Asus BT10 - still not stable at all even after latest firmware - been tinkering for months - high frustration

[raven-au]

I actually tried to offer help (but with the caveat I'm not a programmer by trade). I was informed by a friend at ASUS that they get their firmware direct from Broadcom, implying that at least WiFi implementation is proprietary, (or I'm under qualified, the nice way of putting it)...

I agree the SDK is not gonna be a "blackbox" as you note. But what they program into the firmware...

Even ASUS' Game Radar was sending pings out (by default) on all but the most recent firmwares...

I'm pretty sure they get the firmware from whoever makes the WiFi chipset they are using in their routers.
Certainly, with newish chipsets, the vendors haven't merged the drivers into the upstream Linux kernel yet and probably won't for quite a while.
The vendor binary only bits are usually the WiFi drivers perhaps some other bits but not too much.
Then, as you say, there's the customization that the clients (ASUS) will do, AiMesh, Game Radar, etc.
You can see several iterations of the SDK that ASUS uses and what they value add (often binary only bits) in the github.com repository Merlin uses for his work.

 

[Tech9]

Asus and Broadcom usually figure it out in about 2 years time after market release so you guys just need to be patient. What comes from Broadcom to Asus and now open/closed it is - it doesn't matter. What matters is what comes to you as a product.

 

[YamahaArtist]

I recently purchased a 2-pack router set after returning the fast and reliable BE96U due to my wife's dislike of its appearance. I initially set up one unit with a main network using 2.4G, 5G, and 6G MLO, plus an IoT network. Surprisingly, in single-unit mode, its speed was only slightly lower than the BE96U when tested in MLO mode one floor above, achieving 1.1–1.3 Gbps compared to 1.3–1.5 Gbps for the BE96U. The IoT network also performed well, reaching 1 Gbps from the same location. It ran smoothly without any disconnections for three days straight.

Today, I added the second node on the second floor using an MLO backhaul, but noticed a significant speed drop in MLO mode, maxing out at 500 Mbps initially. The IoT network remained decent but was slower than in single-unit mode. With some tinkering, i was able to speedtest with result never seen before at whopping 1.8Gbs.

In my experience, this router is fast, stable, and offers great range in non-AiMesh mode, performing nearly as well as the BE96U.

 

[RogerSC]

I recently purchased a 2-pack router set after returning the fast and reliable BE96U due to my wife's dislike of its appearance. I initially set up one unit with a main network using 2.4G, 5G, and 6G MLO, plus an IoT network. Surprisingly, in single-unit mode, its speed was only slightly lower than the BE96U when tested in MLO mode one floor above, achieving 1.1–1.3 Gbps compared to 1.3–1.5 Gbps for the BE96U. The IoT network also performed well, reaching 1 Gbps from the same location. It ran smoothly without any disconnections for three days straight.

Today, I added the second node on the second floor using an MLO backhaul, but noticed a significant speed drop in MLO mode, maxing out at 500 Mbps initially. The IoT network remained decent but was slower than in single-unit mode. With some tinkering, i was able to speedtest with result never seen before at whopping 1.8Gbs.

In my experience, this router is fast, stable, and offers great range in non-AiMesh mode, performing nearly as well as the BE96U.

Can you please describe what "tinkering" you did to get your mesh speed up from 500Mbps to 1.8Gbps? I have some self-interest in asking about this, since I'm getting a pair of BT10's today. So I'd love to hear what you did to get the speed of your mesh up.

 

[YamahaArtist]

Can you please describe what "tinkering" you did to get your mesh speed up from 500Mbps to 1.8Gbps? I have some self-interest in asking about this, since I'm getting a pair of BT10's today. So I'd love to hear what you did to get the speed of your mesh up.

I just turned off the wifi on my PC and turned on to let it reconnect. This router is super fast even at Wifi 6 mode. I can speed test at 1.2Gbs+ one floor above from the main router and same few meter aways from the node router with my Wifi 6 laptop.

 

[RogerSC]

I just turned off the wifi on my PC and turned on to let it reconnect. This router is super fast even at Wifi 6 mode. I can speed test at 1.2Gbs+ one floor above from the main router and same few meter aways from the node router with my Wifi 6 laptop.

Yes, I'm very happy with the BT10's at this point as well. Finally seeing the gigabit internet that we pay for all over the house. Now all I need to do is see why I had to connect our Apple TV's to an IoT network instead of our MLO main network. With the RT-BE96, the Apple TV's were happy on the MLO main network. Guess I've got something to tinker with there, although they're plenty fast on a 5GHz. IoT-style network. They don't even need 100Mbps for streaming, maybe a quarter of that, but just has me curious. Also seeing some odd messages in the log, but they don't correlate with any disconnects, no bad behavior. Again, just a matter of my insatiable curiosity *smile*.

 

[YS0240]

I recently purchased a 2-pack router set after returning the fast and reliable BE96U due to my wife's dislike of its appearance. I initially set up one unit with a main network using 2.4G, 5G, and 6G MLO, plus an IoT network. Surprisingly, in single-unit mode, its speed was only slightly lower than the BE96U when tested in MLO mode one floor above, achieving 1.1–1.3 Gbps compared to 1.3–1.5 Gbps for the BE96U. The IoT network also performed well, reaching 1 Gbps from the same location. It ran smoothly without any disconnections for three days straight.

Today, I added the second node on the second floor using an MLO backhaul, but noticed a significant speed drop in MLO mode, maxing out at 500 Mbps initially. The IoT network remained decent but was slower than in single-unit mode. With some tinkering, i was able to speedtest with result never seen before at whopping 1.8Gbs.

In my experience, this router is fast, stable, and offers great range in non-AiMesh mode, performing nearly as well as the BE96U.

Hi there, I have just ordered a pack of BT10, may I ask what you mean by "fast, stable, and offers great range in non-AiMesh mode"? so what mode you are using it with wireless backhaul? Or if the Ai Mesh now is finally working?

 

[RogerSC]

Hi there, I have just ordered a pack of BT10, may I ask what you mean by "fast, stable, and offers great range in non-AiMesh mode"? so what mode you are using it with wireless backhaul? Or if the Ai Mesh now is finally working?

The ZenWiFi BT10's are working well here in AiMesh mode. With MLO enabled wireless backhaul, as is the default backhaul mode. Works great, no instability problems. Main network is also MLO enabled, and have an IoT network for client devices that are not compatible with wifi-7. All working great with gigabit fiber here.

I only have a 2-node mesh, that's all we need. No VPN's or VLAN's at the moment, nothing fancy, pretty vanilla. I like to keep things simple so that I understand my home network in case things go bad.

Very happy with the performance that I'm seeing.

 

[YS0240]

The ZenWiFi BT10's are working well here in AiMesh mode. With MLO enabled wireless backhaul, as is the default backhaul mode. Works great, no instability problems. Main network is also MLO enabled, and have an IoT network for client devices that are not compatible with wifi-7. All working great with gigabit fiber here.

I only have a 2-node mesh, that's all we need. No VPN's or VLAN's at the moment, nothing fancy, pretty vanilla. I like to keep things simple so that I understand my home network in case things go bad.

Very happy with the performance that I'm seeing.

Nice to know it here! I am thinking if I should go media bridge with MLO Wireless backhaul, as I have read previously that the BT10 is unstable at AI mesh and have unknown disconnection issues. I am mainly using one in a dead corner in concrete apartment for main router, and use the satellite at like 30 ft away with a concrete wall corner to my main gaming PC and NAS, so wondering if I will be better going AI mesh or media bridge mode.

 

[YamahaArtist]

Hi there, I have just ordered a pack of BT10, may I ask what you mean by "fast, stable, and offers great range in non-AiMesh mode"? so what mode you are using it with wireless backhaul? Or if the Ai Mesh now is finally working?

At first, I only set up one router, and it performed very stably with excellent speeds, even from one floor above. Later, I added the second router and have been using AiMesh mode ever since. It's generally quite stable, but there's one strange problem: all my IoT devices, which are located on the first floor, end up connecting to the router on the second floor. This results in unstable connections due to the distance, causing my security camera to drop offline occasionally. I suspect the 2.4GHz band on the main router (on the first floor) isn't accepting connections, forcing all 2.4GHz devices to link up with the second-floor router instead.

 

[YS0240]

At first, I only set up one router, and it performed very stably with excellent speeds, even from one floor above. Later, I added the second router and have been using AiMesh mode ever since. It's generally quite stable, but there's one strange problem: all my IoT devices, which are located on the first floor, end up connecting to the router on the second floor. This results in unstable connections due to the distance, causing my security camera to drop offline occasionally. I suspect the 2.4GHz band on the main router (on the first floor) isn't accepting connections, forcing all 2.4GHz devices to link up with the second-floor router instead.

Great then! since I mostly use 5Ghz wifi stuffs only and all I care is speed, especially the NAS and main PC both have 2.5Gbpe port and hopefully it can run really fast

 

[RogerSC]

At first, I only set up one router, and it performed very stably with excellent speeds, even from one floor above. Later, I added the second router and have been using AiMesh mode ever since. It's generally quite stable, but there's one strange problem: all my IoT devices, which are located on the first floor, end up connecting to the router on the second floor. This results in unstable connections due to the distance, causing my security camera to drop offline occasionally. I suspect the 2.4GHz band on the main router (on the first floor) isn't accepting connections, forcing all 2.4GHz devices to link up with the second-floor router instead.

Have you tried binding devices to particular AiMesh nodes using the AiMesh tab in the web admin GUI? I've done that from time to time, if a device seems to end up on the "wrong" node. Easy to do when you have the client list for the "wrong" node up (by clicking on the AiMesh node to which the client is currently connected). There are two symbols there for each client, one is "bind" and the other is "optimize". Just use the "bind" choice for a particular client, will ask you which node to bind the client to. Has worked well for me.

 

[YamahaArtist]

Have you tried binding devices to particular AiMesh nodes using the AiMesh tab in the web admin GUI? I've done that from time to time, if a device seems to end up on the "wrong" node. Easy to do when you have the client list for the "wrong" node up (by clicking on the AiMesh node to which the client is currently connected). There are two symbols there for each client, one is "bind" and the other is "optimize". Just use the "bind" choice for a particular client, will ask you which node to bind the client to. Has worked well for me.

Didn't know such option before seeing your reply. Unfortunately I just tried both bind and optimize and still not able to connect my IoT devices to the main router.

 

[RogerSC]

Didn't know such option before seeing your reply. Unfortunately I just tried both bind and optimize and still not able to connect my IoT devices to the main router.

What happened when you tried to use the "bind" option? If you got the warning about how you might not be able to do it, just ignore it assuming that you know that the client device is close enough to the node that you want to bind it to. That warning is just a warning, it can be ignored, and the bind will succeed. At least that's how it works at my place.

 

[YamahaArtist]

Didn't know such option before seeing your reply. Unfortunately I just tried both bind and optimize and still not able to connect my IoT devices to the main router.

What happened when you tried to use the "bind" option? If you got the warning about how you might not be able to do it, just ignore it assuming that you know that the client device is close enough to the node that you want to bind it to. That warning is just a warning, it can be ignored, and the bind will succeed. At least that's how it works at my place.

The device will just stay offline due to not able to connect to the main router's 2.4. Anyway, I finally solved the issue by doing a full factory reset and then not using MLO fronthaul this time. So I have a main network with all 3 bands enabled in Wifi 7 mode minus MLO fronthaul + one IoT network running in IoT default setting mode.
Everything connects reliably, and speeds match what I had previously with MLO enabled. In fact, I believe WiFi 7 performs slightly better without MLO, as speed tests now hit full bandwidth instantly, compared to a 1-2 second ramp-up before. I suspect a direct 6 GHz band connection simplifies things and avoids underlying negotiation issues.