Need an AiMesh (2nd router) recommendation.

[Klueless]

Edit: I learned this lesson (network responsiveness) from a few customers that had very low ISP speeds (1.5Mbps down and 256KB up) for which I had tuned for maximum throughput. They reported that the network seemed 'faster' before, even though I had the numbers to show them it wasn't. When I understood that they needed it to perform as close to real-time as possible instead of as fast as possible, they were happy indeed.

I agree but what kind of stuff did you tune for better responsiveness?

 

[Klueless]

Thanks Klueless (though I'm not comfortable calling you that, lol)

<lol> Not to worry, my wife is very comfortable with calling me that : -)

 

[jsmiddleton4]

"So ... you are saying when you went Asus to Asus, eyuch and when you went Netgear to Netgear, eyuch but when you went Netgear to Asus all is well?"

Well all is faster. AIMESH mode was the slowest throughput of them all. But it was plenty stable once configured. I think technically it would be Asus to Netgear. The Asus is the slave.

If I reasonably could I'd run a cable. Its possible but I'd need to pay someone as my vaulted ceilings make me doing so unwise. At this point I might get a little more performance being hard wired but probably not much.

Even if I was doing AIMESH or some kind of wireless repeater mode, not media bridge mode, I'd still look at external antennas. Gives you so many more options for placement and wifi signal strength testing. I was very surprised to see large swings by even small location changes. The typical W pattern also was not the best performer. Two straight up and one straight down works best for my application.

If it is the case you're looking just to extend wireless access I was very happy with the performance of the higher end Netgear wifi extender or the TPLink 1733 capable one. I did not test any of the Asus ones, not sure they have one, or the Bluecube thing as it would be used that way in pairs, etc. IF in your setting and logistics its possible to run cable at least to the wifi extender and set it up in AP mode, you'd extend your wireless network and have only one router to contend with. The higher end ones usually have at least one ethernet port to do just that. Netgear's higher end as four LAN ports.

Also you could consider an 86U, I really like it for price performance, and set it up in AP mode. Again IF you could run cable part way and not all the way to the zone that needs better coverage. My opinion is wired to a router configured in AP mode is the best way to go. You extend your wifi coverage and have a network switch to boot.

I looked at power plug adapters. As far as I can tell they do not perform where I'm at now. But if you're not needing blazing fast speeds they do work and you can configure zones, etc., with them. I'd not but they do have a place or purpose.

Interesting as well is if I set the Netgear to HT160, I have no HT160 devices and the Asus 86u is not, I get between 2-4db boost in wifi signal. I go from -46/-47 to -42/-43. MU-MIMO and beam forming decrease signal strength. HT160 on in the Netgear R7800.

 

[Klueless]

Start a new topic/thread.

Maybe. Maybe not. We started as AImesh. Then we started playing with repeater/extender configurations which led to a subtopic; What happens when you start with a good router and "downgrade" it to a mesh node/repeater/bridge/AP? Does the "configurator" do a good job or does it make a few mistakes.? Is there any conflict between the router's wireless clients and the "node's" clients?

The "media bridge" guy was having similar issues but his "node" had no wireless clients. I found that an interesting data point.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Maybe. Maybe not. We started as AImesh. Then we started playing with repeater/extender configurations which led to a subtopic; What happens when you start with a good router and "downgrade" it to a repeater/bridge/AP? Does the "configurator" do a good job or does it make a few mistakes.? Is there any conflict between the router's wireless clients and the "node's" clients?

The "media bridge" guy was having similar issues but his "node" had no wireless clients. I found that an interesting data point.

Yeah, sorry... I lost track of how off track you all got.

OE

 

[L&LD]

I agree but what kind of stuff did you tune for better responsiveness?

What kind of stuff can we tune? Everything!

• Location of the router.
  • Closest to the center of the area(s) to be serviced (not necessarily the physical center of the room/home and/or property, btw).
  • Minimum 10' above ground level (actual ground, not necessarily 'first-floor' level).
  • Minimum 3' free air in 3D all around the router, if/when possible. Do not mount on a wall.
• The orientation of the antennae.
  • Don't be afraid to experiment.
  • Small(er) adjustments may bring big improvements.
• Including the orientation of the router itself.
  • i.e. rotate the router in an almost complete circle to find which orientation 'throws' more signal where you need it most.
  • If the router is designed to stand/sit, let it. Almost always a worse set up if a 'vertical' router is placed flat or a 'horizontally' designed router is placed standing.
• Find the best Control Channel and Channel Width native for that router.
  • There is usually only one combination that is 'best', find it and stick with it unless the surrounding WiFi AP's continue to fight against yours (but if they're on 'Auto', as they usually are, being patient means you'll get the space you need).
• Find the second-best Control Channel and Channel Width.
  • Do you lose 5% to 10% of maximum throughput, but gain responsiveness?
  • Don't settle for this 'second-best' until you've given the 'best' combination a chance for a few days (see above for the 'why').
• Find the best driver settings for your clients.
• Find the best driver for your clients.
  • this is almost always the 'newest' driver, at defaults.
• Use new SSIDs (8 alphanumeric characters, no spaces, no punctuation, no special characters, and no smiley faces).
• Use new passwords (if your old password includes any of the above) of 16 characters.
• Don't simply use speedtest sites to see what is fastest (they all 'break' randomly and skew the results unnecessarily). Browse the web. Open complex sites. Try to use it as you normally would, including accessing a NAS or shared device/resource on the LAN.
  • The combination above that gives you the best impression of turning a page on a book and seeing the content immediately is the 'winner'.
• This is an iterative process. Once you go through everything, do it again. You may be able to tune it further.
  • For myself, after 3 passes, it rarely gets better, but I have also seen 4 and 5 passes tweaking the above help a lot.
• The settings in the router can also be manipulated at this point.
  • Things like MU-MIMO, AC Beamforming, Airtime Fairness, (almost all settings are possible for adjustments).

I have seen customers move their offices around because a bulkhead was blocking the desk where the laptop would sit (from the point of view of the router). That was all that was needed to 'fix' their issue.

I have suggested to others to run 10 Ethernet cables to the middle of their homes and the ones that did/could, saw a dramatic improvement in WiFi coverage with their original, single router. (Why 10 cable runs? One for the WAN port (from their corner/downstairs modem), four for the LAN ports (for their wired devices) and 5 as spares for when they upgrade to an 8 port router.

I have also suggested they remove their ISP's 'extenders' and replace the main ISP supplied router with an RT-AC3100, an RT-AC86U and most recently an RT-AX88U and they all experienced better network performance as a result of 'less'. Along with a healthy dose of the above suggestions.

The best suggestions I give are to give the network time to adjust to the others around it (actually, vice versa; I set 'our' network manually, of course). When there are multiple networks in close vicinity to each other and they are all on 'auto' everything, nothing works well for anyone.

Lockdown the 'choices' you allow the router to make and then give it time. The results can be surprising after a few days.

To summarize the above:

• Location, Location, Location!
• Wireless mode: Auto.
• Control Channel: Fixed (on 2.4GHz; only 1, 6 or 11).
• Control Width: Fixed (on 2.4GHz; 20MHz for longest reach, on 5GHz; 80MHz+ for highest throughput for the closest clients).
• Tune the settings further past the M&M Config defaults to account for newer clients, newer features (AX routers) and/or both.

The location (in 3D) will get you to 60% to 90% of the best the router and clients can achieve. Depending on what defaults you start with.

The remaining options will get you the rest of the way.

 

[Klueless]

What kind of stuff can we tune? Everything!

Uh, wow! Thank you very much.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

Just gotta get your shot in there hey Ozark?

 

[jsmiddleton4]

• The orientation of the antennae.
  • Don't be afraid to experiment.
• Small(er) adjustments may bring big improvements
  
  That is exactly why I went to external antennas.

 

[L&LD]

• The orientation of the antennae.
  • Don't be afraid to experiment.
• Small(er) adjustments may bring big improvements
  
  That is exactly why I went to external antennas.

As long as you go in knowing that any external antennae will be 'less', overall, than what was shipped with the router itself.

Even if it is better for your specific usage.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

"any external antennae will be 'less', overall, than what was shipped with the router itself."

I don't know that's absolutely true. Can you buy crappy antennas? Absolutely. That doesn't mean all of them are or that all of them are "less" than OEM equipment. Just takes a little reading of end user reviews to sort them out. You can also buy high quality extension cables and use the OEM antennas. Won't have the fancy bases, etc., but easy to jury-rig a mount.

My point to Klueless is there's lots of options. We tend to get stuck in thinking need a certain kind of equipment. My experience is you're better off figuring out what the end game is and then playing with all the possible hardware options.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Just gotta get your shot in there hey Ozark?

Yeah, I was bored.

OE

 

[L&LD]

My statement you quoted above assumes that the OEM has designed all circuits and RF traces with the installed/supplied antennae optimally tuned.

That, as we all know, may not always be the case.

But the WiFi performance these latest wireless routers offer though seems to point to that assumption. At least, for the top few routers from each manufacturer.

 

[jsmiddleton4]

"assumes that the OEM has designed all circuits and RF traces with the installed/supplied antennae optimally tuned."

Sure. That doesn't mean any external antenna will be a subpar performer. Also have to keep an eye on the quality of the cabling. Not sure my family will let me play anymore but might try signal strength, can't imagine it could get any better, with using OEM antenna and extension cables. Some of the bases could take the ASUS or Netgear's antennas.

Hope the OP is making progress.

 

[L&LD]

The shorter the antennae 'cabling' the better (always). Beyond a few inches, you can't get equal quality vs. original/attached antennae.

Like high-end audio, an external antennae my give you a 'flavor' of WiFi you like more, in a specific situation. But I'm not talking about merely seeing a benefit, I'm talking about seeing a benefit with no degradation either. After all, if 'optimal' is what it was tuned for, any change will be 'sub-optimal', by design. That is not to say that the 'sub-optimal' will be terrible though either.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hope the OP is making progress.

The OP announced in his last post #17 that his mission to extended WiFi coverage with a 2nd AiMesh router was successful.

OE

 

[Val D.]

Like high-end audio, an external antennae my give you a 'flavor' of WiFi you like more, in a specific situation.

What? I need more details about the flavours in digital communications, please.

 

[L&LD]

In WiFi, a good guess at a 'flavor' may be longer range in a specific direction, for example.

 

[Val D.]

In WiFi, a good guess at a 'flavor' may be longer range in a specific direction, for example.

The “curry” in WiFi you mean?

I used to build high-end audio systems and long range radio communication equipment, both analogue and digital, so just wanted to know what I was missing through the years.

 

[OzarkEdge]

The “curry” in WiFi you mean?

I think WiFi is more sweet and sour.

OE