This isn't going to be a rant, I don't want to upset or undermine anyone but simply share my thoughts on the topic and maybe spark a (hopefully constructive) discussion here.
MikroTik hardware and software is amazing. I think most of us really enjoy using it. However, I believe there's an elephant in the room, and I hope it's not just me seeing it. The wireless side of things is just .... bad. Back in the days when I was amazed by the NV2 and how relatively effortlessly links could be brought up. Nobody was thinking to use MT for customers and we were simply terminating it with a RJ45 jack. Times have changed - people expect good wireless for besides PtP links. Unfortunately I believe MT is severely lacking here.
PtMP
I tested a range of devices: some old ones like 2011, some newer ones targeting prosummers like 4011, and things like hAP ac3, wAP ac, hAP ac etc... with a single device and a careful tuning I was cable to get a decent performance. Usually... unless the environment was noisy. Recently I hit an obstacle which I didn't solve - wireless VR requiring a stable high performance link. The budget wasn't an objection: it just needed to work. After swapping multiple devices I gave up and used a non-MT AP - with automatic settings it just worked. Was it more expensive? Yes. Was the client happy? Yes.
CAPsMAN & MPtMP
Ok, the single AP and multiple clients scenario usually works ok but as soon as we need to add multiple APs things get.... ugly. CAPsMAN is a great piece of software but it's still not a central management solution as many things have to be done manually on every AP. Even a simple thing like updating software: I can update ROS on a group of APs but... not the firmware. But this isn't the big problem. The lack of intelligence is.
CAPsMAN - not undermining its efforts - is just a configuration synchronization and a tunnel. All radios seem to be living in a vacuum without awareness of their surroundings. This is bad, I will even call it horrible for moving clients performance. Sure, we use reject lists to force reconnection between APs, we follow the purists idea of clients picking the best AP. However, this just doesn't work, clients are dumb. What broke the camel's back for me was a customer with a large house (a typical American home, just large but with paper-thin walls). Six APs were working wonders as long you were connected to the correct AP. However, clients notoriously were sticking with the AP or even connecting to a lower-signal AP causing 2Mb/s throughput. Reject access list based on signal wasn't a solution - obviously it helps but doesn't solve the problem.
Hardware limitations?
I wonder if this is an issue with hardware or the software lacking here? ROS is amazing for routing but feels dated in the wireless space. I'm not talking about 802.11ax, that is a separate problem. I'm talking about the "secret sauce" which seems to be missing here. I really, really, REALLY don't want to mention players like ruckus here, but the truth is I can toss 1-2 of their APs and they will just work communicating magically between each other giving clients great performance. Are they 3-4x more expensive? Sure. But how much is my time worth attempting to fine-tune all settings and positions... which will be thrown out of the window when the client moves a metal cabinet with documents, and how much I will be even able to do?
Is it just me?
I wonder is my growing frustration with wireless on MT is me getting older and more grumpy, or things really need a solid shake-up?