WiFi range RT-N66U vs. RT-AC68U

[Bernhard Held]

I tried to replace my venerable RT-N66U by the powerful und fully supported RT-AC68U. I know that the N66 has an excellent WiFi performance, nevertheless I'm disappointed by the AC68. After buying an used router I couldn't believe it and bought even two more! While the N66 supplies the whole (wooden) house with WiFi (2.4 GHz), the range of the AC68 is simply not sufficient. It's even outperformed by a TP-Link TL-WDR4900 providing Freifunk (free WiFi).

Is there another router supported by Asuswrt-Merlin on a par with the WiFi range of the RT-N66U?

Kind regards
Berny

 

[werkstrom]

As a happy owner of the AC68U for several years, running the Merlin firmware I can attest to it having well sufficient WiFi for me in a three-story house of 200 m2. That said I did place it dead center in the house, did angle the antennas ever so slightly in different directions and used 2,4 for some devices. I did eventually go for a mesh extension as I did have issues on the terrace that is behind massive “passive house” windows that interfered heavily with the radio signal, but that is probably to be expected.

Unfortunately, cannot compare to other routers except for my current AX88 that performs on par with the AC68 I would say (with absolutely no science behind my statement )

 

[dlandiss]

While the N66 supplies the whole (wooden) house with WiFi (2.4 GHz), the range of the AC68 is simply not sufficient.

Berny, my experience has been the opposite. I found increased range when I replaced my N66U with an AC68U. As suggested above you might try different channels.

 

[werkstrom]

@Bernhard Held : I did use the WiFiman app (Ubiquty) to scan what channels were in use around me. Turned out some were very cluttered with several of my neighbors using the same channels and some were completely unused. Perhaps should give it a try...

 

[Bernhard Held]

I tried to maximise the range using 2.4 GHz, however I see also a difference using 5 GHz. I tested different channels, lower channels (1 or 2) tend to provide better signal. The channels are mostly free in my area. I swapped antennas, tried factory default settings as well as https://www.snbforums.com/threads/n...l-and-manual-configuration.27115/#post-205573 TX power is set to "performance" of cause. Regardless of these settings, I couldn't see any difference in signal strength.

 

[laracroftonline]

you can also add the rt-n66u as a repeater/access point in your network and flash johns fork on it so it still receive backported security patches!

 

[heysoundude]

just to clarify - you're disappointed with the range/performance of a used ac68? and then you bought 2 more of them?

now that you have a cluster, you might wish to flash the latest firmware (v386) to them and engage the AiMesh functionality.

 

[Bernhard Held]

just to clarify - you're disappointed with the range/performance of a used ac68? and then you bought 2 more of them?

Yes, exactly. Honestly, I try to consume as less energy as possible. I don't want to run and maintain an additional repeater 24/7 instead of a single access point approach. This might sound a little bit academic, but using two APs is not my idea of an upgrade.

I'll give one of the other routers supported by ASUSWRT-Merlin a try.

Thanks for all your feedback!
Berny