Solved Should I ditch Asus or go deeper into the rabit hole?

[SDISB]

I am moving into a 4 story house soon and I currently have a Asus RT-AX55. The AX55 is fine as of now but I am afraid that I'm going to lock myself into Asus exclusive eco system but I also don't want to throw away a perfectly good router. Should I cut my lost and go with something more open nature like easymesh (Tp link, Tenda and ZTE devices) or should I stick to Asus and go full Aimesh?

 

[bbunge]

In the end it is your money. Many have a good experience with Asus Aimesh as long as the routers and nodes are of the same technology (AX to AX). Others have not had a good experience and complain a lot. I have been with Asus routers since my RT-N66U and have had only one failure that was replaced by Asus at the very end of the warranty period. Amazon usually has some good deals on "refurbished" routers.

 

[SDISB]

In the end it is your money. Many have a good experience with Asus Aimesh as long as the routers and nodes are of the same technology (AX to AX). Others have not had a good experience and complain a lot. I have been with Asus routers since my RT-N66U and have had only one failure that was replaced by Asus at the very end of the warranty period. Amazon usually has some good deals on "refurbished" routers.

I own an RT-N12+ since 2015 so I understand it. I just wish Asus supported easymesh along with their aimesh. Most of my country's ISPs used easymesh compatible devices from ZTE and Dasan which are available for cheap on the used market. On the other hand, I do live close to China and have access to Chinese exclusive routers both used and new(ish) imported for cheap. This include Asus, ZTE and Xiaomi, the only caviat here is that the UI will likely be Chinese only (Asus is confirmed to still use the Asus app to setup as normal). Tp link is a whole different can of worms since they did setup a factory here but still have some models imported from China. I could go for a cheap aimesh system or build a cheap easymesh system from scratch for slightly more.

 

[microchip]

Jump the ship

 

[degrub]

spend your money on ethernet cabling (CAT6) to each floor or use existing dedicated coax (moca) to each floor. Wired backhaul will always work more reliably and at higher throughput than wifi backhaul in this environment.

If you go with wifi backhaul as the only option, use gear that has a dedicated radio for backhaul. 2.4 GHz radios can usually penetrate a wooden floor reasonably, however, this is the most congested band and you may see enough interference and signal reduction to drop bandwidth significantly. 5GHz radio backhaul may penetrate one floor or wall and may be a little less crowded. 6GHz band radios have a hard time getting through 1 wall or floor. They are best with open air line of sight situations.

Don't bother with ISP speed offerings > 1Gbit/s unless free. It is mostly for bragging rights and supporting G.A.S. . You will have to use more expensive gear to take advantage of higher ISP marketing with no effective gain in user experience. You can likely easily get away with 300-500 Mb/s ISP download service and not notice issues. particularly if you are planning to use less expensive consumer gear like what you have. WIFI6 gear is the sweet spot for price/performance/least issues as it is a mature technology. Fiber to the house ISP service should have the least issues over time.

 

[SDISB]

spend your money on ethernet cabling (CAT6) to each floor or use existing dedicated coax (moca) to each floor. Wired backhaul will always work more reliably and at higher throughput than wifi backhaul in this environment.

If you go with wifi backhaul as the only option, use gear that has a dedicated radio for backhaul. 2.4 GHz radios can usually penetrate a wooden floor reasonably, however, this is the most congested band and you may see enough interference and signal reduction to drop bandwidth significantly. 5GHz radio backhaul may penetrate one floor or wall and may be a little less crowded. 6GHz band radios have a hard time getting through 1 wall or floor. They are best with open air line of sight situations.

Don't bother with ISP speed offerings > 1Gbit/s unless free. It is mostly for bragging rights and supporting G.A.S. . You will have to use more expensive gear to take advantage of higher ISP marketing with no effective gain in user experience. You can likely easily get away with 300-500 Mb/s ISP download service and not notice issues. particularly if you are planning to use less expensive consumer gear like what you have. WIFI6 gear is the sweet spot for price/performance/least issues as it is a mature technology. Fiber to the house ISP service should have the least issues over time.

I am already planning wired backhaul and probably 2.5GbE switch in the future. My ISP speed vary a lot but I generally got 300 Mbps and I am already on fiber.

 

[heysoundude]

Jump the ship

There is logic to this argument:

For about the same price as another Asus RT-AX55, you could go with a mikrotik cAP AX in addition to the Asus you already own - as a start. Then you would have a truly consequential decision to make: which is the router and which is the AP?

First - re-read what @degrub has to say about using as much cabling as possible. I agree, if it doesn't move and has an ethernet port (or you can find an easy way to add one), it should never be connected to wifi so that devices that can't be cabled can have network access like their wired cohorts. That's smart tvs, printers, gaming consoles, desktop computers...and especially wifi Access points. I was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which I was able to learn to terminate UTP cable with RJ45 connectors, both crimp and punchdown, and running cabling was nowhere near as daunting as I had thought, once I was pointed in the direction of following plumbing and HVAC routing. If you're not a DIY-er, contractors can be hired. If I were to have to do it again, I'd buy pre-made cables in 50, 75 and 100 foot lengths...and I may just upgrade the Cat5e with Cat6 this way when I need a project

 

[aex.perez]

Caveat Emptor, do more research, and confirm wheter the function you need/want is there with the vendor/model, and available you are considering
DNS assignments - AT&T BGW320 gateway and TPLink Deco

 

[SDISB]

There is logic to this argument:

For about the same price as another Asus RT-AX55, you could go with a mikrotik cAP AX in addition to the Asus you already own - as a start. Then you would have a truly consequential decision to make: which is the router and which is the AP?

First - re-read what @degrub has to say about using as much cabling as possible. I agree, if it doesn't move and has an ethernet port (or you can find an easy way to add one), it should never be connected to wifi so that devices that can't be cabled can have network access like their wired cohorts. That's smart tvs, printers, gaming consoles, desktop computers...and especially wifi Access points. I was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which I was able to learn to terminate UTP cable with RJ45 connectors, both crimp and punchdown, and running cabling was nowhere near as daunting as I had thought, once I was pointed in the direction of following plumbing and HVAC routing. If you're not a DIY-er, contractors can be hired. If I were to have to do it again, I'd buy pre-made cables in 50, 75 and 100 foot lengths...and I may just upgrade the Cat5e with Cat6 this way when I need a project

There is logic to this argument:

For about the same price as another Asus RT-AX55, you could go with a mikrotik cAP AX in addition to the Asus you already own - as a start. Then you would have a truly consequential decision to make: which is the router and which is the AP?

First - re-read what @degrub has to say about using as much cabling as possible. I agree, if it doesn't move and has an ethernet port (or you can find an easy way to add one), it should never be connected to wifi so that devices that can't be cabled can have network access like their wired cohorts. That's smart tvs, printers, gaming consoles, desktop computers...and especially wifi Access points. I was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which I was able to learn to terminate UTP cable with RJ45 connectors, both crimp and punchdown, and running cabling was nowhere near as daunting as I had thought, once I was pointed in the direction of following plumbing and HVAC routing. If you're not a DIY-er, contractors can be hired. If I were to have to do it again, I'd buy pre-made cables in 50, 75 and 100 foot lengths...and I may just upgrade the Cat5e with Cat6 this way when I need a project

I talked to the contractor about ethernet cabling and made sure every room has at least two ethernet ports. Good thing is that it is actually covered by the contractor so I don't have to pay for a single dime more. I am tempted to do my own wiring later on but right now it is what it is as I don't want to buy another set of tools only to lose it in my pile of boxes lol. As for pricing, I did try looking for Mikrotik, Zyxel, Aruba and Ubiquiti but they seem to be either stuck on wifi 5 or even wifi 4 and only sell enterprise class switches where I lives. On the other hand 20 USD for a used Asus router (RT-AX56Uv2) and about 30 to 50 USD for a new TP link (Deco X10 and X20) one with wifi 6.

 

[SDISB]

Caveat Emptor, do more research, and confirm wheter the function you need/want is there with the vendor/model, and available you are considering
DNS assignments - AT&T BGW320 gateway and TPLink Deco

I did do more research and came to the conclusion that I couldn't reach a conclusion :v I'd probably stick to Asus (for now) and since my sister have a Tenda/Tp link router with some ZTE products (from ISP) I will probably buy her and test a TP link router when I visit her.