Suggestions on my AiMesh

[abreuza]

Hi everyone,

I've had a Asus RT-AC86U for 2 years now, but recently I moved to a bigger and more complex house. The house I'm is a 3 story brick house, where I usually work from the top floor and the router is on the 1st floor (with no option to change it). On top of that I have a lot of connected devices (25 at the moment) which is not helping the situation, as I sometimes see WIFI drops on my pc.

Even though I receive a weak signal on the top floor, I opted for an AiMesh solution and bought an AX55. I've been reading some discussion on the forum about which router to keep as the main and I am not sure which one should I choose. I also don't have the option to keep them wired together, I would be using them as a wireless AiMesh node.

In one hand I have the newer AX55 with WIFI6 and in the other I have the strong AC86U with more CPU and RAM. With all this in mind, based on your experience, which one would recommend to be the base router and which one to be the AiMesh wireless node?

Both are running the latest ASUSWRT, as I am a basic home user I haven't installed merlin on them (maybe I should who knows! but that's for another thread).

Thanks guys!

 

[L&LD]

The RT-AC86U is the better router. Don't change its role here.

I would return the AX router you bought and instead use/buy a router with Media Bridge mode to wire your wired capable devices (including your PC).

Media Bridge Mode

An old RT-AC56U works great for this use. As does the RT-AC66U and the newer RT-AC66U_B1.

 

[Smokey613]

I would have got a second RT-AC86U since you already had one. They make for a real good wifi mesh setup.

 

[Amwjujo]

Hi everyone,
. I was reading through a few threads and I'll give it a try here - I need your help please .
I am trying for the first time to add an ac66u_b1 as an AiMesh wired node to a AC86U. I haven't done this before(used only AP mode) but I think it would be nice to have all devices manageable from one place. I still prefer the wire connection for better reliability.

Maybe someone @L&LD can create a NooB setup for me and maybe somebody else with benefit - I just can't connect the ac66u-b1 to ac86U.
What I have tries so far:
- Hard reset both of the routers and flashed them with Merlin 386.2 firmware.
- Configured AC86U as the main router(i haven't installed any add-on) separating the SSD's and changing the name for them. Let it settle for more than 1 hour.
- With the AC66u_B1 in setup mode i tried to add it to AC86U as a wireless node - tried this a couple of times with no success.
- AC66U_B1 in setup mode I conected it with with a wire lan - wan - no success - lan - lan no success.
- AC66u_B1 i choose from setup mode - setup as an AiMesh node and tried all of the above - no success.
- Put a switch between the routers - no success.
- AC66u_B1 hard reset - install 386.2 firmware again - tried some of the combinations above - no success
- This starts to frustrate me and I go to sleep - no success

The one thing I haven't tried yet, is to install the 386.2 again on the AC86U.
What am i doing wrong?
And most important - is this really worth it or I should stay with the AP mode?

Hope this makes sense.
Thank you.

 

[L&LD]

Give this a try.

Best Practice Update/Setup Router/AiMesh Node(s) 2021