RT-AX86U - To AiMesh or not to AiMesh?

[BlueOrbit]

I live in a 2,500 square foot 2 story house and recently upgraded my router to AX-86U located downstairs (connected to a cable modem with a 500 mbps down and 10 mbps up). I used to run AC-86U as my main router and another AC-86U as an AiMesh node for upstairs over 5Gz link. I don't yet have any WiFi 6 devices, but it now appears that I have a more stable WiFi all over the house and my son is saying that he is getting better throughput on his Xbox upstairs without the AiMesh node even with a slightly weaker 5Ghz connection (-71 dBm). A smart TV in a furthest upstairs bedroom also has a slightly weaker connection (-69 dBm) over 5Ghz, but still works without issues.

So, it appears that with AiMesh node I am not really getting any benefits with the new AX-86U router. Maybe my house is not large enough to benefit from AiMesh node upstairs any longer and the additional interference is slowing down devices connected through AiMesh.

Has anyone experienced similar slowdowns with AiMesh enabled vs. just one main router? Can AiMesh improve anything in my situation?

Appreciate any input on this.

 

[OzarkEdge]

I live in a 2,500 square foot 2 story house and recently upgraded my router to AX-86U located downstairs (connected to a cable modem with a 500 mbps down and 10 mbps up). I used to run AC-86U as my main router and another AC-86U as an AiMesh node for upstairs over 5Gz link. I don't yet have any WiFi 6 devices, but it now appears that I have a more stable WiFi all over the house and my son is saying that he is getting better throughput on his Xbox upstairs without the AiMesh node even with a slightly weaker 5Ghz connection (-71 dBm). A smart TV in a furthest upstairs bedroom also has a slightly weaker connection (-69 dBm) over 5Ghz, but still works without issues.

So, it appears that with AiMesh node I am not really getting any benefits with the new AX-86U router. Maybe my house is not large enough to benefit from AiMesh node upstairs any longer and the additional interference is slowing down devices connected through AiMesh.

Has anyone experienced similar slowdowns with AiMesh enabled vs. just one main router? Can AiMesh improve anything in my situation?

Appreciate any input on this.

The short answer is do what works best for your users.

With one node, your clients are not sharing WiFi with the wireless backhaul. And maybe your previous 2nd node was not right. It's hard to draw a firm conclusion without knowing many details.

I have one AC86U on the main level of a 3x1650 sq ft house. My second AC86U is 77' away in a detached garage. Works for me.

OE

 

[bbunge]

Since I got my AX86U a couple of weeks ago I have gone from Asus Beta to Merlin stable and beta and am now back to Asus factory beta. Have also tested AiMesh with an AC86U as the node on all the firmware version above. The mesh worked fine with the node three walls and about 30 feet away on WIFI backhaul. Some clients, Roku and Dish, just feet away from the node stayed connected to the main router mostly. Laptop, phone and tablets all switched between the root and node depending upon distance. WIFI coverage out the back of the house reached almost 250 yards across the field!
Wouldn't hurt to set the AC86U"s up as mesh nodes and try several places around the house. On WIFI backhaul you may not get to the 500 Mbps download working off of a WIFI connected node but the signal strength may be worth it. Would be much better with Ethernet backhaul.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Some clients, Roku and Dish, just feet away from the node stayed connected to the main router mostly.

WIFI coverage out the back of the house reached almost 250 yards across the field!

These observations suggest what I think is common... strong enough signals that clients see no reason to reconnect elsewhere. Hence my suggestions to spread nodes apart and raise RA RSSI thresholds.

It seems to me that radio reception/signal connection is not neat and linear like physical distances from nodes. But we can only see distances... we can't see radio signal/transmission behaviors.

OE

 

[BlueOrbit]

Thanks guys.

I will play with the Mesh node locations, but it currently looks like the main router can handle the entire house with no Mesh nodes and this setup provides stability and the fastest WiFi speeds across all devices. The main router is centrally located in the office downstairs and seems to be doing a pretty good job covering the entire house.

By the way, I am running the latest Asus firmware (ver 3.0.0.4.386_41535) on the router and mesh node.