I seriously cannot believe how garbage it is. But this is not just a rant its a plea to please do something about it. You've lagged so incredibly far behind the industry that its actually insulting that you still sell wireless products (outside of your 60ghz which is quite frankly awesome if used appropriately)

We have a few Audience units for testing and while the range is good - infact if all you care about is 'some connectivity' and not 'good connectivity' then its pretty impressive. I can get a useable connection 200m away between buildings through glass and a few walls - but that doesn't extend to the rest of your products (where range is often awful) and no matter what the actual throughput performance is crap. And I don't just mean outright speed either

The ultimate test of wifi is VR streaming IMO. As you can dial up the throughput but if it doesn't have very low latency and extremely consistent performance, then it's going to be horrible and make you want to throw up. And this is exactly what i've been testing in various environments, tweaking everything I can, and it just sucks. I can be in the same room and the best I can manage is 'good most of the time' but then out of nowhere i'll get micro stutters, freezes etc and its awful
I've reluctantly held off on simply putting in a cheap ASUS AC router (which I know to be good, but its a bit too good for its price) but I finally yielded after all my stuffing about trying to make the Audience the best it can be. And hey presto its almost flawless and just makes a mockery of the Audience, very very very consistent packet flow (which you don't see in just a bandwidth test), far superior speed within close range, far better throughput at moderate range - and especially when going through or bouncing around walls - and only losing at extreme range

I consider the Audience a flagship wifi device of MikroTik, and yet it performs worse than a $50 off-the-shelf router, in every single category except outright range. And this applies to every other wifi device i've tested. It's especially atrocious with any sort of interference where pretty much every other wifi device outperforms it and delivers a decent experience instead of a stuttery mess

I'm really hoping ROS7 includes some monumental improvements to wifi to bring it beyond what I consider 'average performance' if we were in 2014. For 2021 its just sad when practically every single device out there that is considered 'budget, but not scraping the bottom of the barrel' now outperforms MikroTik in wiki performance tests

There is nothing of substance in your post.

How would I objectively recreate your scenario? What tools are you using to measure? What's your RF environment look like? How is the Asus better? How do you know it's better, objectively? What metrics are you using? What WAN speeds do you have? What types of configuration have you setup?

What is "good" performance here?

I'm not saying their WiFi is great, but I don't have the negative experiences you have.

I also can't do much with this rant, as you haven't even hinted at a scenario that I would know how to recreate.

Problem though is you can't test and apply exact measures with wifi because every single environment is different. The best you can do is manage relative comparisons and approximations
RF environments are not like ethernet or fiber where you can go 'yep she's good to XXX metres at exactly that speed with a known cable loss, anywhere in the world'
Wifi can go from good to garbage within the exact same room. There's no easily quantifiable measure

Here's what matters: In every single environment we've tested the Audience, it has been beaten by practically every other device out there. There's not much point in me saying "I only get 180mbit/s" if your counter is "well I get 400mbit/s" because the simple reality is put something like a Cambium E410, Ubiquiti AP AC, Or practically any cheap off the shelf d-link/tp-link/ASUS/netgear/whatever device and it will most likely perform better in both scenario's. And I can't just build RF shielding around an entire building to force the environment to match another

Throughput is just 1 measure but it doesn't tell the whole story. Audience can manage decent single client throughput in terms of raw bandwidth. However multi client is not great. More importantly the overall reliability is not great at all, any sort of interference will cause throughput to take a nose dive with heavy re-transmission or packet loss for a brief moment. Latency is highly variable especially when roaming around. There's no point saying "well the problem is interference" because technically yes but the simple reality is pretty much every other vendor has a better implementation that will handle said interference far better, and result in far less of a performance spike, with more bandwidth and less latency

Mikrotik wireless has worked fine for us for years. Solid and stable. It would be nice to have the latest Wifi 6, but it simply isn't needed in our business anyway.

I seriously cannot believe how garbage it is. But this is not just a rant its a plea to please do something about it. You've lagged so incredibly far behind the industry that its actually insulting that you still sell wireless products (outside of your 60ghz which is quite frankly awesome if used appropriately)

+1

What might be helpful is to go into a bit of detail around what the $50 ASUS is doing right (in your opinion) vs. what MikroTik is doing wrong. I've been around MikroTik a long time and the problems that get addressed tend to be:

1) Clearly defined with repeatable examples
2) Suggestions for improvement

1) Clearly defined with repeatable examples

Well, that's where the trouble begins

it's not that easy on the RF side, not like everyone has an anechoic chamber to test every setting (not that such a setup would even be valid, as IRL the radios have to operate under very different conditions)

there are "noise generator" gear, that is used commercially to test the actual radios under "same noise" condidions every time. Expensive, specialized gear that is out of reach to 99.9% of the population

But "the proof is in the pudding", and in my experience, the actual driver implementations are really lacking some features (but mikrotik is still competitive in the routing/management side, with CapsMAN)

One thing i've seen in the wild, is that once we put the newer AC chipsets in AC mode, especially with Channels >20mhz, latency is all over the place, and actual performance is impacted.
In some cases we forced the radios to operate in N mode and got better, more repeatable results (that was with multiple groove-AC links, in different environments). AC drivers have some kind of dynamic Cahnnel-Width scaling that is very weird.

Well, that's where the trouble begins

it's not that easy on the RF side, not like everyone has an anechoic chamber to test every setting (not that such a setup would even be valid, as IRL the radios have to operate under very different conditions

You have to start somewhere - perfect is the enemy of good. Even in RF

Examples of tests along with data on the RF environment that it's tested in is a start. It really boils down to whether WiFi users of MikroTik gear want to *solve* the problems or *complain* about the problems. We run the largest MikroTik consulting firm in the world and have worked with 1000+ WISPs so I disagree with the idea that you can't analyze RF issues and provide feedback - we do this literally every single day. Are there variances - yes? Does that mean we can't ever analyze RF data unless it's in a pristine envrionment? - no.

I'm not saying Tik wireless gear is perfect, there is definitely room for improvement, but I think most people miss the business side of things. MikroTik is able to make inexpensive gear for a wide variety of uses cases (far more than any other vendor for the price point) and so they have to make decisions about where development time is spent to maintain that price.

With all the work being done on ROSv7 right now, if you want the issue with consumer WiFi to make it to the top, then put some work into defining the problem.

Here's really the bottom line:
Anyone can go out and do their own testing in their own environments
But when doing those tests don't 'only' test peak bandwidth with iPerf because as anyone should know thats only part of the equation. 500mbit/s is great but not if your latency is fluctuation +/-80ms then VoIP is going to be practically unusable how matter how much bandwidth is there
Also test latency, jitter, packet loss, retransmission interval and importantly do it in environments with noise i.e. 'the real world'

Virtual Reality streaming is perfect for testing all of the above in 1 go as any delay or jitter whatsoever is quite easily shown in your own literal body or head movements. Any amount of micro stutter will make you feel very sick very quickly. And being able to adjust a fixed bitrate and increase it will give you a very easily quantifiable analysis of overall performance without the need for arbitrary bandwidth values and saying "well should be good I see no problems here"
Now the important step: Swap out the MikroTik for [insert almost anything else here released in the last 5 years] and retest. I can practically guarantee you will see far better results immediately
Anyone who claims the MikroTik wifi performance is great, will be blown away by anything else out there

Now the thing is this: I'm not here to submit a bug report and ask MikroTik to look into my specific situation. Their wireless sucks, they know it, the community knows it. It isn't hard for their development team to go grab a few off-the-shelf devices and compare for themselves and quickly find that practically all competitors implementations just outright work far, far better
It isn't my job to diagnose it and find exactly why. I quite frankly don't care because thats exactly what i've experimented with for the past couple months, without access to the underlying code there isn't much I can do about it. What matters is the end result, and if there is a far better end result by simply going elsewhere then thats the solution. However I do want MikroTik to fix the wireless performance because there is a clear advantage in management and integration, but its just not worth it for crappy performance that is easily beaten by going elsewhere

Now the thing is this: I'm not here to submit a bug report and ask MikroTik to look into my specific situation. Their wireless sucks, they know it, the community knows it. It isn't hard for their development team to go grab a few off-the-shelf devices and compare for themselves and quickly find that practically all competitors implementations just outright work far, far better
It isn't my job to diagnose it and find exactly why.

This comment tells me you don't understand how MikroTik works as a company. Without specifics nothing will change.

If all you want to do is share your frustration and anecdotal results with the WiFi performance, no big deal, but it doesn't really benefit anyone.

This comment tells me you don't understand how MikroTik works as a company. Without specifics nothing will change.

If all you want to do is share your frustration and anecdotal results with the WiFi performance, no big deal, but it doesn't really benefit anyone.

+1 Where is the "Like" button?

This comment tells me you don't understand how MikroTik works as a company. Without specifics nothing will change.

If all you want to do is share your frustration and anecdotal results with the WiFi performance, no big deal, but it doesn't really benefit anyone.

What specifics do you actually want?
More importantly what good would it do?

This is not a surprise to anyone who's stepped outside the Mikrotik realm of wifi in the past few years. It's not 1 isolated report in a specific situation. It's pretty obvious just how bad it is. Don't even try and tell me they are competitive. We only just barely got wave2 support in what the last few months? And it's still piss poor in performance
Still don't even have a spectrum analyser ffs, but even ignoring that and just comparing to apples via exact same channel, width and placement, mikrotik fails miserably against cheap consumer AC routers, let alone AX. Don't believe me? Just try it for yourself in your own environment

If they're sitting there twiddling their thumbs oblivious to what every other vendor is capable of, I don't see how any specifics from myself will change the situation

Due diligence during procurement research would have caused you to procure the RB4011 non-wired and to search for a viable AP alternative.
(caveat: if the unit was purchased in the last 2-3 years - as enough folks have pointed out the deficiencies in post after post and thus have little empathy for complaining now).

Note: To the syncophants supporting MT 'home' wifi, the capacXL model tells you directly how MT works. A baby step toward a better capac that is still unproven and may perform, AT BEST, as well as other WIFI5 units have been operating for 5 years. Will see what the results and feedback is over the next 6-12 months.
Did they hire bpwl - to help them design wifi specifications and admin interactions in a logical and friendly manner............... answer NO.
(when I see his name in red, is when I will consider MT wifi again!!)
(and of course better documentation).

Did they provide a rebate or significant reduction in cost for Capac users to replace their units with CapacXL, answer NO
Thats right, the capacXL then becomes a middle finger raised in appreciation to all the capac sucker buyers like me.
Come hither and suck on the hind tit of another mediocre product, just trust us........hmm no thanks!

Cry me an MT wifi river. Until they prove they are serious about home wifi, I certainly would not recommend wirelss routers or home wifi products when folks ask. The Audience may turn out to be really good, but that seems to be dependent upon future firmware so not at this time.
The exception I would make is at least some consideration for the outdoor patio type units which are well packaged (for outdoor installs) and especially like the 60Hz variety, to extend internet to garages/boat houses etc as 2.5/5 are so crowded.

anav,

Remember... I have an audience running the DEVELOPMENT package WiFi WAVE 2 driver.

Its the best performance I have seen from a Mikrotik radio. But its still bested by a Ruckus R510. A WAP that's been available for years. And is discontinued now... and was selling for like $200 on amazon a few months back.

anav,

Remember... I have an audience running the DEVELOPMENT package WiFi WAVE 2 driver.

Its the best performance I have seen from a Mikrotik radio. But its still bested by a Ruckus R510. A WAP that's been available for years. And is discontinued now... and was selling for like $200 on amazon a few months back.

Hi Gotsprings, what do you mean by performance.
What numbers were you getting??

anav,

Remember... I have an audience running the DEVELOPMENT package WiFi WAVE 2 driver.

Its the best performance I have seen from a Mikrotik radio. But its still bested by a Ruckus R510. A WAP that's been available for years. And is discontinued now... and was selling for like $200 on amazon a few months back.

Hi Gotsprings, what do you mean by performance.
What numbers were you getting??

Anav,
Around 400/400 with a house full of device connected. 23 mixed clients across 3 floors. In an environment that has 54 encroaching wifi networks.

Throughput never topped 180 in this location before the WAVE2 driver.

Unfortunately... Key exchange time outs, are still there.

One Device all of that?? (or one per floor?)

Be interesting to test the TPLINK 660HD vs the audience if that is the case (one device).
I have a concrete main floor so 3rd floor to basement suffers losses. Really need two.

One Device all of that?? (or one per floor?)

Be interesting to test the TPLINK 660HD vs the audience if that is the case (one device).
I have a concrete main floor so 3rd floor to basement suffers losses. Really need two.

It's got 3 radios... And my house is made of cardboard. (Modern style home with open air between 2 and 3.)

And remember... As soon as you out the wifi wave 2 driver on it... It doesn't mesh anymore. Or do caps-man.

And remember... As soon as you out the wifi wave 2 driver on it... It doesn't mesh anymore. Or do caps-man.

The good thing: unlike wireless RB4011 audience uses wifiwave2 driver for 2.4GHz wireless chip as well, so it works (with RB4011 one looses 2.4GHz wireless for now).

And remember... As soon as you out the wifi wave 2 driver on it... It doesn't mesh anymore. Or do caps-man.

The good thing: unlike wireless RB4011 audience uses wifiwave2 driver for 2.4GHz wireless chip as well, so it works (with RB4011 one looses 2.4GHz wireless for now).

Since the Audience gets skunked by the Cambium and Ruckus.. I am only using the 2.4 radio to connect two REALLY OLD CAMERAS. That keep dropping offline with the Ruckus WiFi6 radios. But a WiFi camera I bought around 2004, seems to be the main piece that doesn't like the new radios.