I can’t pretend I’ve been to your home, Eric. All I can say is mixing hardware is always tricky — more here. Multi-Gig need hardware grade throughout. You don’t need to worry about the channel of each unit in a mesh system. And you can use Dual-Wan for your situation.

Good luck!

I’m trying to fix/expand my Aimesh. Currently running two RT-AX92s in the attic North side of the house, near the ends of the house one East and one West on wired backhaul.

I’m currently on a limited budget, so no RT-BE96 this month :-), although I may keep an eye out for a Black Friday type deal.

My main goal is to get rid of dead spots caused by “Tile on Cement Board” wall, Brick Chimney in the middle of the house, Asbestos siding on the house, “Plaster on Lath” walls, the fact that as a long narrow house nearly anything in a different room goes through 2-3 walls with at least one at a sharp angle, and my favorite… Cement Block garage construction…

With the odd combination of 5Ghz and 6Ghz bands available, my current thought is to put something like an ASUS RT-AXE7800 as the main router, use a multi-gig switch like a TrendNet TEG-S762 between the main and the nodes along with Ethernet directly to my main 3 computers, then use my 1G Powerline adapters out to the detached garage and the AC5300. I have Fiber for primary WAN and thinking of using a TP-Link AC travel Router with my AT&T FirstNet MyFi as a secondary WAN, although I could also convert a Pi4 to a PiRouter for that.

I was just given an RT-AC5300 for my garage (planning to run on Powerline 1G I currently own) to add Alexa, music streaming, and the ability to install smart garage door openers and smart lights, but I’m currently experiencing a struggle in my office because of masonry in the walls/house, so I was thinking of adding a new “heart” of the system in the office, running the AX92s as nodes where they currently are, mounting the AC5300 high enough above the concrete block in the garage that it can provide coverage inside the garage and extend my outdoor range, and using a WiFi 6e or WiFi7 as the brains of the outfit.

If I put the AC5300 above the block, the two AX-92s still in the attic on the North half of the house at East and West ends, and the new WiFi 6e or WiFi 7 router in the office South half in the middle of the length, does that seem reasonable? Would you hold off on the new router until someone offers an ASUS WiFi 7 (BE) router at under $400?

If I do this, with everything on virtual wired backhaul can I put the different 5GHz router bands on different channels, or do I need to have at least one match across the 4 routers to make it work? I guess same question on 2.4GHz… Can I make the two AX92s run on, say channel 1, and the other two run on, say, channel 9 or 11, to reduce congestion? While the houses in the area are close to each other, with all of the old-school construction, the congestion isn’t actually that bad.

Thanks Dong. I guess it would follow the locale of main router.

I will experiment with the RT-AX86U Pro (China) using the following modes:
1) Wireless router mode
2) AiMesh mode (paired with main router with non-China locale)

I will report back after measuring the dBm of respective modes.

Thanks.

They generally all follow the local regulations on wireless spectrum, Jeff.

I have a GT-AX6000 (Asia, default), running on Asuswrt-merlin firmware and a RT-AX86U Pro (China, default), running latest stock firmware.

AiMesh, ethernet backhaul, GT-AX6000 as main router, RT-AX86U Pro as AiMesh node.

Would the AiMesh node be broadcasting WiFi with transmission power level regulated by China? or would it follow that of the main router?

Thank you.

Check out this post on a real-world mixed Router + AiMesh in AP mode setup, Anish. And also this one on general tips on mixing hardware.

Hi Dong
Thanks for your reply. I have been studying your posts on AiMesh and having doing a lot of research on setting up the routers in various modes. Lots of interesting results are being observed. I am preparing a list to share with you one day. In the meanwhile, do you have any post that talks on the differences between an AiMesh configuration vs Router+AP configuration. So while I can connect one primary node and rest as satellites in AiMesh arrangement, I can have one primary Asus routers and the satellites connected to the primary in AP mode rather than AiMesh. Since I have wired backhauling , hence I have all these options open.

I’d say number #1 is the correct, Anish. And that’s also the case when you follow the setup guide.

You can use up to 10 nodes (router included) total, Rui. It’s just a matter of coverage. For the other question, check out the roaming part in this post.