I did a comparison between Audience and hAP ac. Hard to do exact tests, but I would say that as a standalone router, not a mesh system, Audience has no better WiFi performance than hAP ac. They seem about the same in 2.4 GHz, and if anything the hAP ac does a little better in 5 GHz, especially in U-NII-1 where the performance was closer to the U-NII-3 performance than with the Audience which seems to take a significant hit in signal level at 5180.
The main advantages to the Audience would seem to be it’s pretty, it has two 5 GHz radios, and it has easy mesh setup via QuickSet and the Link button. On the other hand, the hAP ac has 5 GigE ports instead of 2, and it cost less (still expensive, but there’s a Lite version). I haven’t tested a Google WiFi, Eero, or Calix, but I’m beginning to get the impression the idea of some WiFi routers being more “powerful” than others and having much greater range is a myth. It seems what makes the biggest difference is location, location, location. And 2.4 does get better range. And then there’s interference. At my house there’s lots of interference from neighbors, and once you get a couple rooms away from the router, the latency and packet loss performance can go to crap despite what looks like a good signal. That tends to be much less of a factor in most of our rural service area. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2019 10:58 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router Well, it turns out to be difficult doing a comparison of WiFi performance. I’ve been trying to compare the Mikrotik Audience as a standalone router, vs my Technicolor CGA4324 cable modem. The cable modem is in the basement, and I put the Audience right next to it. My house is kind of complicated, with 2 floors and a finished attic, and a 1998 addition to the original 1914 house. So far, it seems that 2.4 GHz performance is about the same, but 5 GHz signals are as much as 5-10 dB lower than the cable modem. The backhaul channel however seems about the same as the cable modem. I’m guessing this is because the Audience default is to use U-NII-1 for 5 GHz clients and U-NII-3 for backhaul. That may make sense when used as a mesh system. But if you were really going to use Audience as a standalone router with no satellite mesh units, I suspect you’d want to reconfigure so that U-NII-3 is used for clients. I’m thinking that both router and client antennas may be less efficient at the lower frequency. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2019 8:59 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router Right, but you can get nearly the same functionality from so many other sources that aren't vendor locked and nickle-and-dime you. ----- Mike Hammett <http://www.ics-il.com/> Intelligent Computing Solutions <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> Midwest Internet Exchange <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> The Brothers WISP <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> _____ From: ch...@wbmfg.com <mailto:ch...@wbmfg.com> To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2019 9:03:45 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router You can quit any time you want. The units will not stop working. From: Mike Hammett Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2019 7:56 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router I just can't imagine getting sucked further into the Calix hole. ----- Mike Hammett <http://www.ics-il.com/> Intelligent Computing Solutions <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL> <http://www.midwest-ix.com/> Midwest Internet Exchange <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix> <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/> The Brothers WISP <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg> _____ From: "David Coudron" <david.coud...@advantenon.com <mailto:david.coud...@advantenon.com> > To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2019 8:22:40 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router Thanks for the post Ken, We have quite a bit of interest in those. We have been looking at the Calix as well, but as discussed here earlier, we aren’t quite ready to jump into yet another piece of management/operations software. Maybe when we are larger as it seems like the Calix is a good solution, but for now we really like the idea of the Mikrotik as we have a pretty deep investment in Mikrotik already and can manage them with existing tools. We’d love to hear your thoughts on: * Any other software tools needed, or does Winbox and SNMP do the trick for managing and monitoring * Does the throughput measure up to others. We have tested Netgear Orbi and Amplifi. The Amplifi is impressive, but no remote management is a deal breaker * What happens to throughput if you string three of them together * Can you (we are assuming you can) extend the network using cabled backhaul as well as wireless Regards, David Coudron From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2019 7:23 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router I got 3 of them to play with. So far, so good. I have no complaints about the aesthetics, it’s a nice looking unit. It would look even nicer if it wasn’t so expensive. Still need to evaluate WiFi performance in a large house. They made the mesh backhaul 4x4 MIMO so apparently they want that to be really robust. There’s a website with photos of the insides: https://mikrotik-routeros.com/2019/10/mikrotik-audience-review-and-teardown/ I expected it to get hot or for hot air to be coming out of the top, but no signs of that at all. RB4011 gets quite warm, but it has the CPU clocked much faster, plus it has all those gigabit ports. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Dennis Burgess via AF Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:43 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Cc: Dennis Burgess <dmburg...@linktechs.net <mailto:dmburg...@linktechs.net> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router We have sold quite a few of them and currelty have stock on them. They are a tri-band radio system, so meshing is fairly easy plus no slowdown on the repeater nodes. 99% of them work quite well with one, if you need another just add it and it has an auto connect process as long as you don’t change too much. Dennis Burgess, Mikrotik Certified Trainer MTCNA, MTCRE, MTCWE, MTCTCE, MTCINE, MTCSE, HE IPv6 Sage, Cambium ePMP Certified Author of "Learn RouterOS- Second Edition” Link Technologies, Inc -- Mikrotik & WISP Support Services Office: 314-735-0270 Website: <http://www.linktechs.net/> http://www.linktechs.net Create Wireless Coverage’s with www.towercoverage.com <http://www.towercoverage.com> From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2019 10:01 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: [AFMUG] Mikrotik Audience mesh router I totally missed the existence of this product and apparently the US version is actually shipping. Has anyone tried them out? Typical of mesh systems, it doesn’t have a full complement of Ethernet ports, but 2 is better than 1 like some of the mesh products out there. It’s less expensive than a 4011, but it’s pretty and has easy mesh setup. A 4011 is currently my best Mikrotik family choice for whole home WiFi coverage in large homes, but it’s overkill for most customers, who typically don’t need anything close to 10 GigE ports, the 4011 also gets pretty hot, and it’s expensive. Rarely in customer homes can we run cables to additional routers and use CAPsMAN, and the Mikrotik powerline networking product has been disappointing. Am I missing something about the easy mesh setup? Is this something I could do with hAP ac or 4011 routers if I just learned how? The “Audience” product has two 5 GHz radios and apparently uses U-NII-1 for clients and the upper bands for backhaul between mesh units. I’m hoping since this runs the regular Mikrotik OS that you don’t really have to use a phone and the Audience app to set it up and can just use Winbox from an Ethernet port. That’s something I dislike about most customer purchased mesh systems like Google/Nest or Eero, you need an app on your phone and to set up a Google or Eero cloud account, so it’s not really something our installers are going to want to set up for the customer. -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com _____ -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
-- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
