I am looking for an access point with the following key points:
Let’s me set the 5 GHz channel width to 40 MHz instead of 80.
Has an as consistent 5 GHz connection as humanly possible. At a distance of about 2 - 3 meters.
Is high speed. I’ll be pushing 120 Mbit per second encoded H.265 video through it for hours on end.
Broadcasts it’s own network. I only want one device connected to it, which is my VR headset. (no extending)
Let’s me plug it in wherever I want in my LAN without having to set it up again (as long as an Ethernet cable is available). Being able to easily move it from time to time is a huge bonus.
Which one would you guys recommend?
I know this is a use case for 802.11 ad but the Oculus Quest VR headset simply does not support ad. It must be a 5 GHz network.
I was looking at the hAP ac² and wAP ac for this. The wAP ac has my attention the most because of 1300 vs 867 Mbps 5 GHz connection speed. Yet it’s marketed as an outdoor AP so I’m not sure if it’s ideal for my use case.
That’s quite a workload. I might recommend the RB962UiGS-5HacT2HnT as it’s got triple chain wireless and runs on a proven MIPSBE processor. I also might suggest the RB4011iGS+5HacQ2HnD-IN as it will also be capable of your needs, just make sure you stay on top of upgrading the firmware on it.
Thank you for the suggestion. Why are you recommending the hAP ac over the hAP ac2? Surely the ac2 is a worthy successor, right? The RB4011iGS+5HacQ2HnD-IN is also way too expensive and bulky for what I’ll be using it. Moving it from point A to B and back weekly needs to be easy.
The workload is heavy, but nothing insane. I currently have a AVM FRITZ! Repeater 1750E which is almost perfect for this job with one issue: it doesn’t let me adjust the channel width of 5 GHz. It has 1.3 Gbps 5GHz, the same spec as the wAP ac. I ordered the wAP ac. I’ll update this post with my results if anyone every is in the same boat as me.
This is all just based on my opinion, but recently I’ve noticed that MikroTik has published more fixes to the ARM processor than their other platforms. This suggests to me that their ARM products are stabilizing while their MIPSBE processors are considered more stable. Again this is just my opinion. The hAP ac2 may be a very good wireless router for your application. I think I agree with your opinion about the 4011. I suggested it because the external antennas will ensure a reliable connection. Let us know what you choose, I look forward to hearing back.
I’m setting up the wAP ac right now. I set a password, disabled 2 GHz, set 20/40 channel width on 5 GHz. Everything works nicely, except for the actual access point part: There is data flowing from my PC to the AP which doesn’t seem to get through. The streaming client I’m using says “Not on the same network”. I have had an access pointer/repeater in the exact same setup so it must be some of the settings in the wAP. I hope the wAP is capable of this. It’s set as “ap bridge” and bridge mode is enabled so it should be. Currently tweaking and trying.
I got it working… somewhat. I disable 2 GHz in webfig. Then I set everything I want in QuickSet: WPA2, 20/40 Ce, etc. In here I have to chose “Bridge” and not “Router”. Because in router mode, my PC cannot find the wireless connected VR headset inside the local network. In bridge it does. However I have an issue where I cannot get in RouterOS after I set this bridge mode. Not via the MikroTik app either (even after connecting again to the MikroTik AP).
So I played in bridge mode for a little bit. The connection was terrible. I wonder if this “bridge mode” is like a repeater and just sending the signal coming from my router over wifi.
Don’t use Quick Set. Reset your wAP and discard the default configuration. Use Winbox.exe to configure your wAP.
Go to Wireless and disable wlan1. Set your wireless settings for wlan2; SSID etc. Set the mode to ap-bridge and set the Frequency mode and country so that you can control output power of wAP by using the Antenna Gain setting.
Create a bridge and put ether1 and wlan2 in the bridge
Go to IP>Addresses and set a static IP address for the bridge
Go to IP>Pool and set a range of IP’s in the same subnet as the bridge IP for the router dhcp server to give out
Go to IP>DHCP Server and make the bridge the DHCP server using the pool you created .
Reboot
Your wAP should now give out IP’s to any device connected by wireless or ethernet. Your PC should be able to see the VR headset. If you are very close to the wAP then you may want to reduce power output for best performance.
When you get things working then go back into wireless and create a security profile for wlan2.
I haven’t been able to correctly set it up yet as I have a few questions:
wlan2 in the bridge shows as a disabled port. How do I enable it? Right-clicking > Enable does not work. The WiFi interface wlan2 is enabled.
0.5. After setting up the setting like you said, I reboot it and I cannot find it anymore. It’s not appearing in my wifi connections on my pc nor can WinBox find it under “Neighbors”.
How do I discard the default configuration? I only know of resetting the device by holding the reset button for 5 seconds which loads the default configuration. I’m deleting the defconf bridge, dhcp, … if that’s what you meant.
I set the Antenna Gain to 2 dBi.This should be the lowest allowed in my country. I think lowest is best for my use case, since I’ll be 2 meters away from the AP, right?
I need to permit UDP/9944 to the firewall. Is this something I’ll have to set too, or will it work out of the box?
I managed to set it up like you said. Yet for some reason, I cannot access the winbox settings. Nothing shows up under neighbors and connecting to 192.168.88.1 fails too. Either way, I tested it without setting the security profile and performance is terrible. The link speed is at 400 Mbitps. The connection stutters frequently. I will be returning the device. Thank you for your help tho.
