I’m looking to setup a Mesh system at home and as I’m running a RB1100AHx2 at home I was taking a look at what devices from Mikrotik I could use for that purpose.
From what I’ve read, it looks like my best fit would be the Audience (https://mikrotik.com/product/audience), but I have some doubts so it would be great if people with experience could share their feedback:
I am assuming I could integrate Audience device with my RB1100AHx2, so that I can log into my router and configure everything from the RouterOS instance running in my main router (I’ve read devices come by default with a default configuration that can be reset, so I take it I can “link” them to my main router). Is this correct?
From my understanding, meshing in Mikrotik is kind of different from other systems (TP Link, Netgear, Linksys…) as it’s implemented through propietary routing protocol HWMP+. Correct?
From what I’ve seen, compared to other systems, Audience is kind of outdated (no wave2, no Audience model with Wifi AX)
Given these facts, I am considering whether to go for an Audience setup vs an AX setup with TP Link for instance (in bridge mode since I want my router to do the NAT)
Pros:
Mikrotik ecosystem, compatibility should be fine
Single management from a central console
Very tweakable settings/behaviour (compared to other vendors). This is one of the things I love about Mikrotik.
Cons:
Limited features (I think not even beamforming?)
Not sure how HWMP+ compared to recent mesh systems from other vendors
I know the answer to this is kind of subjective, but it would be really useful having feedback from people to be able to build a full picture in my mind before making my decision.
You know that MESH and MESH is not the same ?
Joking apart, each vendor these days has its one view on what MESH means and how it is implemented.
Mikrotik MESH is along the original MESH idea, creating a big wireless networks that self organises it regardless of topology.
It is not doing any optimisation on the Wifi client side (only on the backbone).
The TPLink/Netgear MESH is a bit different as its already optimised for one network topology (mainly only one AP and one satellite)
and its MESH takes also care/optimises Wifi client side of things (band steering etc.).
They also are closer to EasyMesh standard which at some point of time will be hopefully in all products enabling smart wifi to be vendor agnostic (in the ideal world).
Today Mikrotik has limited smart Wifi functions. As you mentioned, no beam forming, no MU-MIMO, no band steering no AP steering.
You can achieve some of that with Access list entries etc. but its not dynamic nor flexible and needs a lot of “set up” and config.
The other MESH systems you refer to are doing most of these things on their own, without the need for the admin to get involved.
From what I see on these systems they get therefore higher throughput for Wifi clients.
But they are focussing on providing consumer Wifi and networking configuration. Besides main and guest network and the typical setup options
not much you can configure versus Mikrotik.
My suggestion therefore would be:
If you focus on Wifi throughput for an AP and one or 2 satellite, you do not have scripts, complex firewalls, VLAN etc, in your system,
I would go with a MESH system from Netgear (better than TP link from performance point of view).
If Wifi performance is not all you want (but still important), and you also need full control of the network itself with VLAN, routing, filtering etc. Mikrotik would be more flexible.
But the effort is much higher to maintain and optimise it!!!
Last comment: Keep in mind the Netgear (and other) high end solutions use all tri band, so for similar system you would need the audience (at least for the central AP).
For the satellites you can use audience (take full advantage of the 3rd 4x4 band), or a dual band hap ac2 to start with.
Nice thing about Mikrotik (as you probably know) you can use ANY Mikrotik device for such a system and play around/extend it as you want.
But in overall Wifi throughput you will not be able , today with current ROS, to reach Netgear Wifi throughput.
My setup would be with 3-4 APs, depending on coverage. I would love going with Mikrotik as it would give me flexibility in terms of configuration and future expansion.
But on the other hand features like AP steering are quite nice (currently I have heterogeneous routers issuing the same SSID, and the biggest pains if for clients to notice there is a stronger signal when roaming) so I need to give it a thought (and read what clients honor AP steering). It´s not so much about raw throughput but also about stability and seamless roaming. Netgear seems quite popular, but their Orbi are kind of pricey at the moment (maybe Black Friday will have some deal).