RT-AC86U - AiMesh or Cable

[EMERSON VIER]

Hi all,

I have one RT-AC86U on first floor but on the second floor 5Hz is too weak, I think about to add other router on the second floor so I have two questions:
1 Recommendation for a new router?
2 AiMesh or Cable to connect to second router?

Thank you.

Vier

 

[Wade Coxon]

A RT-AC68U is a fairly cost effective choice for a mesh node as it has decent wireless capability, and doesn't need anything particularly fancy in the CPU department to act as a node.

You can hard-wire the backhaul to the RT-AC68U so you can benefit from both hard wired and mesh all in one. I'd recommend doing it that way if possible.

 

[dosborne]

1 Recommendation for a new router?

Personally, I like duplicates of things I'm already familiar with so would pick up a another of the same model.

2 AiMesh or Cable to connect to second router?

Not really the right question, assuming by "cable" you mean wiring the 2 routers vs using wifi. Personally I'd say if running a wire for a direct connection is possible then the answer is obvious. Particularly if you are already experiencing issues with wifi.

If you were trying to ask aimesh vs manual config, then that's different

 

[Greg72]

Mesh you are going to lose some bandwidth due to overhead. If you can run Cat-5e for a POE AP, that would be the best way to go.

 

[sfx2000]

2 AiMesh or Cable to connect to second router?

Wired is always better than mesh, and with the second "router", configure it as an AP

 

[Grisu]

Wired is always better than mesh, and with the second "router", configure it as an AP

mesh can be wired backhaul too with Aimesh!

 

[heysoundude]

Connecting the new unit to the existing one with an ethernet cable is the preferred method, as is buying an identical piece of hardware.

While I'm not exactly sure of everything that's entailed in having AiMesh running for any network, I'd be interested in digging in to the software/protocol to determine just what exactly it's capable of to see what's potentially on Asus' roadmap: I suspect there is quite a bit of unused system processing power if everything defaults to the Main Hub unit, and with internet speeds as they are, I also suspect a significant amount of network headroom/capacity; might future versions of stock firmware and Merlin be able to leverage that somehow? Only time will tell what v386, 388... will bring