Home network with lots of iot and a spread out old home.

I have been using two engenius EAP1300's, one hAP ax2 and one hAP ac2. These latter are used for special purposes not general wifi. I also had a OpenWRT running on a Linksys 1900, that I needed to replace.

I bought a CAP ax gen6 expecting its performance to be good.

I got it configured and was underwhelmed, signal strength was mediocre and speed was as well, so I did a head to head test, putting it and an engenius in exactly the same place and testing with a laptop and cell pone about 40' away.

At 5ghz the CAP had better receiption (-74 vs -85dBm) and similar transmit (-75 vs -73dBm at my cell phone), this was despite the CAP running 24mw (defaulting) and the EAP running 20mw. But the speed difference was weird -- the CAP was 51 down and 93 up, the EAP was 125 down and 47 up (wired speed is 946/948 so not firewall or ips limited).

The EAP's are really old and low end. I was expecting significantly better performance from the CAP.

I put the Linksys there and tried again, got -72 / -83, but 244 down and 94 up.

Is there anything I may be simply missing? These really old, mediocre AP's should not be doing better than the CAP?

The CAP has firmware 7.14.2, and pretty much everything disabled except the AP functions. Below are what I think are the relevant portions of the config. Ethernet 2 is not plugged in yet. The upstream switch is the same one I can test at 1gbs speeds and same port configuration.

Am I missing anything? Does the config look correct?

Linwood

Maybe connected, maybe not, but the usual recommendation is to NEVER use vlan 1 because it can create issues in many configurations.

I thought VLAN 1 had more to do with security? I've got a lot of devices configured with VLAN 1 as the main internal network, I hate to change it.

I also realize that it is more normal in Mikrotik to have trunk ports not include a native PVID (hybrid port), but I've got a lot that do that and spend most of my day job around cisco where it is common. I would not think that would matter (would it?).

I ran the speedtest option between the CAP and an hAP AX that is wired as well (though with two swtichs in between). All up/down speeds were at 924-952mbs (on 1gbs switches and wiring), so I do not think the issue is on the lan side, but the wifi side.

I did another test this time sitting right beside each AP. The Engenius was 230/314 down/up at 5g. The CAP Ax was 313/486.

So the CAP is faster with a very hot signal.

The other thing I found in experimenting is that for a more distant signal (the original 40' or so) the orientation does matter for signal, I lose about 6dBm received signal (at the client) if the AP is mounted vertically (wall) rather than horizontally (same height sitting on a stand).

This conflicts a bit with a lot of postings I have read (I think from Mikrotek) that the radiation pattern inside is basically spherical and wall/ceiling do not matter. 6dBm is not much, but it is in the significant category, however my speed tests did not change significantly with orientation so maybe "not significant" is apropos.

Anyway... I may keep this. My goal is to have enough AP's that everyone gets a decent signal, but I am disappointed and hope someone sees a problem in my configuration.

Random thoughts for making tests simpler to interpret:
- disable/unset WPA3, FT and connect priority
- setting band to AC, unset width
- setting the same frequency on the two ap, but switching off one of them when testing the other
- reporting the results obtained with both devices (smartphone and laptop)

Rationale for unsetting: to allow the device using the defaults (probably more battle tested)
Rationale for disabling WPA3 and setting AC: see if there are incompatibilities with newer standard that you cannot see with the old devices.

Notwithstanding what may have been written here or there, it makes no sense that the pattern of a Cap Ax is "spherical", the signal at the back of the device should be zero or near zero, there are even sort of reflectors behind the antennas. So, the pattern is more "semi-spherical", but the device is (or should be) intended to cover an as large as possible area from the ceiling of a room, so from a height of some 3 m, if It was semi-spherical, either the radius would be some 3 m (and thus cover a very small area) or much more, let's say 9 m (and thus cover with wifi one or two storeys below ).
It would be more logic to design the shape as as a spherical cap:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cap
with h much smaller than a, and this would be coherent with the results of your tests/measurements.

I would reset configuration and perform a speedtest with default configuration.

This conflicts a bit with a lot of postings I have read (I think from Mikrotek) that the radiation pattern inside is basically spherical and wall/ceiling do not matter.

Source please. Can't make accusations of this nature without backing it up with sourcing.

This conflicts a bit with a lot of postings I have read (I think from Mikrotek) that the radiation pattern inside is basically spherical and wall/ceiling do not matter.

Source please. Can't make accusations of this nature without backing it up with sourcing.

They are all over the place in discussions of wall vs ceiling, e.g.

viewtopic.php?p=916244#p916244
viewtopic.php?p=902998#p902998

And same long before:

viewtopic.php?p=646030#p646030

My 6dBm is not inconsistent with the note that said 3dBm.

I went ahead and bought a second CAP ax gen6. Not crazy about the distant performance in 2.4ghz, but the setup seems solid. They are in and configured, so I think all good. Thanks for the discussion.

Hmmm....

I was running 20mhz channels because it was all IOT (on 2.4ghz) and figured I did not need the bandwidth, and it might cause less interference (to my neighbors or even my own).

But I was having trouble with one device pretty far away from the furthest AP. Out of curiosity I changed to 20/40Mhz. The channel stayed the same (it shows 2412/ax/Ce).

That devices RSSI went from -89 to -74 (occasionally up to -79). That seems like a huge difference.

Why would running a wider channel cause a signal strength increase? Is it some artifact of how it's measured? Or does the actual power go up that much (it did, and does show 23dBm as the Tx power under status).

Hmmm....

I was running 20mhz channels because it was all IOT (on 2.4ghz) and figured I did not need the bandwidth, and it might cause less interference (to my neighbors or even my own).

But I was having trouble with one device pretty far away from the furthest AP. Out of curiosity I changed to 20/40Mhz. The channel stayed the same (it shows 2412/ax/Ce).

That devices RSSI went from -89 to -74 (occasionally up to -79). That seems like a huge difference.

Why would running a wider channel cause a signal strength increase? Is it some artifact of how it's measured? Or does the actual power go up that much (it did, and does show 23dBm as the Tx power under status).

The only thing that comes to mind is that the application may not be measuring power directly but providing some kind of quality metric from which the RSSI is extrapolated. For example, it could be converting the agreed-upon PHY rate into RSSI.

Typically, using a wider channel with the same power and distance results in higher throughput, albeit with diminishing returns.

For instance, consider the difference in throughput between 20 MHz and 40 MHz with an RSSI of -74. You get about a 55% increase in throughput (going from 29 Mbps to 45 Mbps), even though you are using 100% more bandwidth.

Now, let's compare 40 MHz to 80 MHz at -71 RSSI: you go from 60 Mbps to 97.5 Mbps, an increase of 62% in throughput but using 100% more bandwidth.

Comparing 80 MHz to 160 MHz at -73 RSSI, you go from 65 Mbps to 65 Mbps, showing no increase despite using an additional 80 MHz. However, if you had an RSSI of -68, you'd go from 130 Mbps to 195 Mbps, a 50% increase in throughput, at the cost of 100% more bandwidth.

Lastly, compare 20 MHz to 160 MHz at -70 RSSI: you go from 43.3 Mbps to 130 Mbps, an increase of 300% but at the cost of an 800% increase in bandwidth.

As you can see, the wider you go, the more throughput you get, but with diminishing returns. Generally, for each doubling in bandwidth, you get a 50% increase in throughput.

As you can see, the wider you go, the more throughput you get, but with diminishing returns. Generally, for each doubling in bandwidth, you get a 50% increase in throughput.

Not to forget that if transmitters work at EIRP limitation, then each doubling of bandwidth will reduce RSSI by 3dB. So going from 20MHz to 160MHz will end up with reduction of RSSI by 9dB ... so one should actually compare those lines from the table ... eg. 144.4Mbps (20MHz @RSSI of -64dBm) vs. 180Mbps (40MHz@-67dBm) vs. 195Mbps (80MHz@-71dBm) vs. 130Mbps (160MHz, RSSI of -73dBm). All the figures are for 2x2MIMO and SGI.

Only when RSSI is high (even excessively for narrow channels - e.g. 20MHz@-40dBm) one gets somehow linear speedups with using wider channels.

As you can see, the wider you go, the more throughput you get, but with diminishing returns. Generally, for each doubling in bandwidth, you get a 50% increase in throughput.

Not to forget that if transmitters work at EIRP limitation, then each doubling of bandwidth will reduce RSSI by 3dB.

I thought that RSSI was the total power received, not the power per unit frequency. I searched the internet and couldn't find any information that it's tied to the bandwidth.

The only thing that comes to mind is that the application may not be measuring power directly but providing some kind of quality metric from which the RSSI is extrapolated. For example, it could be converting the agreed-upon PHY rate into RSSI.

Typically, using a wider channel with the same power and distance results in higher throughput, albeit with diminishing returns.

I get most of that, it was the RSSI going up with change of frequency width that got me, but your speculation that it is a derived number from bandwidth is a possibility. This is an IOT device where I have no real visibility into what it does internally.

The issue is as you get into the 80 and above range, they tend to disconnect periodically to try to find a better signal even if what they have is actually working. So changing to 40mhz got me a good result (stopped disconnects) even if it did not yield an actual, real better signal.

Or something inside the CAP is weird and it really did output more signal. Any possibility they are pumping out more energy to hold (or try to) signal spread over wider range? That seems wrong, so I doubt it.

But anyway... weird result. Possible explanation.

From the wikipedia article detailing RCPI measurements (different acronym than RSSI but according to description this is what's actually being measured these days):

For the most part, 802.11 RSSI has been replaced with received channel power indicator (RCPI). RCPI is an 802.11[5] measure of the received radio frequency power in a selected channel over the preamble and the entire received frame ...

Now: the way wide channels are done (C and a few e) and due to backward compatibility (to allow g devices or a devices), those preambles are transmitted principally on C channel. And since total Tx power has to be spread over the whole channel bandwidth (between 20MHz and 160MHz or whatever), it's clear that preambles are transmitted at lower power when total bandwidth is higher.

This conflicts a bit with a lot of postings I have read (I think from Mikrotek) that the radiation pattern inside is basically spherical

If true, it would be an "isotropic radiator"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropic_radiator
So I think we can conclude that it isn't.

If true, it would be an "isotropic radiator"
...So I think we can conclude that it isn't.

Would be nice if Mikrotik then published correct diagrams, and did not give incorrect answers. If your conclusion is right of course, that it isn't basically spherical.

I also recently had another interesting result - I moved it down off the ceiling to about 8" below, and got a lot better power distribution. I'm thinking this may be more about the ceiling materials and especially the bad just below the ceilings than the radiation pattern, but am now a bit torn about mounting location (this one in particular I'm trying to get a lot of 2.4ghz reach for IOT stuff in the garage and outside).

Unsure how big your home is. I have 1 cAP ax set up in a 2 story 2500 sq ft home, not including the basement, and it serves me outstanding. AP is placed on the top of my wall mounted rack in the basement and I get coverage throughout the house and garage where my wifi sprinkler controller is. From my garage, I just did a speed test and got almost 250 mbps up/down on my cell phone on a 500/500 connection. That's on the 5 GHz radio with a 80 MHz wide channel. Really cannot ask for more. Coverage, from what I can tell, is equal to the coverage I had with a Ubiquiti AC PRO

Indoors (bar the case of a single huge room that is "easy") there can be a lot of differences due to reflections, obstacles and what not, it is very hard to predict how this or that device will perform or behave or find the better spot to place it, with devices with external antennas you can play a bit with orientation and/or move the antenna with an extension cable (if WAF is not involved) but with a Cap Ax or any "internal antenna only" devices such as the Ax2 your options are very limited.

Yeah, I am coming to think that my new (old) home is not a great wifi environment.

The walls are generally 1" thick, and seem to be 1/2" layer of conventional sheet rock, but what looks like 1/2" layer of cement board, kind of like what is sometimes put in wet environments. At least it drills like it, it's both visually distinct and much harder. The house also grew in increments, and inside the house are three different places where there are brick walls on the interior, plus while only 2700sf it's in the shape of a "T" so from (say) bedroom to garage the shortest path is through two exterior walls.

The problematic devices are all 2ghz IOT things with no antenna, many on the exterior or in the garage. As an example, I have a CAP ax on the ceiling in one room. About 10' from there (same room) is one IOT device in a box on the wall, -44dBm. In the next room, at about the same distance is another IoT device that actually has an antenna (Sonoff iFan04). It shows -63dBm.

Now -63 is perfectly fine and works , but that is a drop of something like a factor of 64x if my math is right. Just to get through one wall (two surfaces), and in spite of an antenna.

I'm coming to the conclusion this is not about the CAP ax really, but the house.

You may like or not the idea, but since - usually - these IoT devices do not need much connection speed, they may work using a wi-fi extender/repeater placed in the rooms with worse coverage, there are really el-cheapo devices in the 15-20 Euro. range of prices that would do nicely.
Or - again since you shouldn't need that much speed - the alternative could be a couple Powerline adapters (one plain, one with wi-fi) older models can still be found for 50-60 Euro.

Yeah, I'm familiar, but really do not mind putting in more CAP's if I can get them to work and play well together. I also periodically want wifi outside (I have a portable telescope setup with a hAP on it that meshes when it can get a signal, plus it's a nuisance if I walk outside with a phone and it goes in and out near the house).

I've been moving them around, changing power, just added another (a hAP ax2 on the wall mostly to get the ethernet ports on it).

Though as I get more I increase the issues with roaming, so a good signal from multiple sources has a downside (and year, CAPsMAN to help roaming, it's on my list).

Just one question. Updated your CAP to Routeros7xxx. But did you update the wifi-qcom-7.xxx-arm64.npk driver? You must uninstall the wireless-7.xxx-arm64.npk package first. Then control the radios from the new "WiFi" menu

Just one question. Updated your CAP to Routeros7xxx. But did you update the wifi-qcom-7.xxx-arm64.npk driver? You must uninstall the wireless-7.xxx-arm64.npk package first. Then control the radios from the new "WiFi" menu

The ax devices don't come with wireless package installed. Only the older ac models

Yes, I read AC instead of AX. my mistake

Yes, I read AC instead of AX. my mistake

I have an AC also I use with my telescope, so this was a good thought regardless, when I get some time I will go update it as indicated. Thank you.

Well, I am going to resurrect the original topic.

One of the two CAP ax's failed (the ethernet port became intermittent and it kept dropping off). Amazon refunded me (said they couldn't just replace), which got me just enough initiative to try an experiment -- I bought a Unifi U6 Pro.

One of the CAP ax's (the one still working) was at the edge of the house in a garage, and providing coverage for a bunch of IOT devices in a shed in the back yard. I replaced that one with the Unifi after recording RSSI signals at the IOT devices (i.e. the received power coming from the CAP ax.

Below is a capture of the experiment showing the RSSI as recorded by the same IoT device (a Top Greener switch flashed with esphome).

With the CAP Ax I'm around -90dBm, pretty close dropping off. With the U6 Pro in the same place, same cable, and same configuration (well, transliterated to Unifi), it's a whoppying 15+ dBm higher. Ignore that brief spot in the middle, I had to reboot and the device was switching to a yet further away AP, then I rebooted with the unifi again).

That's rather a lot for two AP's that really should be competitive. The Mikrotik was at max power, the Unifi was "default" which is probably max (I failed to look, but anything less than max makes this worse).
I didn't explicitly test received signals on the two to compare (and my monitoring system doesn't record them), but that has never been my issue. The issue with the CAP ax's is they do not broadcast a 2ghz signal very strongly, and the miniscule antennae on IoT devices can't hear them. I had two - both worked the same.

I'm not a great fan of Unifi for a number of reasons (I have a client who uses them so I stay vaguely aware). But configuring this was straightforward, and its range performance on 2gHz was vastly better.

I think I'm going to toss the other CAP ax in favor of another Unifi. I actually think if I got three, I could remove two AP's (I currently am running 5). Though two are hAP ax's which I'm also using as little switches, so I may keep those and just turn off the radios.

Really -- -90 to -74 dBm is a HUGE difference.

Yes, thanks for sharing your particular experience. I did a comparison this year of U6+ and CAP AC over some weeks. I've recorded/compared wifi signal reception throughout my home. Once I was even running both APs at the same time, properly configured so channels did not overlap. I went through my home and signal levels on the client device showed pretty much the same values. I could not find a spot where I could tell that one AP had better signal - but I did not search for that spot nor did I do a "how far away from AP can I go until I loose connection?" test. But CAP AC is not CAP AX. CAP ac has 2dbi antennas for both bands and CAP AX's antenna has 5.5/6dbi antenna gain which has different radiation pattern.

Yes, thanks for sharing your particular experience. I did a comparison this year of U6+ and CAP AC over some weeks. I've recorded/compared wifi signal reception throughout my home. Once I was even running both APs at the same time, properly configured so channels did not overlap. I went through my home and signal levels on the client device showed pretty much the same values. I could not find a spot where I could tell that one AP had better signal - but I did not search for that spot nor did I do a "how far away from AP can I go until I loose connection?" test. But CAP AC is not CAP AX. CAP ac has 2dbi antennas for both bands and CAP AX's antenna has 5.5/6dbi antenna gain which has different radiation pattern.

Are the patterns published?

In this case though I decided to just swap one for the other so -- unless a rotational difference in the plane of the ceiling matters -- they should work the same, see the same obstacles and attenuation, etc.

I suspect for most people their concern is performance of devices like laptops, tablets, phones, (wireless) TV's, etc. And probably mostly 5ghz.

My main issue are range of the very lowest end devices with negligible antennae, and for the most part they can run at 1kbs and I wouldn't notice.

Maybe the MT engineering philosophy is to optimize for the former not the latter. Though the CAP is physically much larger than the U6 Pro, one would think all that room could be capitalized for antennae.

I did really like having that extra ethernet port, I had lots of thoughts how I might use that for impromptu things.

Really -- -90 to -74 dBm is a HUGE difference.

Maybe the Unifi is emitting more than what is legally allowed, like VW diesels.
Btw I noticed that on my hAP ax³ frequency matters. On channel 36 (20 MHz width) I was measuring -70 dBm at a device. Switched frequency to channel 60 (20 MHz width) and I was measuring -80 dBm. Switched back to channel 36 and got -70 dBm again. I then tried channel 60 and it was down to -80. I don't know why this is. I haven't tried using a different antenna to see if the antenna may be the culprit.

Btw I noticed that on my hAP ax³ frequency matters.

Different frequencies have different max TX power allowed, as per country regulations, for example:

ranges: 2402-2482/20
5170-5250/23/indoor
5250-5330/23/indoor/dfs
5490-5730/30/dfs
5735-5875/14

So it is totally normal you get different signal readings for different frequencies.

Channel 36 is 5170–5190.
Channel 60 is 5290–5310.
So they are both at 23?

ranges: 2402-2482/20
5170-5250/23/indoor
5250-5330/23/indoor/dfs
5490-5730/30/dfs
5735-5875/14

So it is totally normal you get different signal readings for different frequencies.

I have all devices set to USA, so I assume they conform to the (same) USA limits.

I set up another test, and got frustrating and interesting results. This is an Engenius I bought in 2020, so fairly old (EAP1300). It powers another end of the house where there are IOT devices in a small garage, fairly close, and also some items in the house. This graph shows the shift from the Engenius (left side) to Mikrotik CAP ax (far right side) for a wall outlet on the wall between the room with the AP, and the livingroom where there happens to be a hAP ax2. There's a small drop in the IOT devices power received from the AP. Nothing like as bad as the Unifi difference, but still a bit of a surprise.

What is a bit frustrating and confusing is that large peak. I looked at the logs and that is when the outlet grabbed the hAP ax2 instgead -- MUCH hotter signal. That's not too surprising, there is open air, no walls between. Though it begs the question why when the CAP ax in the other room came online (and I forced rebooted the outlet to make it re-evaluate) it picked the almost 20 dBm weaker signal. Not suggesting that's the fault of the CAP ax (and both are running the same ROS), but it is odd.
Later this morning I have another U6 Pro coming for this spot, am curious what I'll see then, so I would say on balance the CAP ax and EAP1300's signal at the iot devices was similar.

But is frustrating to wonder why it gave up a much hotter signal both for the EAP and CAP. And I checked and the esphome wifi set is not using fast connect (which will skip doing a comprehensive scan).

I did look at other individual IOT devices in the garage. There was a small improvement in one, and a small fall in signal in another, just about 2-3 dBm

Might as well finish it off. Got another U6 pro and put it in place of the Mikrotik (which was in place of the EAP1300).

About 10dBm at 2ghz.

All three AP's were physically in the same spot.
Still baffled why when those AP's are offline it finds the much closer hAP ax2 but will never pick it if there's an AP, weaker in signal received at the IOT device. Wish I understood wifi protocols better. There's something interesting there, but I am not sure what.

But to me for 2ghz IOT devices, this convinces me to lose the CAP devices in favor of the U6. While one might argue that -80 is usable at low rates, the problem is as you get into that range, some of these devices will reboot to try for a better signal, or worse go into their standalone AP mode (and thus offline).

What would be interesting besides these RSSI diagram: at which power level do CAP AX and U6 pro transmit?

So, how to find out? TPC Report is one information element (IEs). see https://howiwifi.com/2020/07/13/802-11- ... d-formats/

I am using analiti (https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... st.android) to read that information.

It tells me what ROS also tells me: 18dbm 2.4ghz, 26dbm 5ghz. But Unifi UI just tells you "auto" or "max" and you usually have no idea what that means. But your Unifi AP should also include the TPC Report IE. So have a look please.

What would be interesting besides these RSSI diagram: at which power level do CAP AX and U6 pro transmit?

Can I trust their self report? As I looked this time I just forgot to mention it.

The CAP ax says TX power is at 20. I tried forcing it higher (I put in 30) and the status under the wifi page continues to show 20.

The Unifi shows "Transmit Power / EIRP" as "22 dBm / 26 dBm".

So depending on whether the CAP is showing raw or antenna affected -- maybe the U6 is putting out more. I tried to figure out the US limits and in 3 minutes of google I found about 5 different answers, so I do not know if the limit of 20 is correct or not. but it is all I can get it to put out on 2gHz. I don't see that in the US there are different limits by channel, but both were on channel 1 (2412) and both at 40mhz width.

But 22 vs 20 is not a big difference if that is apples to apples, not nearly as much as the received power at the devices.

Incidentally, I asked over at the esphome site, and they claim the calculation is not a backed-into one from rate, but a signal strength per the chip. About half of these are not esphome but shelly, which uses different code, and they are consistent in showing the differences between AP's (though shelly tends to show lower power signal strength than esphome devices of similar chip type (not the same exact), I'm not sure why, but since with AP change both move similar amounts I do not think that is relevant.

cAP ax power
so 22+5.5Db antenna gain 5G and 14+6DB gain for the 2.4G So the power is correct for 2.4G and 27.5 for 5G a little short but close lol.

So the power is correct for 2.4G ....

So the U6 is cheating? (seems unlikely given how prominent they are)

Or quoting something involving antenna?

But regardless... the CAP ax then appears at max, the U6 is at whatever it is at, and (for 2.4ghz) the CAP under-performs the U6 substantially when measuring received power at the remote devices. I have done zero testing for 5ghz. I just looked and have 34 clients connected, 28 are 2ghz, 6 are 5ghz, one is a phone and one a player piano, the rest google speakers. I've still got a half dozen or so other devices to deploy, all 2ghz.

Who needs 5ghz. But it might be an absolutely wonderful 5ghz device (and wifi 4 vs 5 vs 6 might make a difference also, all my 2ghz are wifi 4).

Heck, life would be easier if everyone stuck to 900mhz. I could use one base station.

Who knows what they are doing with power, I'm a little sad it didn't work out for you, I've waited a long time for something I can call I'm happy with as regards my setup, hAP ax2 and cAP ax, but it shouldn't have been that way. For a normal 4 bed house those 2 items are far in excess for me.

The following picture is as painfull as it gets for me signal wise, top four items are mine.

never mind. said look at the IEs and not their user Interfaces.

But 22 vs 20 is not a big difference

actually this is a huge difference. https://www.wiisfi.com/#dBm

A change of 3dbs is 1/2 the power. So 2 dbs is not trivial!!

A change of 3dbs is 1/2 the power. So 2 dbs is not trivial!!

I was comparing it to my two tests, one had 15dBm and one had about 20 dBm, so 2db's is trivial in comparison.

I don't know what "look at the IE's" means in this regard. I'm looking at what the devices see, which is what really matters to me.

Who knows what they are doing with power, I'm a little sad it didn't work out for you, I've waited a long time for something I can call I'm happy with as regards my setup, hAP ax2 and cAP ax, but it shouldn't have been that way. For a normal 4 bed house those 2 items are far in excess for me.

I think my walls are just unfriendly to wifi. Since I got the three U6 pro's, and I've tried them in various positions, and I really need a 4th. Otherwise at least one area is worse than -80dBm (remember some devices are in a shed in the back yard, and two small garages at opposite ends of the house. Though with the MT versions I needed 5, so I'm improving.

Then we will never find out at which transmit power these APs actually transmit. Transforms your numbers/chart in this moment to a apples with pears comparison. Helps you - but no one else.

And one last note: you are observing RSSI on a client. Have you also compared the other way round? I have to admit that I would expect the U6Pro to be at least as good as the CAP AX in receiving signals. But maybe there are surprises as well.

Then we will never find out at which transmit power these APs actually transmit. Transforms your numbers/chart in this moment to a apples with pears comparison. Helps you - but no one else.

And one last note: you are observing RSSI on a client. Have you also compared the other way round? I have to admit that I would expect the U6Pro to be at least as good as the CAP AX in receiving signals. But maybe there are surprises as well.

If you want me to measure this in a different way I'm happy to if I can, I just don't understand what you want (my pears to your apples).

So the performance of the CAP in that direction is oddly good -- I have nto been paying a lot of attention because it is always much hotter. I just looked one up, it's not far away (the CAP is not doing much at the moment, just filling a gap). The device (a sonoff iFan04) is showing -64 at the fan, but the AP shows its received signal at -45.

I would say by just memory that's fairly consistent, the CAP received signal much hotter than the device's signal.

On the U6 it's oddly similar. I looked up a few:

Device of -74dBm, but that AP shows -73.

Closer device showing -52, but the AP shows the device at -49.

Another -60, AP shows -60.

Another -50, AP shows -47.

Generally speaking all I'm looking at are oddly similar. Unless the AP is doing something weird to "balance" it (I say that because it occasionally will show a "balance" problem without much explanation).

So at least in this sort of testing the CAP appears to have excellent reception (at least at 2.ghz).