[Official Beta] AiMesh beta firmware for RT-AC68U/RT-AC86U/RT-AC5300/RT-AC88U

[Stephen Harrington]

All,

I now have my "test rig" set up and running on AiMesh, 4 X AC68U (converted from TM-AC1900's using Goggles99's CFE). All set as APs, Master and 3 Nodes, all on wired backhaul. LAN port from the Master into my main house router, which is currently a genuine RT-AC68U running latest Merlin (wireless disabled), soon to be an RT-AC86U when it arrives. Plan is that this will give me a "spare" RT-AC68U to use as either the main router or an AP if anything dies.

So far so good … not quite ready to put it into Production and replace my old Wireless N access points, but not far off if it proves reliable on the bench

Observations and comments so far:-

• I followed the setup instructions to the letter but found adding in the Nodes unreliable and prone to failure. I ended up turning on the Master, and then powering up the Nodes one at a time and adding them in, then turning the Node off and powering up the next one. When I had all 3 acquired, turned it all off and on again and seems sweet since.
  
  I don't know if this is because there is so much Wifi flying around in such a small space, as I didn't turn off my existing TPLink Aps either, which is the enxt thing I would have tried. It's a little impractical IMHO to have to get all the AP's together in one room to do the "pairing", hopefully its not something you have to do often? Is there any plans to improve this and to be able to do it over the wired connection as well?
  
  
• I need Guest Networks back on the Nodes … hopefully sooner rather than later I've already asked "when" in this thread and arthurlien has said it will be coming in around 2 months, but of course we won't hold him to this since he's been kind enough to stick his neck out.
  
  
• The WAN port on the Master unit seems to behave as an "extra" LAN port, although you can't plug AiMesh Nodes into it as per the setup bible. Seems perfectly fine for anything else though.
  
  
• It would be really nice to have more control over the settings on the Nodes. Maybe an "advanced" or "expert" mode? Other people have mentioned wanting control over professional wireless settings and remote reboot.
  I can find the Nodes on my network and ping them, and I've even given them DHCP Reservations on my main home router. Via HTTP I seemingly can't change any settings as it redirects you to the web GUI of the Master. Would be nice to be able to Enable SSH, at least then you could get in and issue a "Reboot" command etc. And I've been known to reboot the odd thing from somewhere on the other side of the world when things go pear-shaped for the people looking after my house, its handy! Hopefully a lot more of this functionality to come as AiMesh matures?

Any comments from Wilson_Deng or arthurlien on product roadmap or timelines would be much appreciated. Very impressed with where this is going and underlines the innovation that ASUS bring to their products. They have leapt ahead again.

StephenH

 

[arthurlien]

I have an RT-AC3100 and two AC68U routers. The main is the 3100 and the nodes are the 68U routers. I have issues with Wi-Fi randomly dropping on the nodes. Also, the 3100 will sometimes disable the 5Ghz by itself (as can be seen by the LED) and the internet connection won't work on any connected device until I reboot the router.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Could you send the feedback for us by function Administration -> Feedback ?

 

[arthurlien]

Hi Dave

At the first time I was able to choose between wifi and wired but now only appears to me the wired option

Also I noticed that sometimes some clients cant connect to wifi duo the IP shows 192.168.100.xxx and not 192.168.1.xxx
I turn off and on the wifi switch of the device till the ip revert to 192.168.1.xxx, looks strange

Even when the client shows "offline" its working for some devices
Btw, do you guys disable WPS? how can you reboot the nodes ( power switch ) ?

Is't possible the client's IP is setting as dhcp+static ip mode ?

 

[arthurlien]

All,

• I followed the setup instructions to the letter but found adding in the Nodes unreliable and prone to failure. I ended up turning on the Master, and then powering up the Nodes one at a time and adding them in, then turning the Node off and powering up the next one. When I had all 3 acquired, turned it all off and on again and seems sweet since.
  
  I don't know if this is because there is so much Wifi flying around in such a small space, as I didn't turn off my existing TPLink Aps either, which is the enxt thing I would have tried. It's a little impractical IMHO to have to get all the AP's together in one room to do the "pairing", hopefully its not something you have to do often? Is there any plans to improve this and to be able to do it over the wired connection as well?

StephenH

Do you use wired or wireless to access Main Node's WebUI to add new Node ?

 

[Stephen Harrington]

Do you use wired or wireless to access Main Node's WebUI to add new Node ?

Hi arthurlien,

I was using wired access at that point, into another LAN port on the Main node.
When adding the nodes when I had them all powered up together, the "pairing" would hang at some point and not complete, and in some cases it eventually gave me an error message. All the nodes are sitting on a table together at present, within about a 1 meter semi-circle. When I powered up the "Slave" Nodes one at a time, it all went smoothly with no hangs.

And one thing I forgot to report in my first note, I went to do a firmware upgrade through the Web GUI of the Main Node, and it reported there was an upgrade available. I assumed it would be the latest version of the AiMesh firmware, but what it actually updated to was the latest Non-AiMesh firmware (no AiMesh "button" on front page), which meant I had to go back and reload the released AiMesh firmware. Luckily settings were retained after the reload, but for a minute there I thought I'd made big mistake and would have to start all over again!

StephenH

 

[arthurlien]

Hi arthurlien,

I was using wired access at that point, into another LAN port on the Main node.
When adding the nodes when I had them all powered up together, the "pairing" would hang at some point and not complete, and in some cases it eventually gave me an error message. All the nodes are sitting on a table together at present, within about a 1 meter semi-circle. When I powered up the "Slave" Nodes one at a time, it all went smoothly with no hangs.

And one thing I forgot to report in my first note, I went to do a firmware upgrade through the Web GUI of the Main Node, and it reported there was an upgrade available. I assumed it would be the latest verion of the AiMesh firmware, but what it actually updated to was the latest Non-AiMesh firmware (no AiMesh "button" on front page), which meant I had to go back and reload the released AiMesh firmware. Luckily settings were retained after the reload, but for a minute there I thought I'd made big mistake and would have to start all over again!

StephenH

The live update service is for official F/W version. You can backup the configuration in your local, if any, just restore it to Main Node.

 

[Stephen Harrington]

The live update service is for official F/W version. You can backup the configuration in your local, if any, just restore it to Main Node.

Err, yes, I know that NOW! Just wasn’t thinking, I’m an idiot.

StephenH

 

[arthurlien]

Err, yes, I know that NOW! Just wasn’t thinking, I’m an idiot.

StephenH

Backup the Configuration , make easy to recovery the system.

 

[Stephen Harrington]

Backup the Configuration , make easy to recovery the system.

I’m actually very good at doing config backups usually, but as this is still in “bench test” mode I hadn’t gotten around to that yet. Anyway I learn way more by playing around and seeing how stuff works, even if occasionally it gets me into trouble!

StephenH

 

[DummyPLUG]

Think about the coverage in each node(Main and node), if you increase power in main, decreased power in Node, the Node maybe will not to reach/connect to Main.

我從使用 Tapatalk 的 ASUS_Z012DA 發送

Not a problem if using ethernet as backbone

 

[arthurlien]

Not a problem if using ethernet as backbone

Yap, it's only applicable in ethernet backhaul.

我從使用 Tapatalk 的 ASUS_Z012DA 發送

 

[DummyPLUG]

Although I set all the node to use ethernet sometime it will switch back to wireless and create a loop, it is rare case and but I found it won't switch back to ethernet itself. It will be good if it can forced to ethernet only to prevent this happen.

Another suggestion is allow using a PIN instead of physically place the node near the main AP when setup, it does help as some node are hard to reach. In my case a node is in another house which that 2 house connect by a 10GE connection.

 

[arthurlien]

Although I set all the node to use ethernet sometime it will switch back to wireless and create a loop, it is rare case and but I found it won't switch back to ethernet itself. It will be good if it can forced to ethernet only to prevent this happen.

Another suggestion is allow using a PIN instead of physically place the node near the main AP when setup, it does help as some node are hard to reach. In my case a node is in another house which that 2 house connect by a 10GE connection.

You can change the connection type from auto to ethernet, if the ethernet connected,the backhaul will select it(more like as forced Ethernet). if disconnected, the backhaul will switch to Wi-Fi(it's a backup plan).

我從使用 Tapatalk 的 ASUS_Z012DA 發送

 

[DummyPLUG]

You can change the connection type from auto to ethernet, if the ethernet connected,the backhaul will select it(more like as forced Ethernet). if disconnected, the backhaul will switch to Wi-Fi(it's a backup plan).

我從使用 Tapatalk 的 ASUS_Z012DA 發送

That's the problem, it won't switch back to ethernet for my setup, and sometime it will switch to wifi even the ethernet is up, so this may be some bug?

 

[arthurlien]

That's the problem, it won't switch back to ethernet for my setup, and sometime it will switch to wifi even the ethernet is up, so this may be some bug?

so, you already changed the configuration from Auto to Ethernet in WebUI ? You can click the Note and change the configuration. BTW, Could you send the feedback for debug ?

 

[DummyPLUG]

so, you already changed the configuration from Auto to Ethernet in WebUI ? You can click the Note and change the configuration. BTW, Could you send the feedback for debug ?

Yes already select ethernet, will send a feedback soon.
p.s. how the node detect the ethernet up or not? by broadcast something or else? may be due to some config in my switch prevent the node detect the main AP, although I don't see something wrong in the switch's log

 

[arthurlien]

Yes already select ethernet, will send a feedback soon.
p.s. how the node detect the ethernet up or not? by broadcast something or else? may be due to some config in my switch prevent the node detect the main AP, although I don't see something wrong in the switch's log

thanks, that is reason we add the ethernet option in WebUI. There are many ethernet switch will blocked the information packet between the Node. BTW, Could you provide which brand/model switch you are using for me ?

 

[DummyPLUG]

thanks, that is reason we add the ethernet option in WebUI. There are many ethernet switch will blocked the information packet between the Node. BTW, Could you provide which brand/model switch you are using for me ?

The switch in question is cisco SG200-26

 

[argeri]

The easiest way I have found to reboot the nodes is by using the Asus Router app on my Android phone. You can log on to the Master and the nodes using the app. The app allows you to switch between routers and reboot them individually. You can also see which devices are connected to each node by looking at the 2.4 and 5 client lists.

My system is working fine, however it looks like it is using the 2.4 for the backhaul for both of my nodes - even the one that is probably 20 feet away (different floor though). Not sure why it wouldn't use the 5 but it does work and the speeds for my needs seem adequate.

It would be nice to have the ability to reboot the nodes remotely via the UI in the future.

The android app updated overnight from the play store and now has AIMesh integrated in it.

Check it out if you have an Android phone.

 

[argeri]

The android app updated overnight from the play store and now has AIMesh integrated in it.

Check it out if you have an Android phone.

Looks like they made some changes to the app. You can still reboot eacch router in the system but it looks like you can no longer see which clients are attached to each node.