Anyone use AiMesh?

[96Firebird]

Curious as to its reliability, as well as its ease of use? Here is my plan...

Current setup is a Linksys E3000 that I've had for a pretty long time... I also have a Linksys N600 Pro range extender. Router is located in my office, which is on a corner of my 1600sq. ft. house on the second floor. In that room is also my main PC hooked up via ethernet, and a TV that is hooked up to wifi. No problem getting 4K streaming on that TV. Bedroom is the next room over, also has a TV hooked up to wifi with no issues streaming 4K.

The problem I am having now is the range extender doesn't seem to be working well, and the living room TV and PC are having a hard time connecting (these are on the opposite side of the house on the first floor). The PC in the living room is on the floor, so I think this is part of the problem. It is using a crappy USB wifi adapter, which might be interfering with my RF wireless Logitech K700 keyboard.

My plan right now is to get 2 refurbished T-Mobile AC-1900 routers, flash the firmware so they replicate the ASUS RT68U routers, then setup AiMesh. One router would be in the office (hooked up to modem), the other would go in the living room. Connect the living room TV and PC via ethernet, get rid of the USB adapter.

Am I understanding AiMesh correctly, that it could handle this situation? As well as boost signal for wifi devices on the other side of the house?

I also have an 8TB WD EasyStore external HDD, those can just be connected to either router and be accessed by any device on the network, correct?

Thanks for any help.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I believe that you are correct in your plan. I would be interested in the outcome.

Also, I don't know if you can plug in the external HDD into "either" router. In a Mesh setup, I don't know if they proxy NAS access, and since the "mesh" is supposed to be transparent, I wouldn't be all that surprised if it only worked when the HDD was plugged into the "primary" router.

 

[IamDavid]

AiMesh is hands down the coolest, most useful new tech I've used in a few years. I use a GT-AC5300 AiMeshed together with a RT-AC5300 and have eliminated 100% of all wireless issues in my 3,100sqft home. Multiple TV's stream 4K netflix while 20+ other devices all do their thing, all with NO hiccups or dead-spots. Once setup the entire system is EXTREMELY simple for everyone. 1 Network to connect to with 1 password. ASUS killed it with this setup. 100% recommend.

Since march 1st we've used 525.78GB of data.

And yes, the hard drives can be connected to any of the routers.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

I've tried to look up some info on asus' site, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what it is, exactly.

To me it just looks like repeater/access point stuff. In a nutshell, is that all it is?

 

[IamDavid]

I've tried to look up some info on asus' site, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what it is, exactly.

To me it just looks like repeater/access point stuff. In a nutshell, is that all it is?

Yes in the simplest form. I've had negative experiences in the past with other setups. ASUS crushed it with AiMesh.

 

[96Firebird]

I bought a couple of refurb'd ASUS RT-AC68U routers from Newegg's eBay site when they had that 20% off on President's Day, $80 each. Got them set up with AiMesh tonight, seems to be working pretty well. It allows me to connect my living room PC via ethernet with ease, I also have my TV and Xbox One S hooked up to the node via ethernet. Gives me ample wifi coverage as well. Real easy to set up. Just update the firmware, let the AiMesh set up, and its done.

I'll update if there are any issues, but so far so good. I'll also try putting the external drive on the node router to see if it works.

 

[sonitravel09]

AIMesh does have a bonus where like eero it supports ethernet backhaul. But as I said the RC-AC5300 doesn't support AIMesh yet. A better model would be the Asus RT-86U in turns of performance and price.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

AIMesh does have a bonus where like eero it supports ethernet backhaul. But as I said the RC-AC5300 doesn't support AIMesh yet. A better model would be the Asus RT-86U in turns of performance and price.

FYI - the RT-AC5300 got official AiMesh support as of the 1/26/2018 firmware:

https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/RT-AC5300/HelpDesk_BIOS/

I seriously contemplated going this route or with the RT-86U to add to my 68U, but I decided to grab a Ubiquiti AP to play with instead for my garage.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Any more recent feedback on AiMesh?

Any chance that Asus has implemented AiMesh support into the firmware of the AC66U (pre-B1 version), or the AC1750? (Both of those are original AC66U hardware platforms, as I understand it, whereas the AC66U B1 is equivalent to the AC68U/R/AC1900 platform hardware.)

If they enabled the AC1750 to have AiMesh, that would be really sweet, because those are only $45 or so right now refurb from Newegg and on ebay. AC68U/R/AC1900 are mostly no-where to be found, save for a few scalpers.

 

[razel]

Avoid the Asus T-Mobile version of the AC68. AiMesh is not official on it,. Asus knows and it's just getting harder and harder to keep it up to date. Spend the extra few dollars for a real AC68 to avoid the headache which MicroCenter has on sale in the low $100s. Luckily Asus also knows it needs to lower the entry price for AiMesh and their AC66 rev B1 which can be had in the ~$60 off ebay now has official support.

I have benchmarked AiMesh using the GT-AC5300 to a RT-AC86 (4 stream 1733mb/s) and it's wireless MESH bandwidth still needs improvement. Even the Google WiFi (2 stream 866mb/s) has higher bandwidth most of the time. I'm have no doubt that ASUS will improve it over time. What's more important though is continued firmware update for security updates.

I also suspect an open MESH standard across vendors. There already is one and 2 systems apparently are based on it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Avoid the Asus T-Mobile version of the AC68. AiMesh is not official on it,. Asus knows and it's just getting harder and harder to keep it up to date.

Yeah, I had figured that out, from reading reports that the newest Asus firmware updates were REVERTING the "converted" T-Mobile routers back to TM-1900 units.