Seeking Advice - How best to deploy Merlin with Aimesh

[Brady]

Happy New Year and Thanks all, for taking the time to read/consider my request for advice!

I have 2 RT-AC5300 routers and 1 RT-AX58U all running Aimesh. I'm considering going to Merlin and from my research, it appears the best approach is to flash Merlin on the main router, leaving the nodes on Asuswrt firmware (please comment if I'm mistaken here).

Given, the 2 AC5300's are tri-band, but only capable of 802.11ac (WiFi 5), whereas the AX58U can do 802.11ax (WiFi 6) but is only dual band, which router should I be using as the main one? I currently have one AC5300 as the main router and do use Link aggregation to connect my Synology NAS which I would lose if the AX58U became the main. We do have some "ax-capable" clients (e.g. iPhone 15 Pros). I don't have any easy way to run wired backhaul so currently defaulting to wireless backhaul. That said, if the benefit is there, I would consider spending the approx CA$200 to implement Ethernet over cable.

Also, am I currently hurting my throughput by having the dual-band AX58U in the mix? That is, if that dual-band rounter wasn't part of the Aimesh, would my performance improve because the 2 AC5300s could dedicate one 5 GHz band to the backhaul?

Thanks in advance for any insight/advice folks!

 

[Tech9]

I have 2 RT-AC5300 routers and 1 RT-AX58U

- with this mix of routers you can't have AiMesh with dedicated wireless backhaul anyway, RT-AX58U has to use the same band for backhaul and clients in both Router and Node roles
- better use the newer RT-AX58U for Router, it's still supported and perhaps the more secure device for Router use going further, it also has faster CPU and supports more firmware features
- older RT-AC5300 are End-of-Life routers at Asus on final release of Asuswrt-Merlin, no more updates expected
- link aggregation to NAS on RT-AC5300 doesn't make much sense since this router has Gigabit ports only, no wired or wireless device can take any advantage, on rare cases only aggregate traffic wired + wireless may exceed Gigabit

That is, if that dual-band rounter wasn't part of the Aimesh, would my performance improve because the 2 AC5300s could dedicate one 5 GHz band to the backhaul?

In theory - yes. If your plan is to use this system for longer period of time after current End-of-Life - lock down the Router with no exposed to Internet services. You can have OpenVPN server for accessing your network from WAN, it's considered secure enough.

Happy New Year!

 

[Brady]

Many thanks for your quick and helpful reply!

I activated Link Aggr because I have a number of wired clients and I expect this would facilitate better overall throughput when multiple clients (be they wired or wireless) are accessing the NAS concurrently, say streaming video or doing a large file transfer.

One quick redirect, if I may ... if I acquire an Asus tri-band AX router could I use my old AC5300s as nodes and achieve dedicated wireless backhaul? If so, is there such a model (e.g. ET8 or ET9)?

Thanks again!

 

[Tech9]

One quick redirect, if I may ... if I acquire an Asus tri-band AX router could I use my old AC5300s as nodes and achieve dedicated wireless backhaul? If so, is there such a model?

I wouldn't advice doing this because Asus is currently in a process of redesigning AiMesh and your old unsupported routers may not work properly after they finalize the changes. Newer models running 3006 firmware now offer VLAN networks propagated to nodes. Use what you've got, work on the wired infrastructure, replace the entire system when the budget allows. Don't invest more money in band-aid solutions.

 

[Brady]

I wouldn't advice doing this because Asus is currently in a process of redesigning AiMesh and your old unsupported routers may not work properly after they finalize the changes. Newer models running 3006 firmware now offer VLAN networks propagated to nodes. Use what you've got, work on the wired infrastructure, replace the entire system when the budget allows. Don't invest more money in band-aid solutions.

So, you're saying I'm better off spending money on implementing Ethernet over cable (for backhaul) than getting a newer Tri-band AX router in an attempt to achieve dedicated wireless backhaul?

 

[Tech9]

So, you're saying I'm better off spending money on implementing Ethernet

This is the best upgrade you can do opening much wider hardware choice options. You don't have to stick to consumer "mesh" forever, your requirements may grow in the future, you may want to expand the network further, etc. Consumer products are mostly for convenience, usually lower priced options with limited scalability and expected life time. If you need 3x access points or more - think about something better. There is a reason no consumer "mesh" set is sold in more than 3-pack.

Somewhat related thread about mesh network expansion options started here:

Mesh network router (but not Asus) for over 100 devices

Here is my current setup: GT-AX11000 Main Router (bridged with my ISP router) 5 RT-AX92U nodes Aimesh System with Smart Connect on All devices have the latest firmware. I have over 100 devices on my network. Here is an idea of some of my devices: 5 Ring Floodlights Pro (on 2.4 GHz) 16 TP-Link...

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