GT-AX11000 Pro & 9 XT8 Nodes for business?

[MakeTheMostOfLife]

After about 7 years of semi hell with Linksys Velop, I'm looking to upgrade to an Asus Mesh for my business which has the following requirements:

Total land area is 4000 square meters of open garden with about 30 hotel rooms (mostly wood)
With Staff and Hotel Guest + Resturant and Bar would need a system that can support up to 300 devices.

I found online a business selling large amounts of cheap (ex company) second hand Asus XT8 AX6600 Tri Band Mesh 6 & Asus ROG GT-AX6000 WIFI 6 Dual Band Router

I presume these don't match well if the router is dual band and the nodes are Tri Band? So was looking into a new GT-AX11000 Pro for the main router and I read 9 is the maximum recommended number of nodes.

We managed to cover what area we needed previously with an old linksys 1 mesh router and 9 nodes so I presume I can invest and the coverage should not be worse that those? Am I correct that it is about 500 square meter per node?

I'm just looking for assurance before forking out in bulk for what will be a 10 piece kit, that this is a good setup to suit our needs.
Should there be any reason not to buy second hand? Seller has volume, good reputation and gives 1 month warranty.
Did anyone run 9 Asus nodes before? While the Velop could do it, every node added made the app slower, more difficult to log in and access the network settings and eventually not long after completing a setup it eventually becomes impossible to ever log in again. We just lived locked out of it until something required us to reset the entire system.

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[Tech9]

With Staff and Hotel Guest + Resturant and Bar would need a system that can support up to 300 devices.

Definitely look for business grade gear. Minimum TP-Link Omada, Ubiquiti UniFi or better. You need high density access points. Seems like you need professional help building this system as well. What you are looking at is home routers with limited active clients per radio and perpetual beta firmware. It can ruin your business, literally.

From one home product with bad experience to another. It will be AiMesh semi hell experience. It was never designed to scale so much. Dead end project from the start.

 

[MakeTheMostOfLife]

Definitely look for business grade gear. Minimum TP-Link Omada, Ubiquiti UniFi or better. You need high density access points. Seems like you need professional help building this system as well. What you are looking at is home routers with limited active clients per radio and perpetual beta firmware. It can ruin your business, literally.

From one home product with bad experience to another. It will be AiMesh semi hell experience. It was never designed to scale so much. Dead end project from the start.

Ok, thanks for that... Was working backwards from seeing all those second hand nodes for cheap. Will start the research from scratch for business grade gear

 

[Tech9]

You need wired infrastructure first, wired controller managed high density access points working on narrow channels and utilizing the entire spectrum available, professional grade gateway/firewall and a managed switch with PoE to power the access points. This it to start. The network has to be VLAN segmented on business only and guests only parts. You may want further expansion for NVR and PoE IP security cameras. Leave room for expansion. This network needs planning and proper equipment. With a flat network design and home routers someone creative with access to your network may hit your business or your customers hard. All the units you are looking at have convenient LAN ports providing connection straight back to your main network. I guess, you have computers with business accounting, payroll information, bank accounts information, you run PoS terminals including hand-held wireless, you perhaps have some wirelessly controlled automation around the property. Do it right and protect your business.

 

[L&LD]

I would get a few professional quotes before you commit to anything at all.

Don't steer those quotes into any preconceived notions you may have right now.

Ask for a robust and reliable system at the least (total) cost and see what is offered.

That will get you much further than getting 'hardware' and not understanding/knowing what to do with it to get the most out of it, and more importantly, getting what you need.

 

[MakeTheMostOfLife]

Thanks for the help. Been a lot of research and a rabbit hole to go down. Not really in a position to get a network professional as I'm located on a small tropical island in Indonesia, but thankfully can get most stuff delivered from online stores and watch youtube videos. We don't have complicated needs, just a working wifi in all areas will cover all aspects of the business and guest needs and also our current camera setup is simple and just connects to any Wifi.

Looking now at getting:

ER7212PC 3 In 1 and connect this to 1 or 2 EAP650-Outdoor to cover the whole property and get a couple of Indoor EAP670 for the bar & lounge to get started, and upgrade as necessary. Our hotel rooms are wood so there is a good chance The EAP650-Outdoor will give coverage inside the rooms - The Linksys Velops could.

Looks like these AP can also mesh for easy setup around the garden which could be useful.

Hopefully that should do me, and looks a system that can scale as well and also professionally tweak down to road if want to have a more advanced professional set up.

 

[Tech9]

and looks a system that can scale

This ER7212PC unit has some limitations:

Omada 3-in-1 Gigabit VPN Router

ER7212PC is TP-Link's first 3-in-1 box supporting router, controller ability, and PoE+ output functions simultaneously with 110W PoE budget. It can centrally manage up to 2 switches, and 10 EAPs with compact and fanless design. With dual-core CPU, ER7212PC is equipped with 4× WAN ports and...

www.tp-link.com

If this covers your needs - may work for you.

 

[sfx2000]

Total land area is 4000 square meters of open garden with about 30 hotel rooms (mostly wood)
With Staff and Hotel Guest + Resturant and Bar would need a system that can support up to 300 devices.

I found online a business selling large amounts of cheap (ex company) second hand Asus XT8 AX6600 Tri Band Mesh 6 & Asus ROG GT-AX6000 WIFI 6 Dual Band Router

Find a WLAN pro - DIY at this scale isn't going to work if you want happy customers...

 

[glens]

To be fair, the "customers" are most likely "vacationers". An "all Asus 'home router' solution" might work entirely "well enough" for the task at hand.

 

[MakeTheMostOfLife]

I feel like I should tie this up and thank everyone again for their advice. Being located on a small island I thought we were hard limited to 100Mbps but during the hardware research got news we could get 300Mbps in future when the ISP installs a main panel closer to us. This prospect seriously changed what kind of system I want to have in-house!

In the end, from researching ASUS to Omada to Ubiquiti, I have now been running for about a month a UniFi UDW in the main area and U6-mesh nodes around the outdoor property. While this works as a mesh the difference between the ones we have wired in and the ones as mesh is big enough that now in the process of making all wired access points... Which is what everyone here was telling me I should do from the start! Also while the outside nodes provide decent coverage to the inside of the rooms, in future, when have fewer financial commitments needed for building projects, already looking at kitting out each inside room with In-Wall AP and TVs to take advantage of potential 300Mbps.

From a software standpoint, the UniFi is just incredible. It is a pleasure to use and extremely easy to set up and manage. Highly recommended for anyone looking to do the same. The ecosystem looks terrific as well. There is a ton of stuff I don't have the money for at the moment but think would be useful down the line and all integrates, so can upgrade as you go.

Very happy with it all. So thanks to those here setting me on a better track