hap ac3 - worse than hap lite?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hey guys. Installed three friends with hap ac3. One had hap ac lite, another two had hap lite.
With the same capsman config wireless coverage of hap ac3 is worse than hap lite. I begin to suspect maybe there’s something wrong with antennas?
I did not switch it on without antennas. Had the latest 6.47.10 longterm, now updated to 6.48.5. Switched off data rates optimizations. Tried low tx power, highest - doesnt matter..
With 8-12 dbm at 2.4 GHz client barely see network in another room and can’t connect, but those antennas has pretty good gain…
One installation is a country house, other is an apartment, but result is the same. I can always assume that it’s my screw up, but where?
Mikrotik, what could it be?

/caps-man channel
add band=5ghz-n/ac control-channel-width=20mhz extension-channel=Ce frequency=5180,5220,5260,5300,5660,5700,5745,5785 name=5ghz-auto40 reselect-interval=1d save-selected=yes tx-power=22
add band=2ghz-g/n control-channel-width=20mhz extension-channel=disabled frequency=2412,2437,2462 name=2ghz-auto20 reselect-interval=1d save-selected=yes tx-power=18
/caps-man datapath
add client-to-client-forwarding=yes local-forwarding=yes name=local
/caps-man rates
add basic=12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps ht-basic-mcs=mcs-0,mcs-1,mcs-2,mcs-3,mcs-4,mcs-5,mcs-6,mcs-7 ht-supported-mcs=\
    mcs-0,mcs-1,mcs-2,mcs-3,mcs-4,mcs-5,mcs-6,mcs-7,mcs-8,mcs-9,mcs-10,mcs-11,mcs-12,mcs-13,mcs-14,mcs-15 name=newrates supported=12Mbps,18Mbps,24Mbps,36Mbps,48Mbps,54Mbps vht-basic-mcs=\
    "" vht-supported-mcs=""
/caps-man security
add authentication-types=wpa2-psk disable-pmkid=yes encryption=aes-ccm group-encryption=aes-ccm group-key-update=1h name=SSID passphrase=superpassword
/caps-man configuration
add channel=2ghz-auto20 country=russia3 datapath=local distance=indoors guard-interval=long hw-protection-mode=cts-to-self hw-retries=10 installation=any keepalive-frames=enabled mode=ap \
    multicast-helper=disabled name=SSID rx-chains=0,1,2,3 security=SSID ssid=SSID tx-chains=0,1,2,3
add channel=5ghz-auto40 country=russia3 datapath=local distance=indoors guard-interval=any hw-protection-mode=cts-to-self hw-retries=10 installation=any keepalive-frames=enabled mode=ap \
    multicast-helper=disabled name=SSID-5 rx-chains=0,1,2,3 security=SSID ssid=SSID tx-chains=0,1,2,3
/caps-man manager
set enabled=yes package-path=/ upgrade-policy=suggest-same-version
/caps-man manager interface
set [ find default=yes ] forbid=yes
add disabled=no interface=bridge-lan
/caps-man provisioning
add action=create-dynamic-enabled hw-supported-modes=ac,an master-configuration=SSID-5 name-format=prefix-identity name-prefix=5GHz-
add action=create-dynamic-enabled hw-supported-modes=gn master-configuration=SSID name-format=prefix-identity name-prefix=2GHz-
2

With 8-12 dbm at 2.4 GHz client barely see network in another room and can’t connect, but those antennas has pretty good gain…

Can’t help with CapsMan (no experience) , and I don’t have a hAP ac3.

But still, reading specs, and based on high gain experiments indoor …

On 2.4 GHz the antenna gain is
hAP Lite = 1.5 dBi
hAP ac Lite = 2 dBi
hAP ac3 = 3 dBi
… not much difference. Should give no practical difference in signal at the client. What signal strength is in the “registration table” on the AP? And what CCQ ? (probaby a low value, like 60% or lower)

High gain antenna’s (like +16 dBi) transmit lower TX power overall, if limited by the regulator. (e.g. 20 dBm EIRP), because the peak transmitpower sets that limit. (EIRP is calculated as if the peak direction power is transmitted in all directions, the “I” in “EIRP” from isotropic. The antenna transmit less energy in the non-peak directions. And that low overall TX power does not favor passing walls. It is difficult to find the good angle for the antenna, as the signal path is unknown if there is no LoS.

3

Don’t bother looking for a fix to your setup. hAP AC3 just sucks for some reason. Maybe they will fix it in a future RouterOS version.
http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/hap-ac/143358/28

4

Capsman is pretty much the same, but with provision.

On 2.4 GHz the antenna gain is
hAP Lite = 1.5 dBi
hAP ac Lite = 2 dBi
hAP ac3 = 3 dBi

Audience has 3.5 gain, but there’s a huge difference in my experience. Cant wait to test new cap ac xl

I know there’s no much point of setting high tx power, but try and explain to user that “more bars doesn’t have anything to do with wifi quality”. Also in apartment installation there’s kitchen over the wall from the room mikrotik sitting in and network is barely visible without high tx values. And no, there’s no microwave working.
Currently at night there’s overall CCQ 90-100% in the country house and around 75-80% in apartment for 2.4 ghz. And its totally normal for each of them, considering environment.
Why I set a topic like this: in the apartment there was hap lite before hap ac3 and it covered the whole area and it was at the same spot. I love abbreviations like EIRP, but can you tell me why tiny onboard antennas worked better than huge dipole antennas? Same room, same spot, nothing has changed. And there’s 3 of those hap ac3 routers we have problems with in that way.

5

Exactly! But there won’t be any fix until problem is massive and acknowledged. Meanwhile we have a beautiful huge piece of soft-touch plastic that can do anything except wifi. The most common question from user is: why tplink or zyxel worked better with wifi?

6

It’s like listening to the music sitting close to big speakers. You do not hear better … It’s only louder … that is why it has no sense to be close to the speakers during concerts :slight_smile:

7

Agreed. But the big problem is that there’s a concert at every front porch in the street, all the speakers are set to maximum loudness … so the solution is to wear protective earmuffs and sit near the speakers. :wink:

8

Oh it looks like you never been at russian club party. There are special type of people that love to stand RIGHT INFRONT of a speaker. Perhaps they love that type of massage IDK. I usually try and explain that you can hear TV tower signal from many miles away with your phone\radio, doesnt mean you can answer it at that distance. And you can turn your router into microwave oven, doesnt mean that’s good for data transfer.

9

Lazy ones … they do not even try to dance waitng to be shaken with sound waves :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

10

Hello!

I’ve run into the same issue and was initially very disappointed by the hap ac3 and made me appreciate my trusted old hap ac even more.
In order to get much better wifi performance out of the hap ac3 you will need to install ROS v7 and the wifiwave2 package. This enables mu-mimo, beam forming and all the fancy stuff which makes the hap ac3 outperform the other haps. Sadly this also means that you can’t use capsman.

11

Why not ?
I have SXT LTE running with 7.1rc4 acting as capsman. Works just fine with cAP AC and cAP Lite behind it (both still on v6.48.3, or is that what your comment is about ?).

12

Capsman at this time, cannot manage radios using the wave2 package.

13

Ah ! That makes sense but will only be a matter of time.

14

The best answer.
I read everything about rb4011igs + 5hacq2hnd-in that is written negatively on this forum and thought that it is not so. And the Microtic supports told me that everything is fine with the router and that everything is fixed in the new version of the firmware.
After the purchase the same mistakes occurred to me as it occurred to people on the forum.
Nothing is fixed. Fortunately, I have the right to return the router, which I did.

Trust the people on the forum :slight_smile:

15

There is nothing wrong with the router, it is a very good router.
MT wifi works but is underpowered (the home variety) and thus most folks here do not recommend MT home wifi, its like WIFI5 but pre 2015.
I use TPLINK eap245 and 660 for my home wifi for example.

16

I thought we had a deal … you were supposed to throw your eap245 in azimuth direction of 59° real hard and I’ll catch it …

17

I wonder why my PC signal strength with the older device is better…
Screenshot 2023-04-04 145353.png
I expected this device to be more reachable in distance and fill more black holes with more than twice the gain of the antenna… but it has almost same reachability

18

Almost 1.5 years later this thread gets resurrected…

Are both devices running the same ROS version and same country settings ?
There have been quite a bit of changes in ROS versions w.r.t. legal limits on how much power the radio can use for transmitting depending on country and channel used.
Also, on AC3 (when using ROS7) you have the option to use wifiwave2 which is quite a difference when comparing to legacy wifi hap lite uses.
(less TX power yet better performance)

Ps and I just notice it’s already THIS long anav promised to toss a TL EAP towards mkx…

19

And one would think the World could trust Canadians …

20

I’m using RouterOS 7,
If they limit it why should I pay for higher gain? It’s like you build a car that goes up to 400 KM/H, and you go out there and announce that our car goes 400KM/H, and then you set a limiter inside the card, that only allows 100KM, even if it is used in the race it still won’t go more than 100. If I knew the antenna and the higher gain had no effect, I would wait for AX3.

I paid for two things, and Mikrotik failed me in both of them. One was that they said my hap-lite limited CPU power cannot parse the OpenVPN certificate, and after upgrade, I still couldn’t connect, due to well Mikrotik saying the Certificate keys has an incorrect signature. which in Windows work just fine.
And another, to have better gain and more reach. now that I have both devices side by side, I can tell my old cheap hap-lite most of the time connects before my AC3, and It has fewer black hole and more reach inside of our home

I think in this bargain all I paid for and got, was the black shell with a cool design. nothing else.