Asus' AiMesh versus specialized Mesh systems

[ImGK]

Hello everyone.

 

Im quite new to setting up home networking. My current home networking situation is quite old: ISP provided modem on the first floor with separate WiFi network and the WiFi 4 router on the second floor with separate WiFi network. I am not getting the internet speed I am paying for (500Mb/sec - max in my country for now) with this setup, AND I have to manually swap my WiFi connection every time I go to different floor, so I want to upgrade the whole networking system in my house. I want faster internet connection and want my phone and other devices to swap automatically the WiFi connection node. As I was looking up in Internet, Asus routers have a feature called AiMesh, and I dont fully get the difference of it from other dedicated Mesh system in the market. So the choice I have right now is buying 2 separate Asus routers (that supports WiFi 6 and AiMesh) or buy 2 piece Mesh system (that also supports WiFi 6). 

 

Can someone explain if there is any difference in practical daily usage between those two, and what should I go with?

 

Thank you!

[Needfuldoer]

What models are your existing routers?

 

What are the dimensions of your place, and how many floors are you trying to reach? One good quality access point in the middle of your place may give you adequate coverage that you don't even need to mess with a mesh network solution.

[ImGK]

55 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

What models are your existing routers?

 

What are the dimensions of your place, and how many floors are you trying to reach? One good quality access point in the middle of your place may give you adequate coverage that you don't even need to mess with a mesh network solution.

My current routers are: ISP provided modem on the first floor and old Asus router on the second. I want to purchase WiFi 6 routers (for future proofing) for both floors, and turn of WiFi on the ISP modem (because its not as fast as I want). 

 

I dont want to put access points, because I heard that AP's doesnt let your devices swap inbetween WiFi networks easily, and that devices tend to be stuck with already connected WiFi until it literally will be unreachable. I want my devices swap inbetween two routers seamlessly, that's the sole reason Im looking into mesh systems.

 

About the dimensions, not really sure the exact numbers, but its around 300 m² in total (Im guessing 150 m² for each floor ).

 

[Needfuldoer]

5 minutes ago, ImGK said:

My current routers are: ISP provided modem on the first floor and old Asus router on the second. I want to purchase WiFi 6 routers (for future proofing) for both floors, and turn of WiFi on the ISP modem (because its not as fast as I want). 

And what are their model numbers? If that "old Asus router" is too old, or was a base model for its time, it may not have Gigabit Ethernet ports so anything that has to pass through its wired connections would be caped at 100 meg.

 

7 minutes ago, ImGK said:

I dont want to put access points, because I heard that AP's doesnt let your devices swap inbetween WiFi networks easily, and that devices tend to be stuck with already connected WiFi until it literally will be unreachable. I want my devices swap inbetween two routers seamlessly, that's the sole reason Im looking into mesh systems.

When they're set up properly (not screaming at 100% power), on the same network, and with the same SSID, they'll present as one WiFi network and hopping between them should be seamless.

 

8 minutes ago, ImGK said:

About the dimensions, not really sure the exact numbers, but its around 300 m² in total (Im guessing 150 m² for each floor ).

That's a big house.  Without knowing the layout and construction, I couldn't tell you where exactly to put the APs / mesh node things. In general, you should only need a couple access points no matter what kind they are.

 

If you do gt a mesh system, you don't need a node in every room. You'll also want a system that uses wired connections, or at least dedicated channels, for backhaul. (Essentially the same thing as setting up access points properly.)

[Poinkachu]

2 hours ago, ImGK said:

Hello everyone.

 

Im quite new to setting up home networking. My current home networking situation is quite old: ISP provided modem on the first floor with separate WiFi network and the WiFi 4 router on the second floor with separate WiFi network. I am not getting the internet speed I am paying for (500Mb/sec - max in my country for now) with this setup, AND I have to manually swap my WiFi connection every time I go to different floor, so I want to upgrade the whole networking system in my house. I want faster internet connection and want my phone and other devices to swap automatically the WiFi connection node. As I was looking up in Internet, Asus routers have a feature called AiMesh, and I dont fully get the difference of it from other dedicated Mesh system in the market. So the choice I have right now is buying 2 separate Asus routers (that supports WiFi 6 and AiMesh) or buy 2 piece Mesh system (that also supports WiFi 6). 

 

Can someone explain if there is any difference in practical daily usage between those two, and what should I go with?

 

Thank you!

Pretty sure that ASUS's AiMesh is simply just a name for their mesh ecosystem.

I am using it at home, so far nothing that seemingly done by AI about it.

 

The name pretty much around since before AI stuffs gets hyped to hell and back.

[ImGK]

14 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

And what are their model numbers? If that "old Asus router" is too old, or was a base model for its time, it may not have Gigabit Ethernet ports so anything that has to pass through its wired connections would be caped at 100 meg.

Yes, the Asus router on second floor is 100 Mb capped, that's why I want to upgrade everything.

 

17 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Without knowing the layout and construction, I couldn't tell you where exactly to put the APs / mesh node things. In general, you should only need a couple access points no matter what kind they are.

I already have the spot for them in both floors, which occupies the whole floor.

18 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

If you do gt a mesh system, you don't need a node in every room. You'll also want a system that uses wired connections, or at least dedicated channels, for backhaul. (Essentially the same thing as setting up access points properly.)

I am not planning to put nodes in every room, there will be only 1 per floor, and the ethernet cable is already set up for this, it goes from first floor modem to second floor router.

20 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

When they're set up properly (not screaming at 100% power), on the same network, and with the same SSID, they'll present as one WiFi network and hopping between them should be seamless.

Are you sure about that? I thought the feature of Mesh systems is that they share the same network inbetween themselves, while putting two separate routers with the same SSID will spread two different networks, but with the same name, and that will prevent devices from automatically connecting to the closest network.

[ImGK]

8 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Pretty sure that ASUS's AiMesh is simply just a name for their mesh ecosystem.

I am using it at home, so far nothing that seemingly done by AI about it.

 

The name pretty much around since before AI stuffs gets hyped to hell and back.

So there is no difference between them (I know that AI part of AiMesh doesnt mean anything AI related, I was asking about the difference in features of those)? 

 

If that's the case, I will look up what's the best deal then. Thank you!

[Needfuldoer]

3 minutes ago, ImGK said:

Are you sure about that?

Yes. That's how corporate AP deployments work. It's no different in principle from a mesh WiFi solution with wired backhaul.

 

All of your device-facing access points should have one SSID and connect to the same network. Otherwise you're just recreating your existing setup, where each floor is its own network.

 

4 minutes ago, ImGK said:

I thought the feature of Mesh systems is that they share the same network inbetween themselves, while putting two separate routers with the same SSID will spread two different networks, but with the same name, and that will prevent devices from automatically connecting to the closest network.

You're describing how mesh nodes work without wired backhaul connections; they connect to each other over their own private WiFi network to pass traffic. You want to avoid that because it's just more WiFi noise.

[ImGK]

11 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Yes. That's how corporate AP deployments work. It's no different in principle from a mesh WiFi solution with wired backhaul.

 

All of your device-facing access points should have one SSID and connect to the same network. Otherwise you're just recreating your existing setup, where each floor is its own network.

Oh okay, thank you a lot! Didn't know that it was this easy.

[Needfuldoer]

1 minute ago, ImGK said:

Oh okay, thank you a lot! Didn't know that it was this easy.

Just make sure the WiFi access points are just WiFi access points, not routers! You only want one router per network unless you're building a huge network with multiple subnets.