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Asus ax56u - replace or go for asus mesh?

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the_killer

Occasional Visitor
hey everyone,

so currently I have around 30 devices connected using wifi.

my main router is an asus ax56u in the ground floor, then I have a xiaomi router in the first floor (wired to the asus) and I have a repeater in the basement (powerline connected)
so as I have several iot devices and cameras, the single Asus cannot hold them all, that's why I've added the 2 other devices as I had them hanging around

it's relatively stable but i've been thinking about upgrading to a better solution without crazy expenses

I mean, I know I could get a ubiqiti router + a couple of ac points and maybe spend around 300€

or just get another asus and connect it using asus mesh to which i could probably get a low speed thing for cheap I guess (upper floor just iot stuff no need for good speed)

the thing I miss the most right now is when I reboot the asus or the xiaomi the devices will connect to whatever is turned on and they could be connecting to the one that's further away,
so having the option to choose to what AP They will connect will be a must
also it would be great if I could have a vlan dedicated to the iot devices, I had it before using Yazfi but it will only work for the devices connecting to the Asus as the xiaomi (custom firmware) doesn't have the option
I guess Yazfi still doesn't work when using mesh so that will be out of the equation

appreciate your toughs on this! thanks!
 
So, you haven't jumped since July 22? :)

It seems your system is working well enough for you. I would not have the Xiaomi router and the repeater (via PLA!) dragging the network down with just thirty devices in the home.

Have you tried using your network without them? Have you tested for the best location of the main router? What issues were solved by adding the router/repeater?

How many SqFt is your home?
 
no changes whatsoever in the networking since july or even before :)

it got better as a decided to add stupid complexity to the network by adding some powerlines on a couple of ip cameras (I had them arround) and with this and replacing another ip camera, I went down from 4 ip cameras on the wifi to just 1 which indeed helped a lot. i've also replaced the nvr software solution with another one.

still , I feel like I would love to have a 'proper' solution with actually device roaming , vlans and all

actually I tough exactly the same thing about just using the ol' ax56u and see if he can take everything now, as before he couldn't, wifi speed just mostly crashed to a point where they're not usable anymore, again, this was with 4 2k cameras with motion detection always running, meaning, constant traffic over wifi

the house is 800sqft per floor, 3 in total, garage , ground and upper floor. most devices are in ground floor

i'm going to allow the asus to take all devices (i'm using mac filtering to make sure each device connects to where I want it to be and spread the load) and turn off the xiaomi and the tplink in the garage and see how it goes :)

I see youre using asus aimesh, how's you're experience with it ?

thanks!
 
update on this,
left the asus as the only router, the devices with the least signal have about -85 which is not good, but they're shellies and the amount of data they need to pass one is very small so they're ok

everything seemed to work well, some hiccups but not bad,
then i've upgraded my daikin's ac's firwmares (I was forced to use the new app) and they started to drop a lot from the network,
i've upgraded my ax56firmware which not only it didn't help and actually made it worse, after reading here the foruns I saw people complaining a lot about it so i've reverted back to the previous one, before that to get the daikin ac's online i've enable the wifi from my isp router and used it just for the daikins where they've been working 100% without ever dropping the network

now I still have the daikins on that other router and the asus is handling things more or less, I still see 2-3 devices (total of 30-35) per day dropping the wifi for some seconds and have some complains from the kids and wifi about wifi (I mostly use ethernet, wiif only on the mobile which looses the connection as well but due to a device specific issue)

anyway, story short, a friend was selling a USG for cheap so I got it, just got 2 U6-Lite and waiting on a flex USW small switch to connect everything.

let's see what the improvements will be, asus ax56u vs unifi solution, i'll start by just using 1 AP and see how that goes
 
800SqFt home? Is that correct in your post above? That may be too much WiFi in such a small area.

With ~35 client devices, you want to make sure you're sharing them across the two radios as equally and equitably as possible. Consumer routers start getting flakey with around 32 devices connected.

I don't know what the Unifi solution may bring you. But my next step would be a single RT-AX68U to replace everything you have now.

Let us know how it goes!
 
still , I feel like I would love to have a 'proper' solution with actually device roaming , vlans and all

Good price/performance SMB solution is TP-Link Omada. I have tested one setup with EAP245V3 AC Wave 2 AP's during COVID lockdown in a commercial place. It was better than my existing Cisco Wi-Fi equipment and better than previous UniFi. There are newer EAP620 HD AX AP's available. You can use any router/firewall you want with features you need. Matching basic TP-Link router is ER605, matching network controller is OC200.
 
anyway, story short, a friend was selling a USG for cheap so I got it, just got 2 U6-Lite and waiting on a flex USW small switch to connect everything.

This is also an option. USG is basic, but stable. Read what people say about updates before you update UniFi.
 
thanks for all the comments!
just received the U6-lite's but still waiting on the poe injectors and a Flex mini managed router

honestly, if it wasn't for my fried to be selling his USG, I would go tp-link way. seems cheaper, I mean, the ER650 for 50€ it's really inexpensive and the AP's seems to be good. at the end I've paived the same for Ubiquiti, around 260€ or around 300USD

and yes, the house has 2 floors + basement/garage of around 800sqt each , 75m2 and it's a square house, so it's very possible that 1 well placed AP could handle it all, but i'm in Europe, meaning everything is concrete even the internal walls are made of bricks and concrete, but the asus does provide signal everywhere except in the front of the house which is the farthest point.

anyway, i'm an IT guy, not in the network area, but really curious to see how the asus consumer router will compare with the ubiquiti solution (will try 1 ap only at first)
 
I know European construction (many, many years ago - way before WiFi), but do not know how a router may operate in such homes. Even if I have read many examples here on SNB.

But few with the latest RT-AXxxx routers as recommended in the link below.

Current Order of Recommended Routers Late 2021

Looking forward to your results. :)
 
anyway, i'm an IT guy, not in the network area, but really curious to see how the asus consumer router will compare with the ubiquiti solution (will try 1 ap only at first)

Consumer routers will have stronger signal. They are designed to work as single AP. Assess points are designed to work in groups. You need more AP's in key places on lower power levels. Your Wi-Fi will be more stable, the total throughput will be higher and roaming will actually work.
 
so I have both solutions up and running, the asus ax56u and the usg + usw switch + u6-lite.

raw speeds the u6 lite at 80mhz matches the asus ax56u at 80mhz as well (both devices capped at 80mhz),
meaning I get around 800mbps at 1-2m away from the AP's,
at around 7m, that drops to around 500mbps on both of them as well, asus + u6 lite both set to maximum power transmit

i've already moved around 20 devices to the u6-lite, took a while as I have a mix of shelly's, sonoff's, etc
i've already moved one of the 1 wifi cameras, but I still need to move the other 4 (1 ip + 1 ethernet + 2 outside cameras that are using powerline)

as the asus is on the other side of the house while the unifi's are in my office while being configured, it's hard to tell about wifi range and performance,
but I do feel like range is inferior and device reported speeds are lower, but I also feel like that even if the devices have less bandwith they do seem to hold better to the AP and have less disconnects.

my mobile phone (a xiaomi a3 know for having issues with the wifi chipset) is faster moving from the 5g to the 2g network

now the plan is to get the u6-lite 1 meter away from the asus just to run some more comparisons. until now I haven't used the 2nd AP

i'm just writing all of this because I was unable to find direct comparisons between both solutions
 
updating a bit here,
so the unifi solution is amazing from a managing perspective, took some minutes to get all the vlans and iot devices split and everything
analyzing what's going wrong with the devices is wayyyyyyyy better as you can see packets dropped, retried, signal level etc etc

u6lite range is lesser than the asus, probably a u6-lr will be able to match it I guess

anyway, after getting all the devices in the new lan and i'm doing testing and measuring stability, i'm pinging all devices every 10s 24/7 (using homeassistant for that) , ubiquiti also provides similar information but I still trust more my good'ol pings

just enabled the 2nd ap, but I don't think it will be worth it. i'm running one AP in the ground floor in one point of the house and the other on the upper floor on the other side of the house, but the devices that had less signal before sit in the middle of the house so probably just having 1 AP in the middle will be the better solution, I just need to think of a way to move the AP there

anyway, mobile phone roaming between the devices is amazingly quick, I guess If I did a teams call while jumping from AP's there will be no cuts, i'll still try let just out of curiosity

until now, I feel the biggest difference is indeed the software, a lot faster and with loads of information that will help manage , setup and everything going, being an IT guy myself I do appreciate that information and for instance, having stats about how much traffic is flowing though the switch, the AP and the router made me decide to lower the input FPS analyzis of the cameras from 7 to 4 fps and I can measure the impact of those changes in the bandwith and see the improvement on device stability

the asus is more a set & forget solution and a "I'm a normal person without complex iot stuff or WIFI Cameras that just has mobile phones and tables and that's it", for that scenario asus will be the way to go, stronger single great single client spees and easy to setup.
but honestly if you take networking with a little more seriousness I don't feel like I could go back to a lesser solution in terms of managing devices software
 

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