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[Brad Johnson]

Amazon has the ASUS AC1900P marked down to $69.95.

https://a.co/d/hnL8jYH

Thinking of snagging one for the basement and setting it up using ASUS's AiMesh feature, a (hopefully) simple fix for occasionally spotty basement wifi. I have unused ports on the basement switch so backhaul will be via cabled connection.

Comments? Downsides?

Brad

[MillCreek]

That is the same router I have and it has performed excellently.  Our house is 2200 square feet on one level, so I get a great signal throughout the house and into the yard.  I have therefore never looked into the AiMesh feature.

[RocketMan]

We have an Asus AC1900P as our main router.  It's a good piece of kit, lots of nice features, good range in our big house, and there is plenty of good third-party firmware available for it if that's where you want to go with it.
If I am not mistaken, the firmware Asus has been providing of late is an offshoot of third-party Merlin for Asus routers.

[Brad Johnson]

I already have an AC1900 as my primary router because you buncha reprobates recommended it t. Has worked very well. That's why the sale price caught my eye.

Wifi in the basement is okay-ish, but if I can make it solid with a modestly priced PnP solution then why not?

Brad

[RocketMan]

I already have an AC1900 as my primary router because you buncha reprobates recommended it t. Has worked very well. That's why the sale price caught my eye.

Wifi in the basement is okay-ish, but if I can make it solid with a modestly priced PnP solution then why not?

Brad

Absolutely, go for it.  That's what I would do if I had the need.  I've got a spare Asus RT-ACRH12 that can do the AiMesh stuff.  Were I ever need that for coverage in the basement or elsewhere, I wouldn't hesitate to use it in that mode with the AC1900.

[Brad Johnson]

Done. Took longer to manage cables than to do the AiMesh setup. Super simple. Couple of clicks. Maybe five minutes, most of which was watching the process counter spin.

Also took the opportunity to set up a guest network. May never use it but at least it's there.

Brad

[Ben]

Also took the opportunity to set up a guest network. May never use it but at least it's there.

Brad

I find guest networks good if not for guests, then for "smart stuff" in your home. I keep things like smart thermostats, my water purification system, etc. isolated on the guest network for added security.

[Jim147]

I wish I could test the range on one of these before I buy one.

Over the winter they finally ran fiber out to us rednecks. They come to hook me up Wednesday. My current setup is the phone companies BEC DSL modem/router combo with three big antennas pointing the over 100 yards to the cabin with an old Hawkin antenna in an even older prime star dish mounted on the outside feeding a custom Pi.

I don't think the new little cube fiber modem will make it this far. I'm hoping I can talk him into hooking the current modem into the new modem and let me take care of things but I'm not sure the company will let him and he doesn't like me. If I call he knows he has to work because I have been all the way out to box to try to fix it myself.

He set up a good friend of mine as the first install and told him I would be last because my network is a pain in the butt for him to understand. He doesn't understand that it is very easy if he just gets it inside the house and leaves me alone.

[Brad Johnson]

No way to bridge the new modem and have it feed the existing setup?

If it's like my parents' rural fiber feed, it'll be fiber to some type of gateway box with an ethernet jack (singular).

Brad

[Jim147]

It's over 100 yards so not sure it will reach. The techs at the phone company tell me it's impossible to be doing what I have been doing since 2008. 

[Brad Johnson]

It's over 100 yards so not sure it will reach. The techs at the phone company tell me it's impossible to be doing what I have been doing since 2008. 

So the fiber isn't to your house, but rather to some nearby location?

Brad

[Jim147]

It's at the house in my office. I spend most of my time in the cabin on down the road from the house.

[Brad Johnson]

If memory serves, TP-Link makes a directional wifi setup. They claim some kind of stupid long distance, miles and miles, so maybe it's a simple turn-key setup that would make easy work of getting your cabin connected. No experience with it, though. I don't even know if they still make it.

At some point in the last year or two I think Linus Tech Tips did a review on Ubiquity equipment which gave amazingly long range. Several hundred meters if I recall correctly. I have zero experience with Ubiquity equipment, though.

Brad

[Brad Johnson]

Also, ever thought about cutting in a hard line? Direct-buriable CAT 6 cable is surprisingly inexpensive, less than $200 for a 500' spool, and an 18" trencher rents for around $60 per half day.

Brad