Hello guys,
I am new here and also new to Mikrotik, I have only RB260GS switch .

I want to ask for help with choosing Mikrotik products for my home network.
At this moment I have cable modem Ubee EWV3226 which has some routing capabilities and has also wifi. That Ubee is not bad but my ISP flashed it with their firmware which is very very bad. It's connection to network is stable but routing and wifi is not working as I want. Opening ports in NAT is lottery sometimes. I want to switch it to bridge mode and use Mikrotik router for routing.
I also want WIFI at home, 2,4GHz, no need for 5GHz (only two devices at home can use it and only one (my phone) is using wifi), also I don't care if the wireless is 100mbit or xxxxmbit. My internet speed is 150/10 at this moment,I do not plan to go on higher speed, more probably I will lower it.

Now I have dilema with which devices to buy. My problem with wireless is that I want stable a good connection in all rooms at my house, speed is not problem. I don't need coverage outside the house.
Modem is placed under wooden stairs. I should describe the house, it is 13 metres long and 5,5 metres width. It has two floors. If you divide the house to three parts (by long side, 13/3) - the end parts are living parts of house with rooms (living room with kitchen and homeoffice room at 1st floor, bedroom and childern room on 2nd floor). Middle parts are stairs, bathrooms, entrance, corridors. The house is wooden (2by4 system) with walls made of ekopanel - panels 6-12cm made of pressurised straw.

Now, Ubee's wifi is good only at middle and it's 1/3 living part of house. On the other side, it has problems with connection.
I borrowed Unifi AP AC Lite, placed it next to modem and it covered house great.

Now, I was thinking at first about RB951G-2HnD as WIFI router but I am afraid that it won't cover the house properly. Positioning in the middle of house is hard and my wife won't allow that big thing with 5 ports to be places on wall in corridor (also, it will be hard to place cables there from modem and to other parts of the house). So I cannot move it to best place. Maybe a little but there will still be stairs..

So then I thought about one device for routing and second one as wireless AP (someone on this forum suggested it . Thinking about hEX, RB750Gr2 or RB750Gr3. Which would be more suitable for home use? I will use VPN to get inside my network probably and for sure vpn to make all freewifi hotspots safe. Maybe a few NAT ports and blocking P2P. r3 has dualcore processor but it is a new device and probably some baby bugs? Atheros seem to be in my eyes more prooved.

Another question is wifi AP. I thought about cAP and place it on the ceiling of corridor downstairs - exact middle of house . But there is not much information about cAP, if it is good or not. And it's antennas has lower gain 2dBi then RB951G 2dBi - may this difference be compensated by better placement? There is also cheaper cAP lite with 1,5dBi antennas, wAP which seems to be the same as cAP. And hAP ac lite which is big (will need to cover it like RB951G or place on worse place) but has 5Ghz support - which is good for future?

I can afford now RB750Gr3 with cAPlite, maybe cAP/wAP.
Or RB750Gr2 and RB951G as AP which can be placed somewhere on better place then under the stairs.
edit2: seems that RB750Gr2 is discontinued and I can found it only as used, so probably the first option is more possible .
Or would be RB951G enough for both routing and as WIFI AP (with not best placement, but unifi ap worked good with stronger antennas).

Edit2: I found very cheap used RB751U-2HnD, 2,5dBi antenna but only one. Don't know what is better. 2x2dBi or 1x2,5dBi..

Thank you for any advice


edit: sorry for long post

At the risk of annoying some of the die hard fans.

RB750Gr3 for your router and a Ubiquiti UniFi UAP (if you only want 2.4G) would do what you need.

I would agree that in your case using a separate router vs WiFi makes a huge amount of sense (usually does in my opinion). I am using a pair of RB750r2 routers (I'm weird and have 7 LANS). The 100mb routers are fine for me since my internet is only DSL at 2.5mb, but since you have the higher internet speed, the gigabit version would be my recommendation. As for the WiFi, I have no familiarity with the MikroTik WiFi products as I have never used any.

Steveocee
Unifi UAP worked here great, even on bad position under stairs which impressed me. But I hate their control software.. It's like having Boeing control panel on my car . But you got the point, it'đ tested on my environment. Pity it is so expensive.. That's how I found out RB951G-2HnD, it costs less and is router too. But who know how it will works at my home, I have no other way then buy, try and return which I prefer not to do..

k6ccc
I want 1000mbit router not just because of internet speed (I was also thinking on downgrade to 75/5 but new pricing at my ISP means that would costs me more then I am paying now, and because I am under 2 years contract, they cannot raise the price for me ) but because I use 1000mbit at my network, mostly for NAS and file share. I can put after 100mbit router 1000mbit switch and do not use other LAN ports on router though .

I am still reading about RB750Gr3 and the new Mediatek processor. I have read about it before, it is supported in OpenWRT but Mediatek company is not very open source community friendly from what I heard. Also there are some problems with it, some D-Link soho router have problems with connecting to some devices, and on this forum I read some words about not everything working properly (but that may be only SW bugs to be fixed ). If I find r2 version, it's prices similar to r3 so goinf to r2 now would probably be bad idea..

Between 1.5 dBm and 2.5 dBm gain there is not much difference. Consider that you want around 10 dBm of "headroom" and you'll need another 12 dBm or so to get 100 Mbps signal, and wall losses can be around 10 dBm or so. So +/- 1 dBm is almost inconsequential.

I would get a pair of cAP lites or a hAP lite and a cAP lite. Using the same device for routing + AP will save money, and I've never had trouble with Mikrotik APs (except the discontinued 951-2n which was very underpowered). One near (not at) each end of house. Link them with wires if you can, WDS slave mode if you can't. (If using WDS slave mode, disable higher speeds of slave to decrease latency due to retransmits over possibly poor connection.)

Upstairs will still be a problem but you can later expand with a 3rd cAP lite.

At least, this is close to the setup I have in my long house with many walls. (I have a hAP ac bridged to a hAP lite with WDS.)

k6ccc
I want 1000mbit router not just because of internet speed ... but because I use 1000mbit at my network, mostly for NAS and file share. I can put after 100mbit router 1000mbit switch and do not use other LAN ports on router though .

At the moment, that's what I do. I use the routers strictly as routers with a separate LAN or WAN per router port. They all plug into a 48 port HP managed switch with all the VLANs in the switch. At this time, I only have four Gigabit ports on the each of the two HP switches, so those are used where there would be some utility to the higher speed, and use the 10/100mb ports for everything else. If they every get fiber to my house, I will need to do a little upgrading.

I am still reading about RB750Gr3 and the new Mediatek processor.

If or when I get fiber to my house, I will replace one of the RB750r2 routers with a RB750Gr3, and keep the r2 as a spare. So far, I have been very happy with the MikroTik routers (and also have one RB260GS switch that seems to do it's job just fine as well).

Just in the useful information department, I am using a mesh type WiFi network from http://www.open-mesh.com/ I have been very happy with. I currently have three gateway and two mesh only nodes. My kids will tell you that I have the BEST WiFi of anyone they know. Now if I only could get decent internet speed....

Thanks for all the info!

I am thinking now about more small APs in the house. I have CAT5e in every room so it won't be problem place one in room where wifi is needed.

I have an good offer for RB951G-2HnD, which should be used as router (for some time, later changed for RB750Gr3 probably), RB751U-2HnD also used but great price. Connected by Ethernet together and where needed I will buy mAP/cAP/hAP/*lite and decrease power for RB951/RB750.

That would exactly fit my budget for now and I can upgrade any piece of this puzzle later.
I can get RB951G and RB751U for the same price as Unifi AP AC. I will loose 5GHz with mikrotiks but gain flexibility of my network and less radiation in my house. 5GHz is not needed, at least now. I was testing other network with wifi analyzer (android app on my blackberry so I hope that it works as it should ) around the house and all neighbour's WIFIs are visible by phone or laptop but not very usefull - mostly -80dB and less.

Might be worth a try, or not? O:)

Thanks for all the info!

I have an good offer for RB951G-2HnD, which should be used as router (for some time, later changed for RB750Gr3 probably), RB751U-2HnD also used but great price. Connected by Ethernet together and where needed I will buy mAP/cAP/hAP/*lite and decrease power for RB951/RB750.


Might be worth a try, or not? O:)

Look this presentation : https://wn.com/map_map_lite_the_wireles ... our_pocket
You can see that with more aps you can get better results, if you can get the map and map lite in your region can be a great solution.

Might be worth a try, or not? O:)

Given that your house is wired, sounds great! I would do the same if mine was. (Old apartment so no hope to change that…) 5 GHz is "nice" (for gigabit access close to AP) but not really necessary with such little interference from neighbors as -80 dBm; I don't think you will miss it.

Look this presentation : https://wn.com/map_map_lite_the_wireles ... our_pocket
You can see that with more aps you can get better results, if you can get the map and map lite in your region can be a great solution.

That is great video, now I am sure that going with more small APs should be better way . Will see when it will be all connected and set how it performs!

Given that your house is wired, sounds great! I would do the same if mine was. (Old apartment so no hope to change that…) 5 GHz is "nice" (for gigabit access close to AP) but not really necessary with such little interference from neighbors as -80 dBm; I don't think you will miss it.

It is a new house and we placed one or two CAT5e to every room (not to living room, because there is cable modem and switch to every other room in house so not needed). Now, I would put there more CAT5e to at least two or three places in every room. But still it is better then in old apartment where it was problem to get one cable to my room..

I am buying RB750Gr3 and on next payday I will buy hAP lite (I want to use it's switch also for tv/raspberry pi/bluray player) in living room and one mAP lite. And then see if there is more mAP or cAP needed.
I will post results then

I was able to get RB951G for cheap and also bought mAP lite. 951G seems to be working fine for now, I will se when I set NAT and VPN . WIFI coverage is fine this way but on the upstairs I will need one or two mAPs, which is not a problem as there is ethernet connection.

I was able to set mAP sa CAP and there is CAPsMAN on RB951G.
Pity that I cannot disable PWR LED on mAP lite.. So I have to tapeglue it.

I also set my network, I did a little upgrade from previous settings and set DHCP server on RB951G to almost ideal. Only that I don't know how to setup DHCP for new devices to be one range of IP address for ethernet and other range for wireless devices. Both on the same network. For example: 192.168.10.10-192.168.10.99 for Ethernet and 192.168.10.100-192.168.10.199 for WIFI. Setting static IP addresses is not a problem that way.

EDIT: I cannot disable LEDs on RB951G too . "Couldn't change LED Settings - action failed (5)".
EDIT2: Also looking at GNU licenced source is impossible.. Why is Mikrotik so open source unfriendly? You can download with direct link TP-Link's hardware sources..

I had to disable CAPsMAN, with CAPsMAN enabled, my phone Blackberry and sister-in-law's tablet Samsung were disconnecting again and again..
So I setup RB951G and mAP lite wireless manually and all is working fine now.

I like so many options in RouterOS, pity it is not possible to setup as I want either (for example disabling LED diodes..) . Maybe I will try openwrt later

The LED are making me crazy, I glued them . I don' understand WHY there is option in menu to disable them when it is not possible..

My ISP is upgrading my internet speed and it will be 300/20Mbps from next month so there will be nice test of Mikrotik WAN-LAN speed capability (in real world usage speed, not the tests). As I cannot use CAPsMAN and do stuff usually no problem with OpenWRT, I am still thinking about different router with OpenWRT. But mAPs lite are good (still one led unable to disable though..) and will stay at my house.