OCTOBER 2020 PCWorld 103can-do spirit, but my cash outlay was
minimal—and could have been less, if I’d
known everything I know now.
MESH ROUTER (ASUS
AIMESH) TO THE RESCUE
When our current troubles first hit, my first step
to improve our Wi-Fi was to purchase a used
Asus RT-1900P Wi-Fi router. One of the cooler
features of Asus routers has been support for a
feature called “AiMesh” (go.pcworld.com/
aims). This is basically the company’s take on
node-based mesh routers (go.pcworld.com/
mshr) that you place around your home to fix
wireless dead zones.
Asus AiMesh is a little different. Most
mesh networks ask you to buy only matching
nodes, or to buy them in sets of two or more—
and to be fair, that is the best way to do it.
AiMesh gives you an alternative, though,
allowing you to mix and match different Asus
router models. This can lower your initial cost,
or let you build on a conventional setup you
already have (provided your existing router is
from Asus and supports AiMesh).
Even better, Asus backdated many of its
older routers with AiMesh support via a
simple firmware update. My original dual-
band RT-AC88U MU-MIMO 4x4 could get
the firmware update, so I decided to pair it
with a 2015-era Asus RT-1900P router. The
RT-1900P also supports Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac).
My main reason for buying the RT-1900P
was cost. Not just because I can be a
cheapskate, but in March when there was a
run on hand sanitizer and toilet paper, there
was also hot demand for wireless routers. The
situation was so desperate that I was happy to
pay $70 for a five-year-old used Asus
RT-1900P router on eBay.MESH ROUTER VS. WI-FI
RANGE EXTENDER
The other, even lower-cost option (assuming
you could find one) was to use a Wi-Fi range
extender, also called a repeater. Wi-Fi range
extenders basically take a Wi-Fi signal and
rebroadcast it on a neighboring Wi-Fi
channel. It works, but it can be inelegant,
creating multiple repeat Wi-Fi SSID’s (like
[Your network name] and [Your networkIn March, the run
on routers was so
bad, I was happy
to get a five-
year-old Asus
RT-1900P for $70
on eBay.