Tommy Grace
Regular Contributor
Hi guys, after a bit of possible help here. I have both the RT-AX88U and a Google Nest Wi-Fi (bought this when my AiMesh stopped working due to firmware upgrades). Anyway what i am trying to understand is why they seem to manage traffic so differently. There are some very obvious differences between the 2 platforms which is fine but one issue i have seen with the ASUS is how it manages wireless traffic, especially when congested. What i am seeing happens regardless of QoS settings. Basically what happens is that when i use anything like Wi-Fi sweetspots or a Wi-Fi analyzer, or if a device on the LAN is downloading large amounts of data on the Wi-Fi, the latency on the LAN (wireless) goes right up and can even lead to packet loss. This also happens if i run a speedtest. Now some of this is to be expected i suppose but the reason i am questioning the ASUS setup is that if i do all of these same tests when on the Nest Wi-Fi, there is no impact on latency and there is no packet loss. One thing i have noticed is sometimes the speedtest may return a slightly lower speed i.e -1 Mbps but other than that everything seems fine. It is almost as if the Nest Wi-Fi software is handling and shaping the traffic better. So although raw speeds may not always be quite as high, in real world use it gives a better experience. Hope this all makes sense? I have tried all sorts of different configuration options but nothing seems to make a difference. I am currently running Merlin 3.184.18 but have also tried this on stock firmware. Interested in your thoughts.