When looking around to see if OpenWRT is something I should look into, I see some posts in the development forums of the routers that put me off. Most of the time they always say stuff like "openwrt drivers for the wifi are bad". If they mean speed/range or both I'm not sure.
I was under the impression that generally once you get a decent router that you're simply limited in range by how much power can be transmitted based on your location. I had no idea that say running the devices stock firmware/drivers vs OpenWRT drivers would have any impact on range.
The reason I ask is I think I can just about get by with a single router such as the Asus TUF-AX6000 range wise. Earlier I had a Asus AX82U which was doing ok but didn't cover the outer building that well so sent it back (was like 1 bar and moving around inside would sometimes lose connection). I'm hoping the slightly better TUF-AX6000 would solve that problem.... mainly due to extra antennas (if that even matters).
The problem is even if it did on stock firmware and I moved to OpenWRT, I'm then concerned that the drivers would impact range putting me again in the same situation as if I still had the AX82U (or worse).
Could you specify exactly what those are? In my experience it varies between what hardware and driver combination is used, where ath10k (Qualcomm) and mt7915 (MediaTek) in my own experience has been very solid (I've been running R7800 with ath10k-ct for years without any issues). The ones that have historically had trouble is for example mwlwifi (could be better nowadays), and basically all Broadcom hardware (minus brcmfmac maybe) due to lack of open source support.
See above, it depends on the maturity of the hardware.
That usually happen when there exists non open source driver from SoC vendor, if you look at Mediatek's recent SoC, it's open source driver so that should perform the same.
I believe manufacturers won't intentionally limit the output power, however note that the physical design of products might have an impact. More antennae only means more stream, it won't increase the signal, business grade ceiling mounted APs usually don't have external antennae but somehow they can cover a bit better.
I would suggest you to get one more AP and wire them together for coverage.
Non of them.
Speed I guess you mean Mbps and range I guess you mean raw transmit power.
The problem is that those two aren’t the factors that produce the “happy performance” in 5GHz wifi and those are not what the manufacturers are patenting.
The problem is where I have often noticed big drops in performance is when the driver seems to lack properly working beamforming and directed radio transmissions that in simple terms focus all the radio energy on a handfull of clients and can handle jumping between them.
To have 1dm long external antennas has nothing to do with performance, they are only there for show.
The wavelength for 5GHz is 6mm and 2,4GHz is 12,5mm, that is the only antenna length you need and that is the antenna length you find inside business class access points.
There's a little mistake in your statement...it's 6cm on 5GHz and 12,5cm on 2,4GHz.
You can get away if you use only a half or a quarter of this length, but of course with reduced range.
I don't know what Mediatek's recent SoC is but I guess you mean the hardware that is inside the Asus TUF-AX6000 as an example? I can't see there being much more recent than a quad core 2 Ghz chip.
A happy ASUS TUF-AX6000 camper here. Wifi range is awesome. Reminds me of Linksys WRT back in the day. In fact, ASUS helps me connect two houses via 5GHz wifi.
I wonder will Banana Pi have a proper OpenWrt port this time? My experience with their wifi coverage was quite mediocre, so went with ASUS TUF this time (same Filogic 830 SoC as BPi R3), and luckily I wasn’t wrong.
One thing I learned from my Banana Pi experience is that they are really good to get familiar with a new technology. But for the production, better to go with an established brand. Again, not saying BPi is bad, but quite the opposite - they are brave to do it first.
Filogic 880 platform is still new, so there is no stable port yet, however I agree that WiFi antenna placement could be an issue that's why the commercial one is doing a lot better, however I would mainly use this for wired router only.
Antenna mean very little when talking about reception. You can stick a cloths hanger in a tv and receive.
The length of the antenna is important because, literally, the wave has a length and too much or too little pushes the excess back into the transmitter (SWR).
Radio technology is somewhat a really complicated topic. But let's try to speak in simple terms.
The correct wavelength of a receiving antenna makes it receive signals easier, although you'll still get something if the antenna is sized improperly.
But an improper length of a transceiving antenna results in high SWR (standing wave ratio) that can be dangerous for the transceiver. Any RF power dissipated as heat in the antenna is power that does not get transmitted into space by the antenna, so the transmission strength is degraded, leading to a localized heating. In the long run, it decreases live span of your device and can cause the components to die.
One of my wifi routers died once the antenna got broken and I haven't noticed it. It was transmitting for some time (weeks, maybe months), and one day the AP signal just disappeared. It was possible to connect to it only within a distance of a few feet. At the same time it was receiving nearby AP's very well. Later I figured out one of the antennas got broken internally.
It's never recommended to transmit at higher power than the device was projected for, not only because the components will have a shorter live span, but also because there's a signal distortion that occurs. And it affects the signal in a bad way, effectively making it less usable.
