it is unfinished, and still having some tweaks done and mainly bug squashing at this point. They have begun to launch the 386 firmware on routers that the code is stable enough and finalized on, but their highend RT and ROG GT series, are taking a little longer which is normal for them. Each release has corrected issues and squashed bugs, so we are almost there.

I understand and I might come back in a year or two to try again. But the functions being introduced in the beta are the primary reason I would stay, the stock firmware is insufficient against next best competitor (Orbi in my mind). But no functionality is useful without stability and it seems unlikely for ASUS to get there within my return period (I don’t do “trust they’ll get it right eventually” in technology domain any longer).

 

[Maverick009]

I understand and I might come back in a year or two to try again. But the functions being introduced in then beta are the primary reason I would stay, the stock firmware is insufficient against next best competitor (Orbi in my mind). But no functionality is useful without stability and it seems unlikely for ASUS to get there within my return period (I don’t do “trust they’ll get it right eventually” in technology domain any more).

Actually ASUS has gotten right a few times and was on track to stabilize their firmware and push forward with more features until this pandemic hit. I suspect they may announce/show more of their direction at CES. I also disagree with statement with ORBI. IT may be good, but ASUS and their router base was better built and AiMesh is a feature no other company really has. ASUS had to first introduce it, stabilize it, and now adding features and functionality to it. The ROG GT routers also take longer, as they are considered gaming and/or enthusiast routers, and due to the feature set and a little underlying underpins, may have less firmware builds, but usually they are more stable and even add features that were there originally.

 

[srkbear]

Thank you all for the help, will make a few changes and see how it goes.

Forgot to ask you—you mentioned that you have a Hue lighting system—by “sync box” do you mean the Hue Hub? Do you have any other hubs running, like Sonos or Lutron?

The 2.4 ghz band travels far, but it is a major hassle—and the fact that it travels far is part of the problem. Again, if you have a bunch of SSIDs from your neighbors that pop up during a Wi-Fi search, turning on both “AMPDU RTS” and “Optimize AMPDU Aggregation” is essential.

If you can access a WiFi channel finder, you can get a rough idea of the optimal channels to select for your 2.4 Ghz band. But even if you don’t have this available, you might luck into an easy fix with some blind channel adjustments.

The channel solution with Sonos is simple—the Sonos bridge offers channels 1,6 or 11 as options: so you can set its channel at 1, and then in your router GUI, set your 2.4 ghz bandwidth to 20 (NOT 20/40) and your control/extension channels to 7 and “above” respectively.

This way you can permanently assign your Sonos channels below 7, while limiting your router’s 2.4 ghz channel options to 7 and above.

As far as Hue goes, depending on how many lights you have and how close your Hub is to your router, it could totally be the culprit here. Both Hue and Sonos setup their own DHCP LAN of sorts in the 2.4 ghz range (Sonos with their own proprietary wireless ecosystem, Hue with Zigbee).

In lieu of occupying the entire SNB forum’s server with this post, there’s an excellent explanation of how Zigbee and WiFi co-exist in the 2.4 ghz band, along with solutions, here.

 

[goldenegg]

I have a GT-AC5300 (main) and RT-AC3100 (node) using AiMesh. Both are connected using ethernet. I'm having two issues with the 386_41535 firmware.

1 - Enabling 'Ethernet Backhaul Mode' seems to stop devices from connecting to the AC3100. Everything just connects to the AC5300. The moment I disable the feature, devices start connecting to the AC3100 again. I did verify the wifi settings before enabling the feature.

2 - After upgrading, I suddenly had a device called 'Anonymous' appear on my network. I know for a fact it wasn't there before the upgrade, as I have an export of all my devices from right before the upgrade. It was the first device to connect after the upgrade and the MAC address doesn't match a known manufacturer. Could this be a virtual interface for the wifi backhaul?

 

[Neil62]

1 - Enabling 'Ethernet Backhaul Mode' seems to stop devices from connecting to the AC3100. Everything just connects to the AC5300. The moment I disable the feature, devices start connecting to the AC3100 again. I did verify the wifi settings before enabling the feature.

You may want to try and enable "Connection Priority" of "1G WAN first" under the settings of "Management" for the each/the node, from the new AiMesh menu, to see if that works, after disabling "Ethernet Backhaul Mode" of course. Once done, reboot the nodes and Main together. AiMesh menu, "System Settings", "System Reboot". I have found it to be a lot more stable than using the "Ethernet Backhaul Mode".

As a quick check, if you have reset/rebuilt the node and Main routers after installing the latest RC firmware, which is recommended, I would check any android or IOS (Apple) devices, that are connecting, to ensure under Wifi settings they are not using the/an "Anonymous" mac addressing feature.

 

[LimJK]

ASUSWRT_20202,

Looks like I need to use Rescue Mode (Firmware Restoration) on my RT-AX88U. I am using MacBookPro, Question: May I know if can I use the same macOS App - ASUS Firmware Restoration and instructions for restoring RT-AC68U to Restore my RT-AX88U. Thanks.

Since I got no reply from ASUSWRT_2020 and no meaningful reply ASUS support / feedback ... I would greatly appreciate if someone more competant can give me some guidance.

The FAQ that Asus support pointed to is only for Windows environment, https://www.asus.com/SG/support/FAQ/1000814 despite I indicated that I am using MacBookPro. What I gathered so far is:

• (1) The instructions in Windows of setting up static IP address for Windows Clients as
  • IPv4 Properties
  • IP address: 192.168.1.10
  • Subnet: 255.255.255.0
  • (While not found in the instructions, I believe it assumes that Router IP: 192.168.1.1)
• (2) which is different for the MacOS Asus Firmware Restoration App using a different static IP (I downloaded and use since RT-AC68U days)
  • Configure IPv4: Manually
  • IP address: 192.168.1.12
  • Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
  • Router: 192.168.1.1
• (3) On top of that the default Router IP for RT-AX88U is 192.168.50.1 and not 192.168.1.1 for other older Asus Routers. Question is, Should I use the following:
  • Configure IPv4: Manually
  • IP address: 192.168.50.12
  • Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
  • Router: 192.168.50.1

On the Support download site under macOS there is no such Mac Utility download link for RT-AX88U, I can only find it for RT-AC68U which I have used before for RT-AC68U, RT-AC86U and RT-AC5300 over the years.

The reason I am asking is, I do not want to brick my RT-AX88U Router.

Can someone more competent confirm that for my RT-AX88U I can use options (3) above as instructions of macOS Asus Firmware Restoration App or use option (2) as per instructions inside the Mac App. Thank you.

 

[RMerlin]

The IP address for rescue mode depends on the router model and the firmware version on it. Some default to 192.168.1.1, some default to 192.168.50.1. Try both, and see which one works if you aren't sure which one is the correct one for your specific case.

 

[baz]

I'm running XT8's using the current released firmware. I have 2 Harmony hubs, one in my HT and one in my family room two floors apart. I added them both to the Roaming Block tab in the wireless settings since they never move. Haven't had any problems. As someone else recommended I also keep Airtime Fairness disabled but I do keep Universal Beam Forming enabled.

Makes me wonder if this is the problem I have with all my IOT... I'm going to have to look into this. Its going to bite... I have a lot of IOT.

 

[wags1]

Makes me wonder if this is the problem I have with all my IOT... I'm going to have to look into this. Its going to bite... I have a lot of IOT.

I have lots of home automation devices as well but I use all z-wave and zigbee (mostly z-wave) devices with a Smartthings hub. I don't want all of my home automation stuff on my wifi network.

 

[afool622]

With any of these builds does anybody with a Harmony hub find them having a hard time staying connected? Maybe it’s a setting in 2.4 that needs to be off or on - any advice would be appreciated. BTW I have a similar problem with the Phillips Hue Sync Box.

I also have XT8s and have 1 harmony hub. I bounded the hub to the closest node. No problems with it.

 

[baz]

I have lots of home automation devices as well but I use all z-wave and zigbee (mostly z-wave) devices with a Smartthings hub. I don't want all of my home automation stuff on my wifi network.

I can relate, but that is where Firewalla comes in The thing is amazing!

 

[srkbear]

Makes me wonder if this is the problem I have with all my IOT... I'm going to have to look into this. Its going to bite... I have a lot of IOT.

I think ASUS does pretty well against its competitors when it comes to IOT. Here’s an ASUS—penned troubleshooting decision tree for when connection issues arise with devices that don’t play well with Wi-Fi 6.

I went major overkill myself, as I am covering a two-story 9,500 sq ft space. I started with two Zenwifi XT8s using AiMesh, then added a GT-AX11000 in a parallel wireless backhaul configuration to extend coverage of my second floor.

I realize that few folks go that far, but I have innumerable IOT or hub-based devices throughout my home—15 Sonos speakers, 21 Hue lights, an August Wireless Smart Lock, a Ring Video Doorbell with two additional Ring Cameras, a Chamberlain MyQ garage door opener, a Lutron Caseda hub with 12 dimmers/switches, two Harmony Hubs, a Smartthings Hub with three Smart TVs, a Rachio Wireless Sprinkler system, etc.

Prior to my ASUS mesh solution, I tried Linksys AX6600, Eero Pro 6, Orbi’s monstrously overpriced $800 AX mesh setup—and I lost several weeks of my life trying to solve constant dropouts, disconnections, coverage dead spots, channel conflicts—until I thought I was doomed to either ditch a number of my devices or spend time every single day reconnecting to and/or restarting equipment.

I finally went for two Zenwifi XT8s with stock firmware—massive improvement but coverage was still insufficient. Added the 11000 and that issue resolved, but I still has some connectivity issues when moving between rooms. Found this site and installed this beta firmware, made a few adjustments, and I haven’t touched my setup since.

My sincere gratitude and respect to those devoting their time to providing us with these remarkable beta releases. One thing that places ASUS ahead of its competitors is its open-source firmware options—one would be hard pressed to find a non-enterprise router GUI with so many tweaks and options. If you can’t find a solution to a problem among all the choices available through these betas (save known issues in progress), surely you’re unlikely to find relief from a competitor.