It's time to buy RT-BE96U?

[Gregory Phillips]

So what did you decide to do?

I'm going to take a chill pill and wait.

 

[jksmurf]

I’m not in the market anytime soon but sometime down the line I’d be interested to look at the RT-BE96U as a replacement for my RT-AX86U Pro, which works perfectly well; except for one thing and that is the ability to extend WiFi Guest networks to AIMesh nodes for ALL the Guest Networks, not just GN1, meaning I’d not only be up for a WiFi 7 Router but also 2-3 WiFi nodes to replace my current ZenWiFi XD6 units.

The issue being that some far flung IoT (Shelly) devices can’t connect to my Guest Network 2 (IoT) because GN2 doesn’t propagate to the nodes, only GN1, which is meant for real people who walk from one end of the house to the other with their phone. Currently a few of the Shelly’s connect to (or fallback to when RSSI threshold is reached) my main network SSID, which I don’t prefer.

I’m sure there are lots of ways to achieve what I want to do, configuring nodes as APs, or maybe with small b/g/n routers as APs hanging off (wired to) the Nodes, but I like the way the mesh network works, in terms of compactness and handover etc. and I am not keen on a bunch of extra stuff (that might even interfere with the AiMesh WiFi).

So, out of interest then, would a RT-BE96U plus BD4 mesh nodes (or other recommended replacement) be a worthwhile upgrade to my current RT-AX86U Pro + XD6 nodes (wired Ethernet btw).

The RT-BE96U can run on Merlin, the nodes on stock (unless Merlin adds the nodes …). There’s not much of Merlin I miss on the current XD6 nodes, except MerlinAU, the FW update addon.

The BD4 have 2.5Gb LAN ports so they could attach nicely to the RT-BE96U 2.5Gb ports. I’d need an upgraded 2.5Gb switch too… all exxy pie in the sky stuff atm, but I can dream !