I want to buy Asus RT-AX53U AX1800 router and install openwrt firmware. Before buying, it would be helpful to know if there is any problem to Install and run openwrt official firmware on it and if there is any better option in this price range please suggest me.
If It is okay to buy RT-AX53U AX1800 and Since I will buy from Bangladesh, I have given the link of the website below so that you can see if my selected router is correct or not.
Thanks in advance.
Well, it's supported and has a current build https://openwrt.org/toh/asus/rt-ax53u, but... Looks like it's pretty painful to install OpenWrt on that device.
Thanks for your comment.Apart from this, is there any other router recommendation which will be good in all aspects for openwrt ?
Well, here in the US I'd say Belkin RT3200, but in Bangladesh, I have no idea what's available. The Linksys E8450 is the same internally as the Belkin (but in a black case), was available in Europe, but sources seem to have run out of those, too.
Can you get Netgear there?
NETGEAR WAX202 is available in my country.
Should I go for it?
The 202 has the "same" SoC (MT7921 A vs AT), same flash size, but twice as much RAM and newer radio (MT7915) than the Asus you were looking at so overall it looks like a much better device (assuming the price good).
I will of course say you should search the forum for "wax202" and read some posts on what people are having success or trouble with, but I'd say, sure, go for it.
The WAX202 is a good economical choice as long as you recognize its MT7621 CPU is only fast enough to handle CAKE SQM/QoS at ~100Mbps, Wireguard VPN around ~150 Mbps and OpenVPN ~25 Mbps; and less than this depending on how busy the CPU is handling WiFi or a PPoE ISP connection (this type of ISP connection uses more CPU). But as long as you use its hardware offloading (hardware offloading and SQM/QoS cannot be used together) and don't need fast SQM/QoS or VPN, then the WAX202 should handle routing near Gbps speeds just fine. This is what makes MT7621 based routers great low cost choices.
The WAX206 would be a better choice if you can find one for not much more cost though. The WAX206 has a much faster MT7622 CPU that will give you better future proofing and more options.
Gah! Yes, thanks for seeing that...
What is your ISP speed? As @eginnc said that is a critical factor in deciding which hardware.
Is it as cheap as a ZyXel Multy M1 (WSM20)? That has the same specs but is extremely cheap in a lot of countries (currently £32 in the UK).
@mk24 My isp speed is 100mbps. @Borromini Somewhere online I found that, wifi coverage of WAX202 is 1200sft. I would appreciate it if you could let me know how you are getting wifi coverage.I need at least 2000sft coverage. @efahl @eginnc @timothyjward Linksys e8450/Belkin RT3200/ was ok for me. But currently, they are not available in Bangladesh . Is there any other option now?
I am giving a link below to get an idea about the routers currently available in my country.Thanks to all very much for your valuable opinions and suggestions.
I have no idea, it certainly suffices for one floor. As you know 5 GHz gets attenuated considerably by brick walls and stuff. Those coverage numbers are always to be taken with a grain of salt.
In general, transmit power on OpenWrt seems to be a bit lower than with OEM as well.
1200 square feet is a circle of radius 20 feet, while 2000 square feet is a circle of radius 25 feet. Think in terms of distance from the AP rather than square footage of the house. Then of course there is the issue of wall material. Most houses will require more than one AP to cover all rooms at high speed.
Is it easy to go back to stock firmware from Openwrt on WAX202? If I install SSR Plus+ plugin on WAX202, will it work fine without any problem and can SSR Plus+ be used in AP mode ? Please don't mind I am new user of openwrt and don't know much.
@efahl I can bring belkin rt3200 to bangladesh from walmart . the total cost would be 83USD. Will it be the right decision to bring this router at this price?
An RT3200 for $83 is a good choice. With only 100 Mbps ISP service, you do not need its faster CPU now. But OpenWrt gives you so many options that you may very soon find a "need" you did not know you had that requires more CPU. And $83 looks like it is even a few dollars less than the WAX202 you linked at 8700 BDT (~$87). Seems like a no brainer to me - get the RT3200 and flash it with the OpenWrt UBI installer.
Borromini brings up a good point. Even though it is FCC certified to 27 dBm on all 5GHz channels, OpenWrt limits 5GHz transmit power on my RT3200 to 23 dBm on U-NII-1 (Channels 36-48); however U-NII-2 (52-144) up to 24 dBm and U-NII-3 (149-165) up to 27 dBm are supported. I ran my RT3200 on channel 149 with an 80 MHz wide channel and it performed well.
I can't tell you if a WAX202 would have the same problem or not. It has been speculated that Mediatek released some EPROM chips with the wrong transmit power limits written to them, which OEM vendors correct in their firmware, but OpenWrt does not. However, I'm seeing this same problem arise in recent OpenWrt releases even with old ipq806x WiFi 5 targets, so I think there is more to it than that. Whatever the reason, I'm hopeful we eventually will get full U-NII-1 hardware transit power capability back in a future OpenWrt release.
In practice, I've found that more 5GHz transmit power than 27 dBm (on other devices that can reach 30 dBm) does not noticeably improve throughput, but I do start to see a performance loss dropping below 27 dBm. Most clients transmit at lower power to save battery power, and clients and the router both need to hear each other for things to work.
Didn't know that MT7915 is newer than MT7915.
The RT-AX53U has MT7905 + MT7975, hence its AX1800 moniker. MT7915 devices are usually labelled AX3200.
How is WAX202 better in this regard?