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Time to Upgrade Routers or not

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Preskitt.man

Regular Contributor
I have an AC86U and an AC68U running in an 2 node AIMesh configuration with the AC86U being the WAN facing unit. No known problems and getting the coverage and performance that I need.

My question is, how important is it that the AC68U be kept updated on all the new Merlin releases. As the AC68U is primarily a fancy access point with no direct access to the WAN, how much benefit do I get by doing the updates or do I put myself at risk by not doing the updates.

This question is specific to the AC68U. Fully my intent to keep the AC86U up to date. BTW, both are currently on 386.5
 
Don't fix what is not broken. You can run Asus stock on the AC68U and it will work just fine as a node.

Morris
 
Yes, it's Time to Upgrade Routers or not when a new firmware release is available!
Read the change-log, think about it, ask specific questions about the changes, and do it - or not - it's up to you...

"Read, Think and Do - or Not" is a common pattern in life, right - or not?
 
My experience shows a much more stable network overall when the main router and the nodes are running the same firmware level. I find this imperative for a good experience in the long run.

I would be upgrading both routers to RMerlin 386.5_2 today.
 
My experience shows a much more stable network overall when the main router and the nodes are running the same firmware level.

What he said. It's possible that the manufacturer tested cases where the nodes are not all the same revision level, but you can bet that the all-the-same case got tested a lot more.
 
Read the change-log, think about it, ask specific questions about the changes, and do it - or not - it's up to you...
I sort of thought that new Merlin versions were often based on a new code base, and the change-log reflected further changes Merlin made. You wouldn't necessarily know, even from their own change-log, if Asus had made changes in the mesh code in the new code base, so it was better to always keep the nodes at the same firmware as the main router. If you updated the main router, then one should update the nodes.
 

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