Hello everyone, I find myself evaluating 3 MK products for what concerns the performance / coverage of the wifi.

1) RB4011iGS + 5HacQ2HnD-IN
[*] 3 dbi x 4 external antennas for 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz
[*] 2.4 GHz 28 dbm tx max
[*]5 Ghz 33 dbm tx max
2) RBD53iG-5HacD2HnD (hAP AC3)
[*]3 dbi for 2.4 Ghz + 5.5 dbi for 5 Ghz x 2 external antennas
[*]2.4 Ghz 25 dbm tx max
[*]5 Ghz 26 dbm tx max
3) RBD53GR-5HacD2HnD & R11e-LTE6 (hAP AC3 LTE)
[*]3 dbi for 2.4 Ghz + 5.5 dbi for 5 Ghz x? internal antennas
[*]2.4 Ghz 27 dbm tx max
[*]5 Ghz 26 dbm tx max

In your opinion, which ones will allow me to have the best wifi coverage on the card?

I take this opportunity to ask a question about the LEDs of hAP AC3 and AC3 LTE; what do the 5 leds with cleats indicate? Can they be set to indicate individual ethernet port activity?
Thanks to who will answer me;)

If you set up wireless interface according to local legislation, then most probably there will be no difference between Tx power of all three units, clients will measure same signal strength from any of those APs. These days most countries limit wireless devices to 20 dBm or (less frequently) 30 dBm EIRP ... and EIRP is sum of transmitter power and antenna gain. If antenna gain is 5.5 dBi and max EIRP allowed is 20 dBm, then transmitter can legally transmit only at 14.5 dBm.

The difference comes from two details:

1. power backoff for high-bitrate modes. If you look at wireless specification for various models (e.g. for RB4011), you will see that Tx power for MCS9 is quite much lower than for MCS0. If country regulations allow e.g. 30 dBm EIRP, then with antenna gain of 5.5. dBi transmitter can transmit at maximum 24.5 dBm. RB4011 can do it for all transmission rates while hAP ac3 can do it only for lowest speed transmission modes. Lack of power means worse reception by receiver which in turn translates to lower throughput for client which is in sub-optimal AP coverage.
2. receive sensitivity. Remember that wireless connection is two-way. If transmitter is limited with Tx power (either due to technical reasons or due to regulations), then receiver with better sensitivity helps (for traffic in that direction). Unlike Tx power, when talking about sensitivity lower number (more negative) is better.

When considering both factors it turns out that on 5GHz RB4011 is some 7 dB better than hAP ac3 in Tx (26 dBm v.s. 19 dBm for MCS9) and 2dB better in Rx (-72 dBm v.s. -70 dBm for MCS9).

you should be able to set the leds in /system leds as follows
if the menu is empty, you can add LEDs one by one, or even in groups if you need to display something like RSSI.

i'd choose hap ac3 w/o LTE as it can run routerOS7 with the new wifiwave2 package, whereas the LTE version cannot.
RB4011 is also great, but the wifiwave2 package doesn't support the 2.4GHz radio so far.
in terms of throughput, clearly the 4011 is the king - you can even get near-gigabit throughput on the wifi with a capable client.

Don't know much about 4011 as i don't have it, but i can tell you that my hap ac3 wifi performance is lacking...
I tried to tinker with the settings alot (and i mean - alot!), and don't get me wrong, the coverage range is absolutely fine if you ask me, but it gets totally beat in throughput by some other routers way below its price range (e.g. Tenda ac8, TP-Link Archer c6...). 2.4GHz isn't so bad as 5GHz, but it still isn't what you would expect from a wireless chip with this specs.

And before anyone starts screaming at me to try out the new wifiwave2... yea i tried - ROS 7.1b4, and on a first reboot - boot loop... reinstalled it - boot loop... :P
Sooo, for now I am crossing out this option which i believe would somewhat increase overall performance (especially in noisy environments) but for now i have another cheap dedicated AP on top of it that does its job way better.

As far as routing throughput goes, it doesn't even break a sweat on my FTTH 1/1 gb/s (even without FT, although it gets a little bit hotter) while Im connected via ethernet.

And before anyone starts screaming at me to try out the new wifiwave2... yea i tried - ROS 7.1b4, and on a first reboot - boot loop... reinstalled it - boot loop... :P

strange. then i am the luckiest man alive with my audience, which replaced 3 other APs in my home. it is rock stable, so far i did not had any crash/boot loop/kernel panic - i started with 7.1b4 + wifiwave2 and now it is running 7.1b5 with ww2 + the new iot package. i have to admit i only use the 2.4Gig and the 4x4 5Gig radio, and it is just a 'dumb AP'. and i have superior wireless performance, around 600Mbps in both direction - measured with iperf3

apart from that 4x4 radio, it's essentially a hap ac3, even the switch is the same.

you should be able to set the leds in /system leds as follows

Code: Select all

[me@ltap5] /system/leds> add leds=cap-led interface=ether1 type=
ap-cap     flash-access  interface-...  modem-technology  on         poe-out                   wireless-status
fan-fault  gps-valid     modem-signal   off               poe-fault  wireless-signal-strength  
[me@ltap5] /system/leds> add leds=cap-led interface=ether1 type=interface-
interface-activity  interface-speed      interface-speed-100G  interface-status  
interface-receive   interface-speed-25G  interface-speed-1G    interface-transmit

if the menu is empty, you can add LEDs one by one, or even in groups if you need to display something like RSSI.

i'd choose hap ac3 w/o LTE as it can run routerOS7 with the new wifiwave2 package, whereas the LTE version cannot.
RB4011 is also great, but the wifiwave2 package doesn't support the 2.4GHz radio so far.
in terms of throughput, clearly the 4011 is the king - you can even get near-gigabit throughput on the wifi with a capable client.

Hi, thank you all for the very kind answers as always;)

So are you confirming me that on HAP AC3 - AC3 LTE I can set those LEDs to the ethernet interfaces 1-5? I care that they visualize the activity of the individual ethernet ports is very important to me

So are you confirming me that on HAP AC3 - AC3 LTE I can set those LEDs to the ethernet interfaces 1-5? I care that they visualize the activity of the individual ethernet ports is very important to me

i can't confirm it 100%, but routerOS tends to work so. right now i don't have access to hap ac3-lte, but i will ask around whether there's one available for a short test in my area.

And before anyone starts screaming at me to try out the new wifiwave2... yea i tried - ROS 7.1b4, and on a first reboot - boot loop... reinstalled it - boot loop... :P

strange. then i am the luckiest man alive with my audience, which replaced 3 other APs in my home. it is rock stable, so far i did not had any crash/boot loop/kernel panic - i started with 7.1b4 + wifiwave2 and now it is running 7.1b5 with ww2 + the new iot package. i have to admit i only use the 2.4Gig and the 4x4 5Gig radio, and it is just a 'dumb AP'. and i have superior wireless performance, around 600Mbps in both direction - measured with iperf3

apart from that 4x4 radio, it's essentially a hap ac3, even the switch is the same.

Well I'm speaking just from my experience. I didn't dig deep as why it was boot looping, didn't have the time and the patience...

Yea, the audience and hap ac3 are very similar on hardware level...
It could be that the roles are reversed, maybe I am the unluckiest man alive.

If someone has the non-LTE hap ac3, can get the ROS 7 with ww2 to work, it would be very interesting to see the performance difference.

If someone has the non-LTE hap ac3, can get the ROS 7 with ww2 to work, it would be very interesting to see the performance difference.

the CPU and RAM is OK, the only issue is the flash size. in theory one could just throw away all the other drivers and repack the NPK, but without signature it is not possible to install it.
not sure though how netinstall would handle 'tampered' npks.

the non-LTE version of hAP ac3 has 128MB storage, do you need more than that? https://mikrotik.com/product/hap_ac3

If someone has the non-LTE hap ac3, can get the ROS 7 with ww2 to work, it would be very interesting to see the performance difference.

the CPU and RAM is OK, the only issue is the flash size. in theory one could just throw away all the other drivers and repack the NPK, but without signature it is not possible to install it.
not sure though how netinstall would handle 'tampered' npks.

non-lte Hap Ac3 has 128MB of flash, just like audience. The LTE version has 16MB for some reason...

You can change LED behavior to show a signal LTE RSRP like that example: LED SIGNAL per RSRP (search : "Final Release" for code)

And before anyone starts screaming at me to try out the new wifiwave2... yea i tried - ROS 7.1b4, and on a first reboot - boot loop... reinstalled it - boot loop... :P

strange. then i am the luckiest man alive with my audience, which replaced 3 other APs in my home. it is rock stable, so far i did not had any crash/boot loop/kernel panic - i started with 7.1b4 + wifiwave2 and now it is running 7.1b5 with ww2 + the new iot package. i have to admit i only use the 2.4Gig and the 4x4 5Gig radio, and it is just a 'dumb AP'. and i have superior wireless performance, around 600Mbps in both direction - measured with iperf3

apart from that 4x4 radio, it's essentially a hap ac3, even the switch is the same.

can you please post your wireless configuration here?