Re-Purposing the 3rd (Backhaul) Radio?

[jesrush]

Just bought a pair of new XT8s. I'm using ethernet backhaul for the node, so the second 5ghz radio (identified as 5Ghz-2 within the Asus UI) is currently not doing anything. I see that I can unhide it's SSID and allow clients to connect to it. What I'm not understanding is how to best utilize that radio.

For example, can I give it the same SSID/Wpa password as the main radio (5Ghz-1) and expect that 5ghz clients will be automatically "spread" in some intelligent manner across the two radios?

Or is the 5Ghz-2 radio not able to participate in all the smart connect and mesh functionality?

According to the smallnetbuilder article, the 5Ghz-1 radio is only two streams, whereas the 5ghz-2 radio is four streams. Hoping that four stream radio is not relegated to operating like a standalone AP...

 

[RadarJammer]

The first 5 GHz radio is 2x2 with max 80 MHz channel width, while the second one is 4x4 with 160 MHz channel width. So the second one is preferable anyway

Assign the tree bands different SSIDs and assign your devices yourself according to their capabilities, instead of hoping for some magic spreading.

 

[jesrush]

The first 5 GHz radio is 2x2 with max 80 MHz channel width, while the second one is 4x4 with 160 MHz channel width. So the second one is preferable anyway

Assign the tree bands different SSIDs and assign your devices yourself according to their capabilities, instead of hoping for some magic spreading.

Thanks, but do we know for certain that the second 5ghz radio gets all the same mesh and roaming goodness (802.11k, 802.11v, etc.) as the main (first) radio?

 

[jesrush]

Ended up finding the answer to my own question!

If you go into AiMesh [Left Nav] \ System Settings [Tab] you'll find an option called "Ethernet Backhaul Mode." Even though I was effectively running with Ethernet backhaul already, this option was turned off (by default). I flipped it "on" and got a prompt asking whether I wanted to use the 2nd 5ghz radios as part of the "Smart Connect" group. I said yes to that, rebooted everything, and then looked at the 'Network Map.' Sure enough, in the "Interface" column, you can see that it spread 5ghz clients across both the "5G-1" interface and the "5G-2" interface. It's a thing of beauty.

 

[sbsnb]

Sure enough, in the "Interface" column, you can see that it spread 5ghz clients across both the "5G-1" interface and the "5G-2" interface. It's a thing of beauty.

I'm wondering if it's smart enough to put 3x3 and 4x4 clients on 5G-2. That, IMHO, would be a thing of beauty.

 

[RogerSC]

The way that I have my ZenWiFi configured is with "ethernet backhaul" under AiMesh/System turned on. Not using the 5GHz-1 radio at all at the moment, just have the 5GHz-2 and 2.4GHz. networks with the same SSID, and things are faster that way for me. Since I have only 2-stream wifi-6 clients, I was wondering how things would go, but very happy with the higher speed connections just using the 5GHz-2 radio. I've seen up to about 750Mbps internet speed at the remote node on gigabit fiber.

Your mileage may vary *smile*.