ASUS or Ubiquiti

[osuapoc]

I'm currently running an ASUS rt68u that is getting long in the tooth. I've been running Merlin for ages on this router, and really like the setup and such of the interface. I've been having issues with the router killing WIFI and needing to be power cycled to get back to normal. I presently use openVPN on the router and would like to keep doing that. However, I don't have a particular aversion to running it on one of the servers and setting up a tunnel that way. I am expanding my IOT fleet around the house (sensors) as well as toying a lot with docker and different services. There's a Plex server running on a FreeNAS box that streams video to wireless clients (as well as the normal Netflix/Hulu/Amazon streams). My current 68u sits on the first floor towards the center of the home and generally does OK with speeds, though I've run into it getting flakey and speeds going to crap. Not sure that it is an issue of range, but just the weirdness the router has been having. Expanding the IOT fleet in the house means that I have may have many clients piling up. Presently around 15 clients (wired), 10 wireless (2.4), and 10 wireless (5.8). I'd like to be able to set up VLANs to isolate some clients from each other (non DIY IOT gear) as well as have easy spool up/down of guest networks. Presently when I start one up it kills the wifi to all clients for a while until the router takes a breath and gets back to work. I think a part of that is getting the VPN tunnel up and going each time, but I'm not sure.

I am trying to decide between purchasing a new ASUS router (probably 86u) or slipping into the Ubiquiti world. My home is not huge by any means, 1600 sqft, two story with basement. I'd like to add some additional cameras to the house (I have a couple wifi cameras, and a Ring doorbell) and would like to go with PoE. So, I'm already committing to putting some money out in the near future for a switch.

So, my choices:
1) ASUS RT-86u (running Merlin)
PoE switch

2) Ubiquiti USG
PoE Switch
AP Lite (not sure that I'd need the Pro)
I can run the controller software on the FreeNAS box (within HomeAssistant or Ubuntu), might later look into the cloudkey if I don't like it on the server.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Hawk]

I'm currently running an ASUS rt68u that is getting long in the tooth. I've been running Merlin for ages on this router, and really like the setup and such of the interface. I've been having issues with the router killing WIFI and needing to be power cycled to get back to normal. I presently use openVPN on the router and would like to keep doing that. However, I don't have a particular aversion to running it on one of the servers and setting up a tunnel that way. I am expanding my IOT fleet around the house (sensors) as well as toying a lot with docker and different services. There's a Plex server running on a FreeNAS box that streams video to wireless clients (as well as the normal Netflix/Hulu/Amazon streams). My current 68u sits on the first floor towards the center of the home and generally does OK with speeds, though I've run into it getting flakey and speeds going to crap. Not sure that it is an issue of range, but just the weirdness the router has been having. Expanding the IOT fleet in the house means that I have may have many clients piling up. Presently around 15 clients (wired), 10 wireless (2.4), and 10 wireless (5.8). I'd like to be able to set up VLANs to isolate some clients from each other (non DIY IOT gear) as well as have easy spool up/down of guest networks. Presently when I start one up it kills the wifi to all clients for a while until the router takes a breath and gets back to work. I think a part of that is getting the VPN tunnel up and going each time, but I'm not sure.

I am trying to decide between purchasing a new ASUS router (probably 86u) or slipping into the Ubiquiti world. My home is not huge by any means, 1600 sqft, two story with basement. I'd like to add some additional cameras to the house (I have a couple wifi cameras, and a Ring doorbell) and would like to go with PoE. So, I'm already committing to putting some money out in the near future for a switch.

So, my choices:
1) ASUS RT-86u (running Merlin)
PoE switch

2) Ubiquiti USG
PoE Switch
AP Lite (not sure that I'd need the Pro)
I can run the controller software on the FreeNAS box (within HomeAssistant or Ubuntu), might later look into the cloudkey if I don't like it on the server.

Thanks for the help!

I will go with Ubiquiti gear, since it will give you lot more flexibility in planning out your network. Given how many client are currently connected and you considering adding more it make perfect sense.

Regarding cloud key if you decide to get it, generation 2 cloud key would be best. Since it doesn't suffer from issue which was present in previous generation where power lost could corrupt configuration. If you buy their camera as well, you can also get cloud key2 plus, which has everything of cloud key plus pvr storage including 1 Tb and upgradeable to 5 TB

 

[Rain Kleyman]

I'm currently running an ASUS rt68u that is getting long in the tooth. I've been running Merlin for ages on this router, and really like the setup and such of the interface. I've been having issues with the router killing WIFI and needing to be power cycled to get back to normal. I presently use openVPN on the router and would like to keep doing that. However, I don't have a particular aversion to running it on one of the servers and setting up a tunnel that way. I am expanding my IOT fleet around the house (sensors) as well as toying a lot with docker and different services. There's a Plex server running on a FreeNAS box that streams video to wireless clients (as well as the normal Netflix/Hulu/Amazon streams). My current 68u sits on the first floor towards the center of the home and generally does OK with speeds, though I've run into it getting flakey and speeds going to crap. Not sure that it is an issue of range, but just the weirdness the router has been having. Expanding the IOT fleet in the house means that I have may have many clients piling up. Presently around 15 clients (wired), 10 wireless (2.4), and 10 wireless (5.8). I'd like to be able to set up VLANs to isolate some clients from each other (non DIY IOT gear) as well as have easy spool up/down of guest networks. Presently when I start one up it kills the wifi to all clients for a while until the router takes a breath and gets back to work. I think a part of that is getting the VPN tunnel up and going each time, but I'm not sure.

I am trying to decide between purchasing a new ASUS router (probably 86u) or slipping into the Ubiquiti world. My home is not huge by any means, 1600 sqft, two story with basement. I'd like to add some additional cameras to the house (I have a couple wifi cameras, and a Ring doorbell) and would like to go with PoE. So, I'm already committing to putting some money out in the near future for a switch.

So, my choices:
1) ASUS RT-86u (running Merlin)
PoE switch

2) Ubiquiti USG
PoE Switch
AP Lite (not sure that I'd need the Pro)
I can run the controller software on the FreeNAS box (within HomeAssistant or Ubuntu), might later look into the cloudkey if I don't like it on the server.

Thanks for the help!

The best choice would be running business grade gear.
Pay attention that USG WAN is limited to 40Mbps only. Thus my recommendation for router would be some second hand UTM (there are a lot of options for FortiGate 60G/60E for example), so VLANs can be handled there.
Access Point - There are two advantages of AC-Pro that are must IMHO - 3 antennas instead of 2 and support for PoE+, which means that you can use some 1420 series HP switch with it.
Rule of the thumb - in media streaming environments you should deploy 1 AP for every 5-10 users.
And remember that in case you deploy single access point, there is no need for active controller (can be installed for first configuration and uninstalled afterwards).

 

[coxhaus]

Consumer grade wireless units are not designed to support very many active wireless sessions. With stand alone wireless units you can add more units to support more active sessions so a separate router and wireless units makes more sense.

 

[System Error Message]

Consumer grade wireless units are not designed to support very many active wireless sessions. With stand alone wireless units you can add more units to support more active sessions so a separate router and wireless units makes more sense.

The asus AC68U and netgear R7000 have been known to handle hundreds of clients at the same time without breaking.

Its not about consumer or enterprise, its about what your goal is for the network. If you want speed, go with asus for wifi, if you want coverage and features like POE, and possible more features that relate to network control, go with ubiquiti, its just that simple.

Any high performance AC wifi router will support plenty of clients except for some brands/models which poorly implement their firmware/hardware in the first place (openWRT and the many tp link variations is an example, bad brands like dlink too).

Infact it was well known that the ubiquiti AC APs werent able to handle more than 16 clients without issues.

 

[coxhaus]

The asus AC68U and netgear R7000 have been known to handle hundreds of clients at the same time without breaking.

So are you talking hundreds of ACTIVE wireless clients not routing clients?

 

[System Error Message]

So are you talking hundreds of ACTIVE wireless clients not routing clients?

Both, considering that these routers do not fail to thousands of torrent connections. The ARM based SoC consumer routers do a good job handling lots of things at the same time.

If you want hardware acceleration, ubiquiti is obviously better, but without hardware acceleration you might as well use something else, and for wifi usage, the transfer rate and active client support is higher on asus than on ubiquiti.

Its really highly dependent on what features and hardware. PoE is definitely non existant with asus so theres really no need to use a PoE switch with it unless you plan to change hardware later, but some hardware i use like my router has no PoE in because it is already rated for 120W at peak power use since its 10Gb/s symmetrical internet ready without using hardware acceleration. So the choice is highly dependent on features and hardware rather than how many clients it can handle both routing and wireless.

 

[Rain Kleyman]

It's not the clients number, any descent AP can handle a couple of hundreds of those. It's the content type and intensity. As an obvious example see how slow WiFi connection is in public places like malls, train stations etc. All users are connected but there is barely any data traffic. Try running Plex over WiFi with 4-5 4K stream and watch Youtube in the same time. Any Asus will choke, they are not designed for that. In enterprise systems you just add more APs to handle the load. The same can be achieved with Mesh systems, but UniFi is easier to deploy.

 

[System Error Message]

It's not the clients number, any descent AP can handle a couple of hundreds of those. It's the content type and intensity. As an obvious example see how slow WiFi connection is in public places like malls, train stations etc. All users are connected but there is barely any data traffic. Try running Plex over WiFi with 4-5 4K stream and watch Youtube in the same time. Any Asus will choke, they are not designed for that. In enterprise systems you just add more APs to handle the load. The same can be achieved with Mesh systems, but UniFi is easier to deploy.

some consumer brands like asus on the higher end have wifi routers that also have QoS on wifi too. You will not find this on ubiquiti or other enterprise routers except configurable ones, because mikrotik is capable of QoS for anything that uses the CPU and i have read articles of where mikrotik wireless RBs were handling hundreds of clients simultaneously doing various things on wifi with a limited connection but the setup was done properly as well. I would not recommend this sort of router to someone who doesnt fully understand networking though be it mikrotik or a professional configurable cisco router or even a linux/unix OS to use for this as well if starting from scratch rather than using pfsense (like using opensuse as an all in one wifi router).

 

[Rain Kleyman]

100% agree, network knowledge is obligatory when deploying this kind of hardware.
I just assume that person who is into IoT and "toying a lot with docker and different services", while seeking to build VLANs, knows what he's doing.
Anyway, it seems like osuapoc not really following the tread...

 

[coxhaus]

Home wireless routers are built to run a couple of users with high bandwidth, they are not really built to share wireless across hundreds of users.

 

[MichaelCG]

If you really want to get into it for his use case....it isn't about what can handle hundreds of clients, it will become more about distribution of clients across the available airspace. Having multiple WiFi cameras streaming at various distances and signal quality from the AP will pretty much tank overall performance of the WiFi network. Being able to get APs closer to the clients and spread across more airspace will generally help your overall user experience when it comes to streaming.

Consumer gear has come a long ways in the past few years. It isn't quite as cut and dry as it once was on the performance differences. A lot of it comes down to personal preference, cost, and how it is managed.

 

[System Error Message]

Home wireless routers are built to run a couple of users with high bandwidth, they are not really built to share wireless across hundreds of users.

If you read my posts above, take a look at the higher end spectrum of ASUS routers, starting with the AC3100/88U and newer as they all have wifi based QoS and hardware acceleration for it with a different architecture too so the link between CPU and switch wont be a problem if 1Gb/s WAN is fully used. They are literally designed for LAN parties, they will handle quite a few users with lots of bandwidth needs, for instance if you're downloading from steam and streaming a 4K video at the same time at a LAN party, it will work fine with the wifi based QoS.

OP already is using asus and its working for him. I have both the AC68U and AC88U, doesnt mean to choose the same i do. my asus AC68U runs totally fine without requiring reboots or wifi drops but the coverage isnt as it once was.

If you change the power adapter to a better one, it may fix your problem in regards to reboots. If you see the newer higher end ASUS routers, they all use power bricks similar to laptops. By being able to supply more amps and being better at doing so means that the voltage will be good longer. If you have to power supply your router it could mean that the PSU has failed, and i've experienced this before with mikrotik but mikrotik shows the voltage in so its easy to see if theres an issue with the PSU, as it was rebooting non stop. If you have a multimeter, even a cheap one it will work if you're measuring the DC output of your router's PSU to check its voltage when it hangs but you will need to figure out how to attach the probes to measure while it is plugged into the device. ASUS makes laptops, it takes no effort for them to use better PSUs like with their newer ones similar to their laptops, you will also find the voltage to be similar on the newer ones too (19V/20V).

 

[osuapoc]

100% agree, network knowledge is obligatory when deploying this kind of hardware.
I just assume that person who is into IoT and "toying a lot with docker and different services", while seeking to build VLANs, knows what he's doing.
Anyway, it seems like osuapoc not really following the tread...

Sorry folks! Robotics coaching kind of got in the way of keeping track of this over the weekend. I appreciate all of the responses!

My networking knowledge is by no means mastered. However, I'm willing to spend a healthy chunk of time learning. Dabling in the IoT sphere means that I may be picking up devices that have "phone-home" requirements. Those sort of devices I'd like to be able to isolate or group together with only the necessary server/services on their own VLANs. From what I've learned poking around this forum, as well as others, is that VLANs are one of the better ways to go. I started poking around with adding rules within the router via CLI, but that soon got into territory where I was unsure of what I was doing. So in lieu of breaking stuff that was not straightforward to fix, I stopped. I've not messed with pfSense as of yet, but I do run a pi-hole addon through home assistant.

My 68U sits behind a Schneider/APC UPS system, which helps protect it from weird voltages and dropouts, though I'll have to multimeter the router power supply and see if it is optimal for the device.

I rebooted the router last night, and with no clients pulling any major bandwidth I was only getting 11Mbps over wireless to my S8+ according to speedtest. Disconnecting and running the same test via LTE was getting ~40Mbps. I'll repeat some of these tests with my laptop and see how it pulls, but the phone shouldn't have any issue getting dramatically higher speeds than that. This was in pretty close proximity to the router as well. I'll have to see about killing the three wifi based cameras during the testing to to see if they're having any effect during the tests. They locally record and post snippets to a cloud server when there's motion so I do not believe that during the testing they'd be tanking the wifi, but its worth investigating.

I'm not expecting to have hundreds of clients on my network, but I could easily see getting up to 50 devices with the plethora of ESP8266 / ESP32 devices floating about. My current home is not really large enough where I should have to worry about needing lots of APs to properly blanket each room to get connectivity via wireless. However, if I can easily get some extra wiring in, I'm not really opposed to adding more APs and dropping their transmit power to more evenly serve the clients (significant other and the kiddos!).

The PoE switch was a foregone for me given that I want to add in the wired cameras for the house. I could use a dumb switch and injectors to keep the cost down. I don't really have a need for any large 24+ port switch gear at the moment. I'm trying to avoid getting into cisco and hp gear. From what searching I've done it looks like I'd need some deeper pockets for that hardware (unless sourcing some used stuff). I'm also not sure if the configuration would be as user-friendly with the business grade gear (willing to learn a lot, but time is finite). I'm not familiar at all with Mikrotik; it looks like they have some nice kit though.

 

[osuapoc]

The best choice would be running business grade gear.
Pay attention that USG is limited to 40GB only. Thus my recommendation for router would be some second hand UTM (there are a lot of options for FortiGate 60G/60E for example), so VLANs can be handled there.
Access Point - There are two advantages of AC-Pro that are must IMHO - 4 antennas instead of 2 and support for PoE+, which means that you can use some 1420 series HP switch with it.
Rule of the thumb - in media streaming environments you should deploy 1 AP for every 5-10 users.
And remember that in case you deploy single access point, there is no need for active controller (can be installed for first configuration and uninstalled afterwards).

Rain, can you expand on the 40GB limitation? What spec is this that you're saying is limited? The UBNT spec sheet is somewhat limited in details when compared to what the Fortigate sheets are showing, so I'm not sure which one you're comparing.

 

[System Error Message]

Sorry folks! Robotics coaching kind of got in the way of keeping track of this over the weekend. I appreciate all of the responses!

My networking knowledge is by no means mastered. However, I'm willing to spend a healthy chunk of time learning. Dabling in the IoT sphere means that I may be picking up devices that have "phone-home" requirements. Those sort of devices I'd like to be able to isolate or group together with only the necessary server/services on their own VLANs. From what I've learned poking around this forum, as well as others, is that VLANs are one of the better ways to go. I started poking around with adding rules within the router via CLI, but that soon got into territory where I was unsure of what I was doing. So in lieu of breaking stuff that was not straightforward to fix, I stopped. I've not messed with pfSense as of yet, but I do run a pi-hole addon through home assistant.

My 68U sits behind a Schneider/APC UPS system, which helps protect it from weird voltages and dropouts, though I'll have to multimeter the router power supply and see if it is optimal for the device.

I rebooted the router last night, and with no clients pulling any major bandwidth I was only getting 11Mbps over wireless to my S8+ according to speedtest. Disconnecting and running the same test via LTE was getting ~40Mbps. I'll repeat some of these tests with my laptop and see how it pulls, but the phone shouldn't have any issue getting dramatically higher speeds than that. This was in pretty close proximity to the router as well. I'll have to see about killing the three wifi based cameras during the testing to to see if they're having any effect during the tests. They locally record and post snippets to a cloud server when there's motion so I do not believe that during the testing they'd be tanking the wifi, but its worth investigating.

I'm not expecting to have hundreds of clients on my network, but I could easily see getting up to 50 devices with the plethora of ESP8266 / ESP32 devices floating about. My current home is not really large enough where I should have to worry about needing lots of APs to properly blanket each room to get connectivity via wireless. However, if I can easily get some extra wiring in, I'm not really opposed to adding more APs and dropping their transmit power to more evenly serve the clients (significant other and the kiddos!).

The PoE switch was a foregone for me given that I want to add in the wired cameras for the house. I could use a dumb switch and injectors to keep the cost down. I don't really have a need for any large 24+ port switch gear at the moment. I'm trying to avoid getting into cisco and hp gear. From what searching I've done it looks like I'd need some deeper pockets for that hardware (unless sourcing some used stuff). I'm also not sure if the configuration would be as user-friendly with the business grade gear (willing to learn a lot, but time is finite). I'm not familiar at all with Mikrotik; it looks like they have some nice kit though.

sounds like you dont know enough of networking to use mikrotik if you just learnt about using vlans for LAN isolation.

 

[osuapoc]

sounds like you dont know enough of networking to use mikrotik if you just learnt about using vlans for LAN isolation.

I'd not disagree there. My current home hardware does not support the VLANs so I had little reason to learn how to implement. I've messed with using iptables with the rt68, but wasn't 100% comfortable with the process. In upgrading hardware and trying to more effectively secure my network I'd learn that if I stick to the ASUS gear, or if UBNT is my end choice, I'll sort out the process/particulars of client isolation using that hardware.

 

[Rain Kleyman]

Rain, can you expand on the 40GB limitation? What spec is this that you're saying is limited? The UBNT spec sheet is somewhat limited in details when compared to what the Fortigate sheets are showing, so I'm not sure which one you're comparing.

Sorry for the mistake I've made. I meant the USG is limited to 40Mbps WAN due to hardware offload feature. It is not reflected in the datasheet since it's software limitation. But I see users reporting lately that the issue is gone in newer controller versions.

Less painful way could be ordering the professional services (should be around $200-500) for setting everything up or considering home mesh systems like Orbi or AmpliFi

 

[osuapoc]

Sorry for the mistake I've made. I meant the USG is limited to 40Mbps WAN due to hardware offload feature. It is not reflected in the datasheet since it's software limitation. But I see users reporting lately that the issue is gone in newer controller versions.

Less painful way could be ordering the professional services (should be around $200-500) for setting everything up or considering home mesh systems like Orbi or AmpliFi

I'd seen where the USG has a limitation of 85Mbps when running IPS or DPI. I have a 100Mbps connection, so I'd not be sacrificing much if I chose to enable either of those features.

As for paying for setup services, I could do that, but I'd be at a loss if I change my network topology at all. For that sort of cost I could get the higher end gear now, and if I run into roadblocks where I cannot get it to work myself, I can always drop back to consumer grade hardware for that cost while I run the better gear in a lab type setup to learn on.

 

[Rain Kleyman]

I'd seen where the USG has a limitation of 85Mbps when running IPS or DPI. I have a 100Mbps connection, so I'd not be sacrificing much if I chose to enable either of those features.

As for paying for setup services, I could do that, but I'd be at a loss if I change my network topology at all. For that sort of cost I could get the higher end gear now, and if I run into roadblocks where I cannot get it to work myself, I can always drop back to consumer grade hardware for that cost while I run the better gear in a lab type setup to learn on.

Just the matter of free time ))
And still Orbi or AmpliFi can give you the desired result with easier setup process. If you are willing to pay the price