Wifi repeater for hap ax3

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hi,
I already use my hap ac lite as a repeater and I just got now a new hap ax3 which I want to replace it with.
I would like to make my Mikrotik hap ax3 as a WiFi repeater of another 2.4Ghz WiFi.
I followed different tutorial but none of them work so far, even chatgpt 4 didnt help.

I manage to create a wifi as a station which connects to source WiFi but the bridging doesnt succeed, or I dont get ip from repeated WiFi from the router. I see the repeated wifi but device cnat connect to it. To test that my station wifi connects to source wifi I see there is up time and signal strength.

I have followed tutorials for doing the same process on Mikrotik hap ac lite and it has succeeded.

In my old Mikrotik with OS version 6.49.6 I have the option in wireless to do ‘Setup repeater’.
In my new Mikrotik this option is not available, it has version 7.8.
Also running
/interface wireless setup-repeater wlan1'
based on documentation: https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/Wireless+Interface#WirelessInterface-Repeater
gives error:
bad command name wireless (line 1 column 12)
Any help would be appreciated
Thank you for your time

2

I have similar problem. I guess that new hAP ax3 uses different type of WiFi (Wave2) and they are not working together.
I wanted to use CAPsMAN to connect both, but then I found that on new ax router has no CAP interface.
Now I’m thinking to whom to sell new router.

3

AX (and by extension wifiwave2 devices) can not act as repeater.
Yet ? That’s the question.

Capsman for wifiwave2 IS available. Parts of it still via CLI, but it is there.


Pllleeaase … did you seriously think chatgpt was going to solve that problem ?

4

I contacted support and they told me this info:

Unfortunately, WifiWave2 doesn’t support AP-bridge/station-bridge modes which help with wireless bridging. Station-wds or station-pseudobridge is not supported either. Meaning you have to use wireless interface as layer 3 interface - with separate subnet, dhcp-server, and routes will be need to setup on device who’s wireless you want to extend.

The overall idea is:

  1. set the wireless interface as AP, configure IP address on it, and DHCP server

  2. create a virtual wireless interface that will act as a station and will connect to the original AP, configure the DHCP client on this interface

  3. configure the original AP to have a route that will point to the subnet you created in step 1, so traffic can reach these clients.

you can configure the physical wireless interface as station instead, and use the virtual interface as AP - this comes down to preference, if you set AP mode on physical interface, it must match the frequency that is used by the original AP.

I am trying to check if I can achieve smth, otherwise I will return the router to the seller.

And yes I try all tools, including chatgpt to find a solution

5



1.5 years, 8K views later…

You only option is to keep the station and run an EoIP running over it to bridge the Wi-Fi.
http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/using-wifiwave2-to-bridge-two-audience-wirelessly-thoughts-4-address-mode/153357/1
(note: VXLAN shown, but it has more overhead than EoIP- same steps, just create EoIP interfaces instead of VXLANs)

6

You only option is to keep the station and run an EoIP running over it to bridge the Wi-Fi.

but this means that the main Wi-Fi to be extended should be from a Mikrotik router, I want to extend Fritzbox

7

Didn’t say it was a great one. But it this kinda approach that Mikrotik is suggesting.

If they’re using OpenWRT… maybe there is a VXLAN package. Or, L2TP in bridge mode might also work with Fritzbox.

8

Essentially: if you don’t have much (or any) flexibility on the other end, then you can’t use any of wifiwave2 products[*] as WiFi repeater / range extender. Older ones work because there are alternative modes (station-pseudobridge or station-pseudobridge-clone) available which may get things working. wifiwave2 driver doesn’t support any of those modes, it only supports station mode (and ap mode), but that one can’t be used in this scenario.

[*] This list includes all devices which run wifiwave2 driver as opposed to (legacy) wireless driver. In particular: any ax devices which require to run wifiwave2 driver or any ac device which can optionally run wifiwave2 driver. The later are fine as WiFi repeaters as long as legacy wireless driver is used.

9

But I’d 100% agree with this:

Maybe the best advice is to return the ax3. Perhaps upgrade your older router to V7 if there was some new feature you needed.

L3 tunneling of L2 is a fun experiment on a device that actually doesn’t require wifiwave2 like the Audience, and while wifiwave2 was in “beta” – but it’s a bit ridiculous to see support offering L3 routing as the “recommended” approach for a device that’s purportedly “the perfect device for 99% of homes”.

And MT does not even acknowledge this as an active bug being worked on from my reading of the support email above…