That seems to be the product its built to compete with.

Anyone done the comparisons yet?

What is Eero?

What is Eero?

mesh WiFi
https://eero.com/

I have 2 in bridge mode. Excellent wireless coverage. I did order Audience to give it a try.

What is Eero?

mesh WiFi
https://eero.com/

I have 2 in bridge mode. Excellent wireless coverage. I did order Audience to give it a try.

Eero is what the guy who has NO BUSINESS AT ALL TOUCHING A NETWORK, is bringing into a commercial install.
Sparky, "I use this all the time."
Me, "YEAH IN HOUSES. You can't do multiple SSIDS or VLANS beyond 1 for Guest. We have a VLAN for the control system... 1 for the Point Of Sales... 1 for Voice of IP... 1 for the back of house managers... 1 for the wait staff... Then one for Guests that has to work on a schedule..."
Sparky, "Well it works in homes..."
Me, "This ain't your home."

I got to work with the Eero system in a home for the first time last week. Yeah... a MORON could put them in.
Coverage gave you bars all over the house. But pings and actual throughput... not so impressive. Also I was curious what would happen if they put some IP video cameras on the system. Between the fact that I saw a bunch of units and not a lot of channel separation... wonder how much worse it would get if I flooded the backhaul with traffic...

But I digress.

I have used and LOVED Mikrotik for routing for a long time. But... every time I buy the latest wireless devices from Mikrotik... I sure get that Unpaid Beat Tester Feeling.

wAP AC, hAP AC2, cAp AC... all seemed to go through real growing pains.

So the question begs... since Audience is fresh out of the gate... how were they doing?

Haven't tested Audience yet...
Am just curious to check how they are configured because i ve tested wireless dynamic Mesh in the past but i wasnt very happy with the performance...

What is Eero?

mesh WiFi
https://eero.com/

I have 2 in bridge mode. Excellent wireless coverage. I did order Audience to give it a try.

Eero is what the guy who has NO BUSINESS AT ALL TOUCHING A NETWORK, is bringing into a commercial install.
....

Rather confused why you quoted me and posted this rant. If you are indeed referring to me personally, I do no commercial installations, just my own little home net.

What is Eero?

mesh WiFi
https://eero.com/

I have 2 in bridge mode. Excellent wireless coverage. I did order Audience to give it a try.

Eero is what the guy who has NO BUSINESS AT ALL TOUCHING A NETWORK, is bringing into a commercial install.
....

Rather confused why you quoted me and posted this rant. If you are indeed referring to me personally, I do no commercial installations, just my own little home net.

Proximus...
No Offense to you intended at all.
My rant was an actual back and forth at a job I was working on last month.

If how my phone bunched the responses made it look like a shot at you... I am sorry.

However... I am seeing a considerable amount of LV type contractors flipping to Eero.
Sparky of course...
But the Heating and Air Conditioning guys.
Audio Video Guys.
Security Contractors.
Solar Panel installers.
etc


Basically... a lot of the trades I interact with are starting to "just use Mesh so we don't have to run wires anymore..."

Thank you for clarifying this. All good.

Distros in the US are sending out "we have Audience in stock".

But still not seeing anyone saying... "Yes I have used it... And..."

Distros in the US are sending out "we have Audience in stock".

But still not seeing anyone saying... "Yes I have used it... And..."

Everybody is waiting for you to share the experience

Distros in the US are sending out "we have Audience in stock".

But still not seeing anyone saying... "Yes I have used it... And..."

Everybody is waiting for you to share the experience

#

While I used to LOVE TESTING STUFF OUT AND BEING FIRST...
Not getting paid, and ending up holding the bag on thousands of dollars worth of crap over the decades... might have sullied my enthusiasm. A little...

###

...I have used and LOVED Mikrotik for routing for a long time. But... every time I buy the latest wireless devices from Mikrotik... I sure get that Unpaid Beat Tester Feeling.

wAP AC, hAP AC2, cAp AC... all seemed to go through real growing pains.

Information and capabilities for the Audience Mesh is very sparse .... specs looks interesting but not interesting enough for me to make a trial investment without much further usability information. MikroTik should show off some real world application to demonstrate Audience Mesh properly.

I have 2 days of (limited) Audience testing experience now:

• Audience looks nice, actually smaller than on the pictures, a device you can actually keep outside, close to TV or sideboard

• it has 3 color LED that shine nicely through little slot on lower front side (including Mtik preferred blue led! but no more that bright )
  No idea yet what they mean in terms of device status, but looks good!

In terms of HW it has 3 Wifi master interfaces:

• 2x2 2.4GHz Wifi (IPQ4019)

• 2x2 5Ghz Wifi (IPQ4019) (can only use channel 36 to 52(?))

• 4x4 5GHz Wifi (QCA9984) (can only be used on channel 100 and above (I have European model))

There seems to be no additional SW/functions for MESH such as steering, improved access lists etc.
But maybe within Capsman there could be some additional functions (I don’t use Capsman …)[/list]

I did some quick setup and test as a dual band AP (2x2 2.4G + 4x4 5Ghz) to compare to RB4011.
To use all three bands as AP I need a bit more thinking how to organise my network…

• 2.4GHz Wifi coveres slightly less distance than that of RB4011 (but RB4011 does have a great range)
  I have some far away IOT devices which have sometimes some disconnects, but they are really far off...

• 5GHz 4x4 Audience has huge improvement over 4x4 5Ghz of RB4011. I get 5G conection for many clients now where before
  they stayed on 2.4Ghz.
  Now I can not tell if this is due to the Wifi channel difference as Audience only uses channel 100 and above!
  For the experts to tell (and more testing to be done).

• I see no issue with DFS/radar on 4x4 so far (those 100+ channels are DFS channels).

Based on this, to cover huge homes or areas using two or more Audience seems to be a good way to provide
Wifi coverage.

A bit more tricky is going to be the setup / config, specially if you will use 3 AP Wifi interfaces (and not as MESH).
Which 5Ghz network will a client select if you have 2 with same SSID at two different channels? Or create 2 or 3 different SSID?
Creating the right access rules with signal level will be more complex, maybe not practical at all.

And seeing 3 master Wifi i/f with all (for me 18!) the virtual Wifi i/f means you quickly get lost in what is what…
But hey this is why you have such a device…
Will definitely keep it as my main Wifi router... !

A bit more tricky is going to be the setup / config, specially if you will use 3 AP Wifi interfaces (and not as MESH).
Which 5Ghz network will a client select if you have 2 with same SSID at two different channels? Or create 2 or 3 different SSID?

Running two 5GHz channels with same SSID in the same spot is definitely and utterly a non-sense.
If one is currently running a few VAPs off same physical radio, then dual 5GHz radio offers ideal opportunity to split them. Use the 4x4 radio for the high speed/volume SSIDs (such as IoT and guest access) and keep the low speed SSIDs on 2x2 radio.

I have been using Mikrotik since V3. I do know a lot, but there is more I do NOT know.

I got 3 Audience devices to do a job, since the write up about them fit my application.

I have spent days to get them to mesh (still no success) The insert that came in the box describe amongst others the led's and the "WPS Sync" button functions for automatic "linking" The guide available on the net ( https://i.mt.lv/cdn/rb_files/1568200626 ... -%20qg.pdf ) differ from the printed one and also yield no success if followed.

I will have to use Winbox or CLI to "manually" mesh????


If a non networking savvy member of the public would buy this device, I can not imagine they would get it working. It is certainly a a aesthetically pleasing device.

Can any one maybe point me at a "guide" that actually work, that I can follow? Or just some pointers or tips please.

A bit more tricky is going to be the setup / config, specially if you will use 3 AP Wifi interfaces (and not as MESH).
Which 5Ghz network will a client select if you have 2 with same SSID at two different channels? Or create 2 or 3 different SSID?

Running two 5GHz channels with same SSID in the same spot is definitely and utterly a non-sense.
If one is currently running a few VAPs off same physical radio, then dual 5GHz radio offers ideal opportunity to split them. Use the 4x4 radio for the high speed/volume SSIDs (such as IoT and guest access) and keep the low speed SSIDs on 2x2 radio.

How to generate interference and mess up one's airtime...

Can any one maybe point me at a "guide" that actually work, that I can follow? Or just some pointers or tips please.

PPJ, I am sorry but I only have one device so can not really help you.

I would open a new forum post to ask help on set up as MESH solution

A bit more tricky is going to be the setup / config, specially if you will use 3 AP Wifi interfaces (and not as MESH).
Which 5Ghz network will a client select if you have 2 with same SSID at two different channels? Or create 2 or 3 different SSID?

Running two 5GHz channels with same SSID in the same spot is definitely and utterly a non-sense.
If one is currently running a few VAPs off same physical radio, then dual 5GHz radio offers ideal opportunity to split them. Use the 4x4 radio for the high speed/volume SSIDs (such as IoT and guest access) and keep the low speed SSIDs on 2x2 radio.

How to generate interference and mess up one's airtime...

Actually all 3 Wifi radios are working in 3 seperate frequency bands, so no interference at all.
And I think that proposal by MKX (put high speed on 5Ghz high band)
is exactly what I will try out to get even more speed/capacity of the system.

I tested the meshing a couple of days ago.

1) power up the 1st Audience which you will use as the main AP

2) press the wps-sync button briefly, the light on the front starts flashing green

3) power up the next Audience device whilst holding the wps-sync button, keep holding until the light on the front flashes lots green and orange

you should then find that it has connected back to the main AP, and capsman is managing the interfaces.


Note if you wish to add another one, you have to pair it with the first main AP, you can't add it to the 2nd one. Well it didn't work for me...

Hope that helps
Nick

Can any one maybe point me at a "guide" that actually work, that I can follow? Or just some pointers or tips please.

Actually you can pair an audience to any of the already paired audiences

Thank you for the responses, I really appreciate it.

I will certainly try again, and report back.

It is 3.10pm South African time now and I have been at it since early (no success so far), so my brain is jelly at the moment.

I will certainly try again, and report back.

It is 3.10pm South African time now and I have been at it since early (no success so far), so my brain is jelly at the moment.

It should not be as hard as you seem to be experiencing.
Can you describe how the chain of gear you are using is connected? I.e. your Router >your Switch> your Audience Mesh
How far apart are the Audience Mesh AP’s from each other when your try and connect via mesh method?
Which wireless band is strictly dedicated to the backhaul for the Mesh?

I tested the meshing a couple of days ago.

1) power up the 1st Audience which you will use as the main AP

2) press the wps-sync button briefly, the light on the front starts flashing green

3) power up the next Audience device whilst holding the wps-sync button, keep holding until the light on the front flashes lots green and orange

you should then find that it has connected back to the main AP, and capsman is managing the interfaces.


Note if you wish to add another one, you have to pair it with the first main AP, you can't add it to the 2nd one. Well it didn't work for me...

Hope that helps
Nick

Can any one maybe point me at a "guide" that actually work, that I can follow? Or just some pointers or tips please.

thx for sharing your experience

have you tried to measure performance? coverage?

I will certainly try again, and report back.

It is 3.10pm South African time now and I have been at it since early (no success so far), so my brain is jelly at the moment.

It should not be as hard as you seem to be experiencing.
Can you describe how the chain of gear you are using is connected? I.e. your Router >your Switch> your Audience Mesh
How far apart are the Audience Mesh AP’s from each other when your try and connect via mesh method?
Which wireless band is strictly dedicated to the backhaul for the Mesh?

I agree it should not be what I am experiencing. I am pressed for time. I usually set up all the stuff before I get to the client. I expected things to go quickly and smooth, but I am obviously doing something wrong. I will come back with some more detail with regard to this topic. Thank you kindly.

What is Eero?

mesh WiFi
https://eero.com/

I have 2 in bridge mode. Excellent wireless coverage. I did order Audience to give it a try.

Eero is what the guy who has NO BUSINESS AT ALL TOUCHING A NETWORK, is bringing into a commercial install.
Sparky, "I use this all the time."
Me, "YEAH IN HOUSES. You can't do multiple SSIDS or VLANS beyond 1 for Guest. We have a VLAN for the control system... 1 for the Point Of Sales... 1 for Voice of IP... 1 for the back of house managers... 1 for the wait staff... Then one for Guests that has to work on a schedule..."
Sparky, "Well it works in homes..."
Me, "This ain't your home."

I got to work with the Eero system in a home for the first time last week. Yeah... a MORON could put them in.
Coverage gave you bars all over the house. But pings and actual throughput... not so impressive. Also I was curious what would happen if they put some IP video cameras on the system. Between the fact that I saw a bunch of units and not a lot of channel separation... wonder how much worse it would get if I flooded the backhaul with traffic...

But I digress.

I have used and LOVED Mikrotik for routing for a long time. But... every time I buy the latest wireless devices from Mikrotik... I sure get that Unpaid Beat Tester Feeling.

wAP AC, hAP AC2, cAp AC... all seemed to go through real growing pains.

So the question begs... since Audience is fresh out of the gate... how were they doing?

Sparkies running TV coaxial cable and they make some mess of that too, not leaving enough at some points and using wrong wall plates.

Thank you for all the responses.

It did work. Just start with a complete untouched "factory" default and follow the printed instructions carefully. Once that is done, the "fine" tuning can be done.

I have installed them and is using a 200Mbps up and down fibre line to the net. I loose about 15% on that speed on 5GHz due to WiFi overheads. I have not had the opportunity to do tests with substantial WiFi connections. +- 175 Mbps up and down. The 2.4GHz naturally is much slower. That is good enough for me. I use http://speedtest.mybroadband.co.za/

The building is of brick and mortar and that reduce range, specially on the 5GHz. They (3) are placed in different places in the guest house, signal is good everywhere.

The proof of the pudding will lie in the eating.

Good to hear that! Thanks for sharing

Normis can you please tell me if the Audience has a mesh configuration or the 3rd band is used as a station to connect to another audience?

Finally got one in for testing.

Used the quickset screen to match my wifi settings... Swapped my R510 out.

Unit uses standard POE so it lit right up where the ruckus had been.
19 devices connected.

Will follow up.

Actually you can pair an audience to any of the already paired audiences

Hi @normis! Can you tell us if the Audience default config is using Station-Bridge mode or Dynamic WDS Mesh?

If you configure a 3rd Audience to connect to the 2nd Audience via WDS/CAPs, will the 3rd Audience connect to both the 1st and 2nd, whichever is the best signal? i.e., I think this would be the Dynamic WDS Mesh case.

Lastly, can you provide the default initialization script used for Audience?

Thanks!!

no, you have to manually pair the third audience to another audience of your own choosing

no, you have to manually pair the third audience to another audience of your own choosing

Ok, good to know. But that doesn't conform to the typical definition of a "mesh" network.

Years ago, I started using the station-bridge mode, with station roaming, because it greatly outperformed WDS. Are there any plans to improve the performance of the dynamic WDS mesh? I would prefer to use that, if it could at least match the performance of the station-bridge mode.

I found an Audience at a very good price recently and got it to replace an hAP ac2 because my wife said she likes the way the Audience looks.

I don't really need a mesh network or multiple APs in my house, so I switched the Audience from mesh mode to straight AP mode. (This turns off the CAPSMAN management of the 3 wireless interfaces. I found that I didn't know enough about CAPSMAN to do what I wanted using it, so I just used Quickset to switch the mode. Maybe I'll start learning more about CAPSMAN and try it out now that I have 2 Mikrotik devices.)

I'm using the same channels on the IPQ-4019 radios as I did on the previous AP. Performance on those seems to be roughly the same as with the hAP ac2.

On the QCA-9984, I had to fiddle with it before I could get it to working. It didn't like 160MHz channel width, and it didn't seem to like most of the available channels. I did finally get it working on ch 108, centered on 5540MHz. (When you configure this, it first says "searching for frequency," and then "detecting radar." When I tried any other channel or "auto," it sat on "detecting radar" and never got past that.)

The only complaint I had about the hAP ac2 is that it didn't give me coverage in my attached garage. With the Audience in the same spot as the hAP was, I do get coverage in the garage, so it's a useful upgrade in that respect.

I can't comment on the Audience as a mesh router, as I haven't used it that way. It _is_ nicer-looking in the home than the hAP ac2, and my wife is pleased with it.
Performance is a bit better than the hAP ac2 and you get a 3rd radio that works really well. IMO both the hAP ac2 and the Audience are far better than any of the standard consumer wifi routers that people are using.

I don't currently need the extra ethernet ports that the hAP ac2 has over the Audience. For me then, the Audience is a good fit. I'm quite pleased with the upgrade.

Audience shut off its 2.4 radio.

No idea when or why it did that. Generated a support file while the problem was happening. Got an email several days later asking me to make another support file if it happens again.

Yeah... Back to Ruckus thanks.

Eero just added HomeKit support.

Eero doesn't let you separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands into different SSIDs...so have fun with that if you have one...

I gave the audience a few months... Same old quirks here and there. Shutting of a radio was new to me. I have seen Tik radios stop accepting clients until rebooted... but actually disabled and stopped transmitting the SSID... that was new.

R610 was on sale for $270. Couldn't pass that up. Configured it and sat it in the same spot that Audience had occupied. Its kind of nice having your home network 'WORK" without quirks. Especially with being confined to working from here while my kid does online school.

The Audience is sitting in its box next to my desk now. Its probably going to be relegated to being a travel router. I prefer the hAP AC2 as it fits in my bag better. But this does have more chains.

That seems to be the product its built to compete with.

Anyone done the comparisons yet?

In the Mesh world and for busy home networks, based on my field experiences nobody beats Netgear RBKxx systems -- NOBODY period FULL Stop

Ruckus --- The only manufacturer that has successfully exploited Spatial Multiplexing and Beam forming to produce nothing short of outstanding wifi --- but I will admit that XIRRUS is in a class of its own especially where huge events require unparalleled performance.

That seems to be the product its built to compete with.

Anyone done the comparisons yet?

In the Mesh world and for busy home networks, based on my field experiences nobody beats Netgear RBKxx systems -- NOBODY period FULL Stop

Ruckus --- The only manufacturer that has successfully exploited Spatial Multiplexing and Beam forming to produce nothing short of outstanding wifi --- but I will admit that XIRRUS is in a class of its own especially where huge events require unparalleled performance.

Read a test where the new ASUS AX Mesh System has better coverage. I would not buy anything but AX in 2020. Sorry MT .ac is old stuff now.

That seems to be the product its built to compete with.

Anyone done the comparisons yet?

In the Mesh world and for busy home networks, based on my field experiences nobody beats Netgear RBKxx systems -- NOBODY period FULL Stop

Ruckus --- The only manufacturer that has successfully exploited Spatial Multiplexing and Beam forming to produce nothing short of outstanding wifi --- but I will admit that XIRRUS is in a class of its own especially where huge events require unparalleled performance.

I never even bothered with Mesh... it would have required me to BUY ANOTHER UNIT. That would have really made it too expensive.

That seems to be the product its built to compete with.

Anyone done the comparisons yet?

In the Mesh world and for busy home networks, based on my field experiences nobody beats Netgear RBKxx systems -- NOBODY period FULL Stop

Ruckus --- The only manufacturer that has successfully exploited Spatial Multiplexing and Beam forming to produce nothing short of outstanding wifi --- but I will admit that XIRRUS is in a class of its own especially where huge events require unparalleled performance.

Read a test where the new ASUS AX Mesh System has better coverage. I would not buy anything but AX in 2020. Sorry MT .ac is old stuff now.

802.11ac still works perfectly well. Maybe in a couple of years when the available 802.11ax gear isn't half-baked crap rushed to market it will be worth buying? For now I'd much rather have good 802.11ac gear.

As for Asus mesh, the test results I've seen show that Asus doesn't do very well at mesh.