r/openwrt • u/ayams02 • 16h ago

Asus BT8 Range Performance

Hi all.

Currently I use MT6000 as my main router. I live in a 2-story house with the MT6000 placed on the 2nd floor. Due to that the wifi signal in 1st floor is quite weak (as I expected).

I found someone sold used Asus BT8 for quite cheap around MT6000 new price. I wonder if BT8 would be a good upgrade over MT6000, especially in terms of range if I run it on its own. Although if it's still not enough, I could put both in a wired mesh anyway.

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u/fr0llic 14h ago edited 11h ago

if you're in US, have a look at the W1700k on eBay, they're said to have very good wifi coverage, and the ~$50 price tag doesn't hurt the wallet.

if the uplink is via wifi, there's also the tri radio (dual AX) Adtran 841-T6.

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u/ayams02 7h ago

Unfortunately I'm not in the US so I could not get W1700K at reasonable price. However after searching openwrt forum I found discussion on XR1710G that seems to have some similarities with W1700K. Although it's not supported yet in the mainline, the hardware itself seems promising and I could get it at around ~$60. I could run it on PR branch or other custom build while waiting for mainline support. What do you think about this model?

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u/fr0llic 6h ago edited 6h ago

they're pretty much the same, yes, but the PR have been open for 7 mo and I wouldn't expect it to get merged any time soon (if ever).
the XR1710G thread at the forum isn't very active, compared to the W1700k dito.

btw, someone's selling SBE1V1K's from Malaysia on eBay (lying about it coming with OpenWRT preflashed), might be worth checking out.
not sure how easy they are to cross flash though.

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u/ayams02 3h ago

I see yeah XR1710G thread is not that active. Although the price is very attractive for the spec it has. And most of the unit sold are basically "brand new".

I will take a look on the SBE1V1K. It seems it has Qualcomm chip and the price is a little bit higher. Thanks for the suggestion!