Upgrade AiMesh from GT-AX6000/XT12 to GT-AXE16000/ET12?

[ndiniwacho]

Due to the layout of my house and where the internet comes into the house in one corner of the basement, I currently have a wired backhaul AiMesh system of 2 x GT-AX6000 (using 2.4 & 5 GHz radios) and 2 x XT12 nodes(5-1 GHz radio only) in AiMesh. The rectangular 2 storey house is wired such that the router and nodes are located in opposite corners of the house from each other and the signals are evenly spread out. It works well for our needs, spreading the 2.4 signal where it's needed, and leaving no gaps for the shorter 5 GHz signal. We have over 100 devices on our network, with stationary equipment mostly hardwired and IoT devices, phones and tablets using WiFi exclusively.

I can get two GT-AXE16000s as well as two ET12s (my wife tolerates this design as they are quite visible), at a nominal expense if I flip my current equipment. I'm tempted to upgrade to WiFi 6e so I can make use of the 5 and 6 Ghz radios and I'm not really interested in Wifi 7 as we have a lot of 2.4Ghz devices and read of possible compatibility issues with older devices. My plan would be to stick with WiFi 6e for the foreseeable future. Would this be a worthwhile upgrade in reality or am I chasing specs? Would appreciate any input.

Thanks

 

[degrub]

Chasing specs. Not likely to notice significant client device - tablet, laptop, phone , etc improvement in experience across the internet. Internet facing servers limit client bandwidth to somewhere in the 100-150 Mbit/s range anyway. Increasing link rates at the local level will not affect that bottleneck. If most of your wifi traffic is IOTs, they certainly will not see any change. 6 GHz bands have even less penetration of building materials than 5 GHz. Basically, same room connections only or no obstacle line of sight.

The main reason to swap out an internet facing router is if it is out of support and not receiving security updates.

By the time WIFI 8 is implemented successfully for a couple years, you may be ready for a change out. At that time, if you have wired infrastructure, i would consider SMB class gear rather than consumer gear as it is usually much more stable and longer supported. i switched over around 10 years ago and have not looked back. i keep the non wifi internet facing router current .

 

[Tech9]

I can get two GT-AXE16000s as well as two ET12s

It's the same generation hardware with the same expected life cycle, extra time and money plus reconfiguring everything from scratch for virtually no user experience improvements. Your future with 4 years old already equipment may not look very bright. With your 100+ current clients better keep what you already have and upgrade in 2-3 years to something better than consumer hardware.

 

[ndiniwacho]

Chasing specs. Not likely to notice significant client device - tablet, laptop, phone , etc improvement in experience across the internet. Internet facing servers limit client bandwidth to somewhere in the 100-150 Mbit/s range anyway. Increasing link rates at the local level will not affect that bottleneck. If most of your wifi traffic is IOTs, they certainly will not see any change. 6 GHz bands have even less penetration of building materials than 5 GHz. Basically, same room connections only or no obstacle line of sight.

The main reason to swap out an internet facing router is if it is out of support and not receiving security updates.

By the time WIFI 8 is implemented successfully for a couple years, you may be ready for a change out. At that time, if you have wired infrastructure, i would consider SMB class gear rather than consumer gear as it is usually much more stable and longer supported. i switched over around 10 years ago and have not looked back. i keep the non wifi internet facing router current .

Thanks for the response. My understanding was that it's best to match standards, which is why I was thinking to switch everything to AXE instead of mixing with just the X. I don't expect much change with the IoT devices as they are mostly switches, plugs and lights. We do a lot of video streaming on the tablets and phones due to WFH, so wondered if the extra bands/radios would make a difference there. I'm also getting into VLANs and was curious if the extra RAM would make a difference there. Would the GT-AX6000 be sufficient? Appreciate any insight.

 

[ndiniwacho]

It's the same generation hardware with the same expected life cycle, extra time and money plus reconfiguring everything from scratch for virtually no user experience improvements. Your future with 4 years old already equipment may not look very bright. With your 100+ current clients better keep what you already have and upgrade in 2-3 years to something better than consumer hardware.

Appreciate the input. The other option I was looking at was Ubiquiti gear but again would be staying with WiFi 6, however that seems to be a pricier alternative.

 

[Tech9]

so wondered if the extra bands/radios would make a difference there

It won't make any difference for WFH. Video streams in HD/UHD for entertainment are compressed and under 50Mbps. Video streams for messengers/meetings applications are under 10Mbps, often under 5Mbps.

I'm also getting into VLANs and was curious if the extra RAM would make a difference there

No.

 

[degrub]

Thanks for the response. My understanding was that it's best to match standards, which is why I was thinking to switch everything to AXE instead of mixing with just the X. I don't expect much change with the IoT devices as they are mostly switches, plugs and lights. We do a lot of video streaming on the tablets and phones due to WFH, so wondered if the extra bands/radios would make a difference there. I'm also getting into VLANs and was curious if the extra RAM would make a difference there. Would the GT-AX6000 be sufficient? Appreciate any insight.

Most video streams, even HD 4K , are heavily compressed and will fit into 10-25 Mbit/s streams over wifi. Uncompressed, < 50 Mbit/s. Not a concern with WIFI 5 radios even. AX (wifi 6) is the sweet spot right now. Plenty of bandwidth to share.. WIth consumer gear, with a high number of IOTs, you might run into some limits with the maximum number of clients, usually 30-50 ish per radio simultaneously connected. Since radio RF communication is a shared medium, some devices may have to wait. In some cases, they might drop off line briefly. With SMB gear, high density APs are common. 200+ clients or higher per radio or AP are commonly available.

IOTs have their own issues with keeping up on standards. Manufacturers, many times, don't put much effort or expense into them and use the cheapest they can get away with for a feature set. Many folks have had to downgrade the security on their 2.4 GHz bands to WPA2, channel width to 20 MHz, etc to get the devices to connect. So your AP/Node is not really going to be the issue.

VLANs use a trivial amount of memory, so no.
What is more important is that the APs or Nodes and the router support the same VLAN setups. ASUS can make it difficult by their trying to make it simple for consumers. So all router, AP/Nodes, etc on the same code base and "feature" set ( Guest Network, GN Pro, etc) is important to minimize the difficulties. With SMB gear, most of that nonsense goes away and you don't have to fight the software as much.