[Network]Is WiFi 6 worth it? Part II ~ Access Point Comparison: Asus Ax11000 vs. Ubiquiti UAP-HD ~

Today I am sharing my speed test comparison between ASUS flagship ROG GT Ax11000 WiFi 6 router as AiMesh node (Access Point) and UniFi high-end Access Point (UAP-AC-HD), which is WiFi-5 Access Point. This is yet another form of WiFi 5 vs. WiFi 6 comparison but this time we are comparing on the router/access point side, which may be of more interest for those of you on the market for new router/mesh network system. You may believe it’s a fixed race, but the result was actually surprising.

Background

Home Setup

My current home network setup is fully WiFi 6 capable ASUS AiMesh network with ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX11000 as router and 3 nodes each connected via Ethernet backhaul (one GT-AX11000 and two RT-92U) covering 3800 sqft ranch style old home.

ASUS AX11000 router supports Wifi 6 with each of 5GHz band reportedly supporting up to 4804 Mbps and 2.4 GHz 1148 Mbps speeds. All bands are 4 x 4 MIMO capable.

One more AiMesh node vs. alternative setup

I’ve been through this exact process with Orbi, Eero Pro and I thought AiMesh is the dream/the best I can get. Since the original purchase of two Asus flagship Ax11000 router in March 2019 for AiMesh setup in my 3800 sqft home, I added Ax-92U two pack as additional AiMesh nodes. For many this may sound an overkill, but I’ve been through this process with Orbi, Eero Pro. Basically, my walk in basement seems to have walls that hinder good WiFi signal penetration. Having said that, my current set up was working fairly decently in terms of WiFi coverage throughout the house except north end.

The north-end bedroom in the basement were previously used as a guest room but now we start to use it as our own bedroom. With this, I have noticed internet connection in this room is variable. There are times I can get 200 Mbps internet speed test result. Otherwise, I completely lose WiFi signal and not able to get back on no matter what I try; other than just wish and wait. I’ve tried to move Ax11000 AiMesh node in the next room to different spot including NW corner of the room where I have ethernet jack, but that actually made it worth. So I have started to look for adding yet another AiMesh node point.

The forth mesh node in 3800 sqft house may sound an overkill but rated sqft coverage of mesh network really depends on home construction. Old house like ours with thick walls, signal just won’t penetrate. As a comparison, when I had Orbi setup where I had eventually had to go up to 9000 sqft worth coverage of devices (router + 2 main satellites + 1 wall-plug satellite). For Eero Pro setup, 3 eero Pro package were rated for 6000 sqft but there were still dead spots. So for the defense of Asus, this issue is not just their devices.

So even though it’s a significant total cost for my set up, I was ok seeking for another node because WiFi is such an important part of our home life. Although overall experience with current setup for about a year has been decent, it is far from perfect. The primary issues and complaints I get from family members are intermittent disconnect on various devices. In fact, unreliability or instability of network is the exact reason why I even started the trail of Mesh network search from the first Mesh setup, which was Orbi. AiMesh stability is certainly no where close to that of Orbi, which was multiple times a day but this was still frequent enough to get complaints from family members. Hence, I have decided to expand my search to include potentially whole new WiFi network setup.

WiFi 5 from WiFi 6?

Initially, my search were focusing on other WiFi 6 mesh system though nothing really caught my attention except AmpliFi Alien. However, the recent test I conducted with my iPhone 11 Pro, I learned that practical speed gain with WiFi 6 devices are merely 10% (here). This is not significant enough for me especially at the cost of network stability.

It is know that any WiFi system is only 50-70% efficient. Ax11000 is indeed 50-60% efficient. So with the recent test result, I got one hypothesis. This 20% range of efficiency difference may be more than 10% speed gain of WiFi 6. Let’s say if I could find a different network system that is 60-70% efficient, it will not only compensate practical WiFi 6 speed gain of ~10% but all other WiFi 5 devices in my home will actually be that 10-20% faster than current WiFi 6 AiMesh network system I have. Even though technology is my hobby and I plan to continue purchasing newer tech gadget, I don’t imagine number of WiFi 6 devices in my house hold to overtake WiFi 5 device for years. So at this point, I have decided to expand my search to include WiFi 5 system even though I had originally excluded them as being older technology.

After thorough online research, the system I’ve chosen to give a try turned out to be indeed WiFi 5 device, Ubiquiti UniFi. UniFi is enterprise product line from the company Ubiquiti, whose consumer product line is AmpliFi. The reason coming down to this conclusion is a separate topic of its own.

The specific unit I’ve selected was UAP-AC-HD. This is high end model of their Access Point product line with relatively high price tag of $349. But this is still cheaper than ASUS Ax11000 as its retail price being $399. One of the reason why I decided to go with this higher end model than more popular unit, nano HD is because I wanted to see what is really capable of with UniFi system. Because if high end model cannot provide the quality I am looking for, it would allow myself to give up on the hope of better system existence than my current AiMesh setup, at least for now.