What's new

AIMesh vs regular Router/AP with same SSID

  • SNBForums Code of Conduct

    SNBForums is a community for everyone, no matter what their level of experience.

    Please be tolerant and patient of others, especially newcomers. We are all here to share and learn!

    The rules are simple: Be patient, be nice, be helpful or be gone!

derek87

Occasional Visitor
hi all, i currently have a 1900P and AC68u used in a traditional setup with the 1900P serving as a wifi router and the 68u is wired by ethernet and serving as an access point with the same SSID. the performance overall is excellent. in my three level townhome*, i get 200 Mbps performance everywhere including the front porch and garage. most of the time, it's in the 300-550 range. in short, it's working fine for us, but being the ever tinkerer, i've observed that sometimes, either the router or AP is slow to give up connection to the other to get optimal wifi performance. i'm assuming a mesh would do this handoff better and give slightly better performance?

how mature is AIMesh these days (i'm running Merlin right now, but i understand there is a 2nd generation AIMesh on the standard Asus firmware that will ultimately come to Merlin)? i recall a few years back, a friend said it was really buggy and he went back to a more standard setup to avoid issues.

i'm assuming one downside of the mesh is i lose control of the AP and setting things like channels, etc.

anyway, nothing is broken here (and my dad would say: "don't try to fix it!"), but i'm curious if my already very good performance might jump to a new level with AIMesh.

ps. i should also note that i have access to another 68u if i wanted to really cover more ground in the house, but that would seem like overkill for our 1700 sq ft townhome, even with it's three levels.

* technically it's a trilevel if i include the garage, but our main living area is 2.5 floors since the living room (base living area) is a half level up from the garage and has a vaulted ceiling (spanning level 1.5 and level 2). i have the router placed high on the third level in the Master bedroom closet and surprisingly, in spite of all of the walls, that 1900P blasts a very strong signal. i have the AP on the 2nd floor in the family room. (again, living room is level 1.5, garage is level 1)
 
Listen to your dad.

If you must tinker, make backup config files of all your network infrastructure, and have a go at the Alpha 4 releases.

Otherwise, wait until they're released.

And I'm expecting many will need to fully reset their routers/networks when they move to 386.xx level AiMesh 2.0 firmware. :)
 
If it works well, don't fix it. Router is something that should sit in the background without drawing attention.

from a home/simple user point of view, AiMesh give you centralized control, so you don't need to duplicate settings across your router/AP.

I used to switch back and forth between AiMesh 1 and AP mode. With AC68U, Aimesh 1 didn't work well enough for me, I would frequently lose wifi connection and only to get it back within a few seconds. That is, you can't use video/voice chat over wifi. AP mode was rock-solid (as it is in your case).

That being said, I am happy with AiMesh 2 in the latest firmware. The UI is much improved and the wifi connection has been stable for me; recently sat through 3hr of Zoom meeting over wifi and encountered 0 problem.
 
Listen to your dad.

If you must tinker, make backup config files of all your network infrastructure, and have a go at the Alpha 4 releases.

Otherwise, wait until they're released.

And I'm expecting many will need to fully reset their routers/networks when they move to 386.xx level AiMesh 2.0 firmware. :)
If it works well, don't fix it. Router is something that should sit in the background without drawing attention.

from a home/simple user point of view, AiMesh give you centralized control, so you don't need to duplicate settings across your router/AP.

I used to switch back and forth between AiMesh 1 and AP mode. With AC68U, Aimesh 1 didn't work well enough for me, I would frequently lose wifi connection and only to get it back within a few seconds. That is, you can't use video/voice chat over wifi. AP mode was rock-solid (as it is in your case).

That being said, I am happy with AiMesh 2 in the latest firmware. The UI is much improved and the wifi connection has been stable for me; recently sat through 3hr of Zoom meeting over wifi and encountered 0 problem.

thanks for the thoughts and experiences. i think i'll wait until Merlin updates to 3.86 (non-alpha). i'm glad 2.0 seems to be improved and stable. i certainly wouldn't want to loose stability to just gain a little faster switching and a handful of Mbps. (up until recently, i was only on a 120 Mbps connection anyway ;) ... when i need fastest transfers between computers, i can still used wired connections)
 

Latest threads

Sign Up For SNBForums Daily Digest

Get an update of what's new every day delivered to your mailbox. Sign up here!
Top