[Official Release] AiMesh Firmware v3.0.0.4.384.20308 for All Supported Products

[gculley01]

There is a slight difference here though. With Roaming Assistant turned off it is your device that is doing the switching between the nodes. Some devices handle it better than others. I would suspect if you had an iOS device you wouldn't see the switch happening as they tend to stick to their connected node longer even if there is a node with stronger signal available. This is where Aimesh and roaming assist is beneficial as it will detect the signal strength of the client connection and handle transitioning the client before the client may have done it on its own.

I concur that my device is likely doing the switching, but when one signal is at -68db and the mesh node is at -35 db, it's highly unlikely that my device is going to switch back to the weaker signal. Something is triggering the mesh node to kick my device off after my phone connects to it.

 

[RandomName23]

In my case, I wouldn't be surprised if my tablet just sucked at handling the transition, but sucks more with RA on. But are you saying you saying, if done correctly, you shouldn't notice what node you're on? Because I've watched my tablet switch, and it flips the WiFi icon off then on. It happens pretty quick usually, but if I'm watching Netflix on it when it happens (which I have set to only work on WiFi), it kills the connection and I have to restart it, because it goes over to cellular for that split second.

Correct, if Aimesh is setup and functioning correctly you will never know when you switch nodes unless you are looking at the UI to see which node you are on. If you turn RA off and you are using an ethernet backhaul it is essentially the same thing as just having an Access point setup. You didn't really need Aimesh to do that. If you are using a wireless backhaul you would have needed Aimesh if using the Asus firmware.

 

[Quad80]

Correct, if Aimesh is setup and functioning correctly you will never know when you switch nodes unless you are looking at the UI to see which node you are on. If you turn RA off and you are using an ethernet backhaul it is essentially the same thing as just having an Access point setup. You didn't really need Aimesh to do that. If you are using a wireless backhaul you would have needed Aimesh if using the Asus firmware.

I had an AP with ethernet backend, but the AP was shirt and dropped all the time (it was some $10 Trendnet POS). A similar setup with my old 2.4/n hardware worked pretty well.

Anyway, I bought two AC3100s on deep clearance and decided to pull the second into service as an AP, coincidentally at the same time Asus released the AiMesh firmware, so I figured what the hell and set it up as such.

Curiously, default settings are to disable RA, because I just left everything as is and didn't play with anything until I turned it on to test it. I mean, what you're saying makes sense, because otherwise why bother with "mesh". I figured maybe it was just marketing hype and a slightly more user friendly way to set up an AP and update firmwares. Reading more and your confirmation shows a proper mesh system should be seamless to a client, but that doesn't always seem to be the case for my tablet (a low end Android) *or* there's a possible bug in the firmware.

I'm pretty tech savvy, but not a network guy at all. How can I check logs or whatever, to see what happens when a client roams from router to node? Is there a way I can see if it's a router/node issue or if it's a client issue? Is it possible a bug could present for certain clients and not others?

I will also say I was just checking roaming from node to router and I didn't see the transition at all on my tablet with RA disabled. The signal just went from weak to strong without a blink, and my wifi connection app confirmed it made the jump seamlessly. I'm going to try more tests, but if there are some logs somewhere (I know there are, but like I said, this is not an area of expertise for me) I should be looking at for certain things, I'd appreciate some dumbed down info so I can try to help out.

 

[RandomName23]

I had an AP with ethernet backend, but the AP was shirt and dropped all the time (it was some $10 Trendnet POS). A similar setup with my old 2.4/n hardware worked pretty well.

Anyway, I bought two AC3100s on deep clearance and decided to pull the second into service as an AP, coincidentally at the same time Asus released the AiMesh firmware, so I figured what the hell and set it up as such.

Curiously, default settings are to disable RA, because I just left everything as is and didn't play with anything until I turned it on to test it. I mean, what you're saying makes sense, because otherwise why bother with "mesh". I figured maybe it was just marketing hype and a slightly more user friendly way to set up an AP and update firmwares. Reading more and your confirmation shows a proper mesh system should be seamless to a client, but that doesn't always seem to be the case for my tablet (a low end Android) *or* there's a possible bug in the firmware.

I'm pretty tech savvy, but not a network guy at all. How can I check logs or whatever, to see what happens when a client roams from router to node? Is there a way I can see if it's a router/node issue or if it's a client issue? Is it possible a bug could present for certain clients and not others?

I will also say I was just checking roaming from node to router and I didn't see the transition at all on my tablet with RA disabled. The signal just went from weak to strong without a blink, and my wifi connection app confirmed it made the jump seamlessly. I'm going to try more tests, but if there are some logs somewhere (I know there are, but like I said, this is not an area of expertise for me) I should be looking at for certain things, I'd appreciate some dumbed down info so I can try to help out.

Default settings for me were for RA to be enabled so that is odd that we had different defaults. Could it be the AC3100s were used or refurbished and maybe the nvram wasn't fully cleared? To me Aimesh is a couple of things.

1. An easy economical way to extend your wireless coverage in your home or office by easily adding APs with either an ethernet OR wireless backhaul (I believe it also lets you daisy chain devices)
2. Will automatically heal your mesh if one of the devices goes offline
3. Asus has written their own handoff code to allow for seamless transition between nodes in your mesh network. Instead of relying on the devices which all handle it differently they use Aimesh to decide when a device should switch nodes
4. Centralized management of all the nodes in your mesh, firmware updates, configuration changes, etc.

The places I know of at the moment are in the UI you can check both the System logs and the Wireless logs for information pertaining to which node/radio devices are on and why certain nodes might switch. There is a way to increase the debug level of the system log I believe so that would probably give you even more information. As for roaming with RA disabled it should in most cases be seamless as well. The difference being that with RA disabled you are solely relying on your device to decide when to switch to a stronger signal. Sometimes this means that your device will stay on a weak signal with slower speeds before switching to a stronger signal with faster speeds (some devices switch quickly, my iOS devices wait too long to switch to stronger signals). Depending on if you are using Smart Connect might even drop you down from 5Ghz to 2.4 when you could switch nodes to a 5Ghz signal.

Bad thing about wireless is that it is very environment and client specific so what should work may not until you really dig into all of the factors, which can be a lot. I'm not saying Aimesh doesn't have issues because clearly it does but by disabling Roaming Assist you are not getting Aimesh to "work with it off" as many think, they are essentially just disabling Aimesh. The other thing that can easily be overlooked is that you have to turn Roaming Assist on/off on each radio on the node.

 

[Richard Li]

I enabled RA this afternoon, set the threshold for -70, and noticed that when my tablet would lose signal from the router in the basement, it didn't pick up the mesh. Turning it back off allowed for a much more seamless transfer. Not flawless, but far better than losing WiFi entirely and having to manually reconnect.

I dunno if that falls into the category of a "bug" or not, but if RA is meant to assist with seamless transfer, I got the opposite effect. I'm running two AC3100s with the 20308 firmware.

This isn't insanely critical for me, since I'm really only using the mesh to reach a corner in my bedroom and to extend to the yard. If it "freaks" for a second, it's not a big deal. Coverage is otherwise fine and I don't need to roam from one to the other very often.

EDIT: If RA is so critical to the mesh experience, why is it not on by default when you set up a mesh for the first time?

Well, I can tell that the threshold in roaming assistant is a little bit tricky. In general, you need to set it lower (e.g. -70db) if your router/nodes are further apart and set it higher (e.g. -60db) if your router/nodes are nearer to each other. You can decide this settings by using a wifi scanner app and detect how the signal strength goes when you move along. Or doing some experiment to achieve best result.

 

[Richard Li]

One question about mixed devices setup.

I have RT-AC88U as AP/router and it seems the AiMesh firmware supports SmartConnect, and I have a RT-AC68U as node and it seems the AiMesh firmware do not supports SmartConnect in this device. So If I enable SmartConnect in RT-AC88U as AP, will it works in the RT-AC68U node? Or just the SmartConnect configuration will not propagate to the RT-AC68U?

 

[arthurlien]

Power cycling all master and nodes was first thing I tried. Then re - pairing. I know I can manually upgrade problem node but I just wanted to report possible bug in auto update process.

I suggest you upgrade manually first, Let us looking for next release.

 

[arthurlien]

I had an AP with ethernet backend, but the AP was shirt and dropped all the time (it was some $10 Trendnet POS). A similar setup with my old 2.4/n hardware worked pretty well.

Anyway, I bought two AC3100s on deep clearance and decided to pull the second into service as an AP, coincidentally at the same time Asus released the AiMesh firmware, so I figured what the hell and set it up as such.

Curiously, default settings are to disable RA, because I just left everything as is and didn't play with anything until I turned it on to test it. I mean, what you're saying makes sense, because otherwise why bother with "mesh". I figured maybe it was just marketing hype and a slightly more user friendly way to set up an AP and update firmwares. Reading more and your confirmation shows a proper mesh system should be seamless to a client, but that doesn't always seem to be the case for my tablet (a low end Android) *or* there's a possible bug in the firmware.

I'm pretty tech savvy, but not a network guy at all. How can I check logs or whatever, to see what happens when a client roams from router to node? Is there a way I can see if it's a router/node issue or if it's a client issue? Is it possible a bug could present for certain clients and not others?

I will also say I was just checking roaming from node to router and I didn't see the transition at all on my tablet with RA disabled. The signal just went from weak to strong without a blink, and my wifi connection app confirmed it made the jump seamlessly. I'm going to try more tests, but if there are some logs somewhere (I know there are, but like I said, this is not an area of expertise for me) I should be looking at for certain things, I'd appreciate some dumbed down info so I can try to help out.

We changed the RA default setting from disabled to enable is starting from AiMesh Supported. If you upgrade FW from none AiMesh to AiMesh, RA will be disabled. If you upgrade and reset default. the RA will be changed to enable as default.

 

[arthurlien]

One question about mixed devices setup.

I have RT-AC88U as AP/router and it seems the AiMesh firmware supports SmartConnect, and I have a RT-AC68U as node and it seems the AiMesh firmware do not supports SmartConnect in this device. So If I enable SmartConnect in RT-AC88U as AP, will it works in the RT-AC68U node? Or just the SmartConnect configuration will not propagate to the RT-AC68U?

According RT-AC68U don't support SmartConnect, this function will not propagate to the RT-AC68U. It's applied in the RT-AC88U only.

 

[LimJK]

Sharing of objective observation of AiMesh Roaming performance in my environment - mileage defers for each of our own environment - Sorry for the long post.

Tools I used:

• iPhoneX to physically walk around my house across all the 3 AiMesh Devices
• Network Analyser Apps from iTune Store which gives me the BSSID (MAC address of the various Bands of each of the AiMesh Device. I know all the MAC address for each band of all my AiMesh devices; this shows me objectively that my iPhoneX actually successfully roam between the 3 AiMesh devices

My environment:

• My house layout is longish, rooms separated by 4 walls from one end to the other end
• "AiMesh Router" is 7-8 meter -> "AiMesh Node 1" separated by 2 walls is 7-8 meter -> "AiMesh Node 2" separated by another 2 walls.
• Ethernet Backhaul from AiMesh Router to both AiMesh Nodes via a Gigabit Switch
• Details of AiMesh devices in my signature below

My Settings

• I used default settings after factory reset; specifically, I leave all the Wireless setting as default
• I turn Smart Connect ON and across all Bands; all my AiMesh devices supports Smart Connect
• I turn ON all AiProtection, as I do not noticed any performance degradation
• I turn OFF QOS as it affects my Internet speed for my Wired Devices (speedtest down by about 10-20% when I set preference for surfing - maybe that is what it is suppose to do to prefer surfing traffic)
• I manually assigned IPs in my DHCP list for about 30 devices; only about half are normally active

Observation as I walk around the house:

• iPhoneX generally roams seamlessly between one AiMesh Device to the Next as I can see BSSID changes. ie. I only see the Wireless icon with signal bar dropping and rising as I walk; specifically, I did not see visible drop from Wifi icon to 4G or LTE icons and back to Wifi icon.
• Most of the time it roams from a 5GHz band of one AiMesh device to a 5GHz band of the next AiMesh Device. In such a scenarios I typically get around 400-500mpbs wirelessly - I am very happy with this. When I run Speedtest on iOS as I roam; I observed that the speed slowed down by about half at the point roaming actually happened, speed up after that.
• However, on very rare occasions, if iPhoneX picks up the 2.4GHz band (I think my body blocks the signal), once I get into this scenario it gets quite sticky to 2.4GHz band (so I will get relatively slower speed in 2.4GHz band. I have to cheat … by walking to area far enough / blind spot behind concrete walls from the AiMesh Devices that gives me the 2.4GHz band for it to Steer / Roam to a 5GHz band.

PS: I really appreciate the ASUS AiMesh function, for me to use Stock Firmware for the first time; for years I only used Merlin FW

 

[Wilson_Deng]

Version 3.0.0.4.384.203082018/02/0145.7 MBytes

ASUS Firmware version 3.0.0.4.384.20308
Bug fix
- Fixed GUI error on firmware update page.
The progress bar may always appear on firmware upgrade page after installed 3.0.0.4.384.20287.
If your router had this issue, you can manually reboot the router to solve this issue and enter the firmware upgrade page to install the latest firmware. Riden of NCC Group)

Hi There,

Announcement here: TM-AC1900 is not on ASUS AiMesh official support list, it's under TM license model. Once TM-AC1900 is flashed to non-TM certificated firmware, warranty will be gone.

 

[Quad80]

Well, I can tell that the threshold in roaming assistant is a little bit tricky. In general, you need to set it lower (e.g. -70db) if your router/nodes are further apart and set it higher (e.g. -60db) if your router/nodes are nearer to each other. You can decide this settings by using a wifi scanner app and detect how the signal strength goes when you move along. Or doing some experiment to achieve best result.

I'll play with it some more, but I've been using a wifi signal detector to get the strength of the signal. Where it gets iffy is in the opposite corners of my house from where the routers and nodes are. Signal dips to around -70 or less, which is why I thought -70 would be a good point to trigger the change. Everywhere else is pretty well balanced between the two signals, so I don't want to go much higher, lest I get into a situation where I just bounce back and forth.

Also, it has been confirmed that the RA is on by default unless you upgrade from a non-mesh firmware, which I did, so that explains why it is not on by default for me. Anyway, we'll see what happens, but even without RA on, it seems to work pretty well for me, so even if it's not proper mesh, I have a network now that kills my dead spot. That's good

 

[Volfi]

It's pretty much necessary to use roaming assistant, but it can be problematic, even with AiMesh.

I am using VoWifi (usual calls, but instead of 3G/LTE, phone uses your Wifi connection).

With RA enabled, when I walk around the house, calls get dropped off.

This is because RA will terminate the Wifi connection when signal is below treshold, and eventhough phone immediately connects to new Node / Main router, with better signal, it drops the call anyway.

I really hoped AiMesh would bring us a bit smarter roaming solution, smooth handover, but it does not. It's a great tool for extending the signal with little effort and administration, but that's all.

 

[Volfi]

• However, on very rare occasions, if iPhoneX picks up the 2.4GHz band (I think my body blocks the signal), once I get into this scenario it gets quite sticky to 2.4GHz band (so I will get relatively slower speed in 2.4GHz band. I have to cheat … by walking to area far enough / blind spot behind concrete walls from the AiMesh Devices that gives me the 2.4GHz band for it to Steer / Roam to a 5GHz band.

Do not use same SSIDs for 2.4GHz a 5GHz. Really, do not Modern devices all work on 5GHz now, so give your 5GHz network "Wifi" name. Use "Wifi_LEGACY" SSID for 2.4GHz and connect your older devices (cameras, thermostat, etc.) to that. With such setup, all modern devices are forced to work on 5GHz band.

 

[RandomName23]

I'll play with it some more, but I've been using a wifi signal detector to get the strength of the signal. Where it gets iffy is in the opposite corners of my house from where the routers and nodes are. Signal dips to around -70 or less, which is why I thought -70 would be a good point to trigger the change. Everywhere else is pretty well balanced between the two signals, so I don't want to go much higher, lest I get into a situation where I just bounce back and forth.

Also, it has been confirmed that the RA is on by default unless you upgrade from a non-mesh firmware, which I did, so that explains why it is not on by default for me. Anyway, we'll see what happens, but even without RA on, it seems to work pretty well for me, so even if it's not proper mesh, I have a network now that kills my dead spot. That's good

Yeah that is good information from Arthur about when RA will be on or off by. However, he did say that no matter what if you reset to factory defaults after flashing an Aimesh firmware that RA should be on. This would mean that you didn't do a factory reset after flashing the Aimesh firmware is that correct? I think that with a firmware with major changes like this people should be completely resetting their routers to factory defaults and then setting them up again from scratch. I know it is a pain but not doing so can lead to hard to diagnose issues since some settings may not play well together.

 

[Quad80]

It's pretty much necessary to use roaming assistant, but it can be problematic, even with AiMesh.

I am using VoWifi (usual calls, but instead of 3G/LTE, phone uses your Wifi connection).

With RA enabled, when I walk around the house, calls get dropped off.

This is because RA will terminate the Wifi connection when signal is below treshold, and eventhough phone immediately connects to new Node / Main router, with better signal, it drops the call anyway.

I really hoped AiMesh would bring us a bit smarter roaming solution, smooth handover, but it does not. It's a great tool for extending the signal with little effort and administration, but that's all.

That pretty much mirrors my experience with Netflix. Though I would have thought the Netflix app would have a larger buffer to allow for a smooth transition, when my signal strength drops and it moves from router to node (or vice versa), the connection stops and the video is interrupted, because I have it so that it does not work with cellular data (i.e., message pops up saying it lost WiFi and has been set to not continue with cell data).

It doesn't sound like even if I play with the mesh/RA handover settings that I'll get any different behavior, since you can't keep a VOIP call going. Leaving the decision to switch to my clients seems to work well enough, but I can always play with it more if things change.

How do commercial/professional systems handle VOIP and such? Are they just that much better at handling seamless handover? I suppose they cost considerably more to set up, and ultimately I wouldn't reasonably expect a residential setup to be nearly as sophisticated. But is this handover issue more to do with Asus Aimesh in particular, or is that just how all home mesh systems work? In other words, is this more of a wait and see if Asus can iron out the kinks situation, or is it unlikely we'll ever see completely seamless roaming until home hardware becomes much more sophisticated?

 

[Volfi]

There is 802.11r protocol, but Asus home routers do not implement it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11r-2008
I don't think they implement 802.11s either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11s
Or 802.11k for "neighbor report"

It's just simple disconnect when signal is weak.

 

[Quad80]

Yeah that is good information from Arthur about when RA will be on or off by. However, he did say that no matter what if you reset to factory defaults after flashing an Aimesh firmware that RA should be on. This would mean that you didn't do a factory reset after flashing the Aimesh firmware is that correct? I think that with a firmware with major changes like this people should be completely resetting their routers to factory defaults and then setting them up again from scratch. I know it is a pain but not doing so can lead to hard to diagnose issues since some settings may not play well together.

No, I didn't do a factory reset on my router when I upgraded, because, yes, it's a pain. It seems to be working fine, so I'm not keen to reset, but it does explain the RA setting differences, for sure. Honestly, the instructions always say to factory reset after a firmware upgrade (not just Asus), which is, frankly, dumb. I get why they say it, but seriously? What a royal pain to start from scratch every time you update.

For the record, the node was factory fresh, straight from the box. I plugged it in, upgraded the firmware, and it instantly became a node in the network. Shouldn't be any gremlins in there. Overall my settings are pretty basic, though, so it shouldn't be causing any serious issues with previous settings. Since I'm getting the speeds and signals I expect and can live with, I'm not going to monkey with it too much. I was just hoping for a more seamless transition, but not sure that's realistic unless I step up to commercial grade hardware, which would be serious overkill for my small home and my relatively basic needs. I'm more just curious about all this stuff than anything, at this point. I'm learning quite a bit, for sure!

 

[LimJK]

Do not use same SSIDs for 2.4GHz a 5GHz. Really, do not Modern devices all work on 5GHz now, so give your 5GHz network "Wifi" name. Use "Wifi_LEGACY" SSID for 2.4GHz and connect your older devices (cameras, thermostat, etc.) to that. With such setup, all modern devices are forced to work on 5GHz band.

Volfi,

Thanks for your input. I will play around with this should my issue with 2.4GHz becomes more persistent. I am keeping to current configuration to so that I do not make too much changes at one go :

• I am exploring Richard Li / Arthur's suggestion to fine-tuning the Roaming Assistant RSSI level for 2.4GHz, so just want to observe the effect of this change
• I also do not understand enough of the ASUS proprietary AiMesh logic. I observed that despite having Ethernet Backhaul, I note that AiMesh is still using WiFi on both on 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz for some kind of communications as shown in my Network Map below. So I decided not to mess around with it for now, as I am very happy with the AiMesh performance for now.

 

[RandomName23]

No, I didn't do a factory reset on my router when I upgraded, because, yes, it's a pain. It seems to be working fine, so I'm not keen to reset, but it does explain the RA setting differences, for sure. Honestly, the instructions always say to factory reset after a firmware upgrade (not just Asus), which is, frankly, dumb. I get why they say it, but seriously? What a royal pain to start from scratch every time you update.

For the record, the node was factory fresh, straight from the box. I plugged it in, upgraded the firmware, and it instantly became a node in the network. Shouldn't be any gremlins in there. Overall my settings are pretty basic, though, so it shouldn't be causing any serious issues with previous settings. Since I'm getting the speeds and signals I expect and can live with, I'm not going to monkey with it too much. I was just hoping for a more seamless transition, but not sure that's realistic unless I step up to commercial grade hardware, which would be serious overkill for my small home and my relatively basic needs. I'm more just curious about all this stuff than anything, at this point. I'm learning quite a bit, for sure!

I think we all are! That's the only way we can learn and make things better. I'll try to do more testing tonight on streaming things and walking around the house to see if I experience the drops like others have. I have a lot of wireless devices but really only walk around the house with iPhone/iPad. It's also very possible that different clients will do the "seamless" handoff differently so it might be a good idea to start posting devices that are having trouble and devices that work well. No doubt Asus didn't test every wireless device out there.