[SOLVED] Need some serious help with AIMESH in my asus routers.

kuhne

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Jun 28, 2013
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Hi, I've tried everything.

I've had a AC5300 for a while now and while it has some serious issues (each firmware update seems to break stuff that worked fine) in general it's been ok. I have lan cables running around the house to another two routers which I have set up as access points, so each room has it's SSID and everything is ok. I bought two AC66U (the ones that support aimesh) to replace those other two routers around the house and add them as nodes of my AC5300, therefore having the same SSID around the house and hopefully have some piece of mind with the wife. One can only hear "the wifi doesn't work!!!" so many times when all she had to do was simply change the wifi to the closest room she was in... anyway.

The problem is this, i've tried everything, downgraded firmwares, upgraded, factory resets on all routers, disconected all LAN connections from router, etc. Basically when I try to find the AIMESH node, it finds it fine but when I click to add it, there's a 0 to 100% counter that is supposed to go up slowly and once it gets to 100% it means you are ready. My count
er goes from 1 to 3% slowly and then it speeds up to 100% and gives me message saying the node couldn't be added.

Does anyone here have any info on this?

Thanks!
 
Solution
If you are not actually using these in repeater mode you technically are not running mesh. They may try to call it mesh when you are using them in AP mode but it is nothing different than has been done for last 20 years. You never want to run them in repeater mode unless you have no other option anyway, the still degrade the connection a lot like all the older repeaters on the market.

There is no magic solution to the roaming issue. The end client controls where it is connected not the router. The end devices generally stay connected to a poor signal because they don't know there is a better one.

Depending on the so called mesh system the AP will try to force a drop so the client scans again. There is no way to say for...
If you are not actually using these in repeater mode you technically are not running mesh. They may try to call it mesh when you are using them in AP mode but it is nothing different than has been done for last 20 years. You never want to run them in repeater mode unless you have no other option anyway, the still degrade the connection a lot like all the older repeaters on the market.

There is no magic solution to the roaming issue. The end client controls where it is connected not the router. The end devices generally stay connected to a poor signal because they don't know there is a better one.

Depending on the so called mesh system the AP will try to force a drop so the client scans again. There is no way to say for sure where the client will really connect to, it depends on what IT thinks is the strongest signal based on its data not what the central router thinks. You can get situations where it constantly bounces.

I tend to like different SSID but you can set them all the same. This tends to be better for less technical users.

The client likely not be connected to the strongest signal all the time but it pretty simple for the human running the device to just stop and start the wifi rather than hope some software called "mesh" might do it.

Mesh is primarily marketing it is not really some magic solution. The new form of wifi coming out officially in a couple months is suppose to have improvements. We will see in about a year if that too is all hype or if they have improved this issue. Of course you have to replace everything including all the end devices to use the new features.
 
Solution