Lost my third "5.2GHz" Band

[Aiadi]

Using my GT-AX6000 dual band as the main router and my XT8 tri-band as an AI mesh node (via wired backhaul) and I obviously end up sacrificing the third 5.2GHz band of my XT8 as I guess that it needs to mirror the parent router's structure. Is the the end game for the third band (still showing as a ********_5G_dwb SSID on the AiMesh panel) or can I in anyway resurrect this from the death and put it to any sort of good use?

 

[kildare]

Can you find a configuration option in your main router AiMesh/System settings to use only the Ethernet backhaul mode?

 

[Aiadi]

Can you find a configuration option in your main router AiMesh/System settings to use only the Ethernet backhaul mode?

Not in the main router's part of the AiMesh panel but in the node's management bit there is a "backhaul connection priority setting". Changing this from "Auto" to "2.5G WAN First" has not made any difference to the fact that the 5.2GHz SSID remains unavailable in my triband mesh node.

 

[tgl]

This is a situation where AIMesh's limited configurability doesn't help. Take the XT8 out of the mesh and configure it as an independent AP (running in "Access Point" mode). You can and should still give it the same SSID(s) as the main router. Then set up the 5GHz-2 radio with a non-hidden SSID, and you're done. You might prefer to give the 5GHz-2 radio a different SSID, if you want to limit which clients connect to it.

I'm not sure how well ASUS' "SmartConnect" features will work in this sort of setup. You might have to turn that off.

 

[Aiadi]

This is a situation where AIMesh's limited configurability doesn't help. Take the XT8 out of the mesh and configure it as an independent AP (running in "Access Point" mode). You can and should still give it the same SSID(s) as the main router. Then set up the 5GHz-2 radio with a non-hidden SSID, and you're done. You might prefer to give the 5GHz-2 radio a different SSID, if you want to limit which clients connect to it.

I'm not sure how well ASUS' "SmartConnect" features will work in this sort of setup. You might have to turn that off.

Thanks for an excellent suggestion but will this not significantly affect the wifi handover between the two different routers and the wifi client devices they are connected to?

 

[tgl]

Thanks for an excellent suggestion but will this not significantly affect the wifi handover between the two different routers and the wifi client devices they are connected to?

You'd want to test in your own situation of course, but I'm betting it won't. In the first place, roaming is controlled by the clients (the STAs) not the APs. To the extent that the APs have anything to do with it, it's by providing 802.11k/v information, which your clients may or may not use. In the second place, 802.11k/v are vendor-neutral public standards. Ideally, even routers from different vendors will do that correctly as long as they find themselves sharing SSIDs and passwords within "earshot". I'd certainly expect a pair of ASUS routers to do it correctly, whether they're linked by AIMesh or not.

In the end, AIMesh is marketing buzzspeak for simplified configuration of multiple routers from one GUI. It doesn't, or shouldn't, provide access to any behaviors you can't get from hand-configured routers. However, if ASUS is hiding some secret sauce under there, the worst-case situation is that you have to turn off SmartConnect and see if your clients behave acceptably well without it. I've seen "turn off SmartConnect" recommended as a fix for connection problems often enough that I suspect you'll be just fine without it.

In any case, the bottom line is: experiment and see how it works for you. If you don't like the results, you can always put things back the way they were. (You do have careful notes about how you have these things configured, don't you?)