AX11000 (Two of them Overkill?)

[RaptorAttacks]

How much overkill would getting a second AX-11000 be for AiMesh?

I went ahead and purchased another AX-11000 from Amazon for $349. So I have 30 days to return it.
I had considered the AX-6100, but then part of me was like just spend the extra $150 and just be done with it.

I plan on using it as a wireless mesh at least to start, though I might be inclined to traverse the crawlspace to run an ethernet line in the future.
I am in a ranch-style house with my existing router on one end of the house in my gaming room, which happens to be the worst possible room for it to be in because there are so many walls for it to go through to get to the other end of the house.
(Example: I have Gigabit internet, at the extreme another end of the house I'm at like 50-100mbps)

So money aside, I'm guessing there are no downsides to running 2 Ax-11000.
Though probably if I were to run ethernet to link them, there is probably also little benefit as opposed to running a cheaper triband like an AX-6100.
Am I wrong, or overlooking something?

Also for anyone running 2 AX-11000 any setup/optimization tips/settings??

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @RaptorAttacks.

The synergy of 2x identical routers in AiMesh mode offers the best reliability and performance possible. Money be damned.

Do yourself a favor. Run that Ethernet line sooner rather than later. The difference for the whole network will be worth it, particularly with a 1Gbps ISP connection.

No downsides. Money is only in our heads (and in our pockets for even shorter periods).

[Wireless] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset | Official Support | ASUS Global

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[Tech9]

I plan on using it as a wireless mess

You can create wireless mess easily.

How much overkill would getting a second AX-11000 be for AiMesh?

I wouldn't spend money on any "tri-band" routers, especially if Ethernet backhaul option is available or possible. RT-AX86U as router + RT-AX86S as node. Both run the same firmware and have the same radios for better compatibility. They are significantly cheaper, look better, take less space and will work exactly the same way with your wireless clients as your expensive spiders with mostly plastic "performance" enhancements.

 

[bbunge]

You can create wireless mess easily.



I wouldn't spend money on any "tri-band" routers, especially if Ethernet backhaul option is available or possible. RT-AX86U as router + RT-AX86S as node. Both run the same firmware and have the same radios for better compatibility. They are significantly cheaper, look better, take less space and will work exactly the same way with your wireless clients as your expensive spiders with mostly plastic "performance" enhancements.

Plastic spiders. I like it! Think you have coined a new name.

 

[RaptorAttacks]

You can create wireless mess easily.



I wouldn't spend money on any "tri-band" routers, especially if Ethernet backhaul option is available or possible. RT-AX86U as router + RT-AX86S as node. Both run the same firmware and have the same radios for better compatibility. They are significantly cheaper, look better, take less space and will work exactly the same way with your wireless clients as your expensive spiders with mostly plastic "performance" enhancements.

"Shakes fist at auto correct" (mess)

I already have 1 AX-11000 (Non-returnable), and I think I am one of the rare exceptions that need all the antennas because of the layout of my house and all of the walls (and wall corners) that are in a "line of sight" to my living room/bedroom. To be truthful, the best option would be for me to re-run my coax to a central location in my house (living room), and likely a single AX-11000 would be enough.(Maybe not quite but it would be close. The easiest way to put it is my house (ranch style) is essentially a rectangle, and my router is currently almost in the upper right corner. For the signal to get to the living room, it needs to go through the bedroom wall(which also corners with an adjacent bedroom and hall), through a hallway wall/bathroom wall corner/ through the dining room wall. And then the bedroom means it has to go through the living room wall.
If I tried, I could not pick a worse location for my router to be placed.
Yet here I am.

 

[Tech9]

I think I am one of the rare exceptions that need all the antennas

All you see as antennas is mostly non-functional plastic just for looks. The actual antenna inside is 5cm long for 2.4GHz and 2.5cm long for 5GHz. How many business access points you have seen with external antennas? If you have router relocation options - try with single centrally located. If you have Ethernet backhaul options - get a cheaper dual-band RT-AX86S for node. I wouldn't go for AiMesh at all exactly because it's closer to mess than mesh. It's a marketing name of wired access points or wireless repeaters with very limited configuration options. You fell victim of Asus marketing.

 

[Tech9]

Plastic spiders. I like it! Think you have coined a new name.

Well, ask yourself why consumer market is full of spiders/pitchers and business market of flying saucers.

Is this spider better Wi-Fi device than the access point below? I don't think so. It's just cheaper AIO router with "powerful" looks.

 

[ninjabob]

I have a GT AX11000 with two XT8s all running Merlin/gNU and they work reliably and very well.

 

[Tech9]

they work reliably and very well

Not according to your other posts on SNB Forums. I wouldn't recommend XT8 to anyone. Overpriced for the looks, mediocre hardware.

 

[ninjabob]

I have them as AiMesh nodes and they are working fine. Fifty odd devices connected including CCTV cameras and Smart Switches. Sonos system connected. The GTAX11000 is doing the work the XT8s are just nodes.

 

[twistedsocal]

"Shakes fist at auto correct" (mess)

I already have 1 AX-11000 (Non-returnable), and I think I am one of the rare exceptions that need all the antennas because of the layout of my house and all of the walls (and wall corners) that are in a "line of sight" to my living room/bedroom. To be truthful, the best option would be for me to re-run my coax to a central location in my house (living room), and likely a single AX-11000 would be enough.(Maybe not quite but it would be close. The easiest way to put it is my house (ranch style) is essentially a rectangle, and my router is currently almost in the upper right corner. For the signal to get to the living room, it needs to go through the bedroom wall(which also corners with an adjacent bedroom and hall), through a hallway wall/bathroom wall corner/ through the dining room wall. And then the bedroom means it has to go through the living room wall.
If I tried, I could not pick a worse location for my router to be placed.
Yet here I am.

Hey just wanted to throw this out there for you, first off, the antenna on this router has an element all the way to the top of the antenna plastic housing and uses the 8 antenna for beam forming, basically it can steer the beam of the signal and it does it very well, also cause i was reading your earlier post (i know this is a bit old but whatever, i didnt see it brought up cause i doubt many others have 2 of these routers like i do) thge wireless backhaul is faster than the 2.5 gig port running a cat7 cable directly between the two routers so wanted to point that out, same with if you use the two in bridge mode, you can get over 5 gig speed from one to the other but you lose the wifi on one of em, thats cause it uses it as a bridge so you have ports on the opposite side of your house with full speed access not some half duplex 10/100 crap lol. still a wired backhaul is nice to leave the ax wifi 6 band open and available from the router, these things will actually allow you to rock 3 guest networks on top of the original 3 networks you can rock, point is it does have individual mac for each network ssid it will output, it has plenty of processing power to run all sorts of crap like logging and vpn and ddns and traffic monitoring without lagging or slowing down the data speeds but it can get buggy with certain settings clashing with other settings, have never figured out what exactly except i have had to factory reset a couple times when first figuring out how much i could push them, for the third router we got an 8 port dual band and ran cat7 as a aimesh backhaul to it so we had the 8 ports where that router was located on top of the two ax11000 routers splitting the house, this is all for a 4300 sq foot house though, 2 story probably makes it a tad less of an issue but still has its own set of problems. all the same you most definitely cant go wrong with two of these routers

 

[ronan_zj]

I have Firewalla+AX11000PRO + 2 XT8( bought from Facebook market for $200). this setup works great in my house and it provides the fastest connection ( I had EERO Pro 6 and Orbi before).

 

[coxhaus]

The problem with wireless is it is shared media which can cause slowdowns whereas wire is not, as its dedicated bandwidth is always fully available.