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RT-AC87U and Mesh

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bigsinky1966

New Around Here
First timer here. Hello from Belfast Northern Ireland. I managed to get an Amazon returned AC87U cheaply. My fibre provider's router was just so bad (Virginmedia SuperHub3) so i put it in modem mode and plugged it into the WANport ofmy new router. Setup of the new router was a breeze and I even managed to stick a Merlin firmware update on the new router for good measure. Been working solid for a week now, no 5GHZ wireless dropouts and speeds pretty consistant on various devices.

I would like to go down the faster 2.5Gbit route at some stage. I was wondering if i could do one of those expensive AX routers with Mesh facility. Does anyone know of this can be done?

Thanks
 
Unfortunately RT-AC87U was one of Asus failed experiments. It’s reached EOL in 2018 itself. There is zero chance it will get Ai Mesh support.
 
just downloaded the new RT-AC87U firmware - 384.13_beta1-g73181bd3ae

the change log file
Asuswrt-Merlin 384/NG Changelog
===============================

384.13 (xx-xxx-xxxx)
- NEW: AiMesh Router and node support. Note that automatic live
update of Merlin-based nodes is not supported, you will have
to manually update any Merlin-based nodes when a new firmware
is available. Asus-based nodes (which is recommended) will be
able to make use of the automatic live update.
- NEW: ChaCha20-Poly1305 support in Strongswan (themiron)

Am i missing something here?
 
I would like to go down the faster 2.5Gbit route at some stage. I was wondering if i could do one of those expensive AX routers with Mesh facility. Does anyone know of this can be done?

If the router firmware supports AiMesh, then you can hope to use it as such. If using Asuswrt-Merlin, it is only required on the AiMesh router/AP/root node; the remote node(s) can run stock Asuswrt firmware.

I would not buy an AX router at this time to try AiMesh since AX is still draft and new AX routers may cost more, and AiMesh has been a trial by fire and newer AX firmware could be more than less of that. However, if you have AX clients and want to give it a try, go for it.

OE
 
Last edited:
The RT-AC87U does not support AiMesh.
 
Firmware. Branch 382.xx firmware doesn't support it.
 
so it's a limitation of the router not the firmware?

Correct. The RT-AC87U uses a separate CPU running a second, separate firmware for the 5 GHz band, so they can't interface that portion with their mesh code.
 
Oh, so maybe, in this case, it's both the hardware and the firmware limitations?
 
Oh, so maybe, in this case, it's both the hardware and the firmware limitations?

It's a hardware/architecture limitation, which is why they kept the device on the 382 code base. They only moved devices that could handle AiMesh to the 384 code base.

In short, it's not lacking AiMesh support because of 382. It's on 382 because of lacking AiMesh support.
 

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