Status of Mikrotik RB962UiGS-5HacT2HnT (hAP ac) support

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Dear all,

I purchased at five Mikrotik hAP ac (RB962UiGS-5HacT2HnT) for a real bargain (40€ each), mostly because I like the design with a switch chip, three radios on 2;4Ghz and 5 Ghz, the presence of an SFP connector. However, I realize that Mikrotik does not offer WPA3 and lags behind in WIFI. So I might consider flashing OpenWRT.

Do you know why OpenWRT latest versions are not supported? Is WPA3 implemented? Can the SFP connector be used? What is the status of OpenWRT on hAP ac (RB962UiGS-5HacT2HnT)?

Any information welcome, thank you.

FFries

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2

22.03.0-rc6 is available for this device: https://downloads.openwrt.org/releases/22.03.0-rc6/targets/ath79/mikrotik/

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3

Thank you very much for the information. Can I expect the SFP connector to be working or do I need to recompile OpenWRT or is there definitely no support for the SFP connector? The APs will probably arrive on Monday so I will test and report anyway. Kind regards, French Fries

4

My bad : SFP should be supported. I will test and report anyway. Thank you all !!!

5

Nice purchase for 40€ each.
I've never been interested in the device due to the CPU limitation on wireless throughput:

Please let us know if Openwrt gets past this.

6

Yes, I read this review, but the methodology and radio environment of this survey is unknown.

The writer of this document apparently lacks some knowledge in radio. Using two devices, one in AP mode and the other in client mode, is really not convincing. Prior to testing, there was apparently no survey of radio environment. We don't know whether other APs are available on the same, on close or on overlapping channels. So the result means nothing.

In 2.4/5Ghz mode the AP might switch back from 40Mhz/80hz bandwidth to a single 20 Mhz channel if other channels are emitting in the neighborhood.

For example, in my main house, where radio environment is crappy, my APs always switch to single channel. On the converse, on the country side, I get full bandwidth.

So I don't trust the given figures. For me, if Mikrotik has included 3 radios, we should be able to reach maximum speed. As I will be using the AP in "dumb" mode on the LAN bridge connected to fiber, I don"t see why I should not reach maximum output.

Anyway I will report using OpenWRT.

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7

I checked the review again, it is written by a home user with zero knowledge in WIFI. The guy probably does not realize the limits of WIFI technology. So I don't even consider it.

This kind of article should be removed from the WEB.

8

If only they didn't have a YouTube channel:
https://youtube.com/c/IntermitTech

9

I see your point, you are refering to this extract in the blog:

And there you have it! In a maximum performance setup connecting two hAP AC’s together their maximum transfer rate is about 500Mbit because of CPU limitations. Weirdly enough, the CPU usage between upload or download on an hAP AC shows a very different amount of CPU usage. I’m not sure if this is by design or something in RouterOS causing it.

Ok, that means that with the current software, the hAP AC will never be able to achieve it’s 3×3 AC radio maximum a 1300Mbit link would allow for. Realistically and the highest I’ve ever seen in a review that would result in a transfer of about ~700Mbit / 87,50MB/sec. So the hAP AC is not that far off but still, strictly speaking it is CPU limited.

CPU usage is not enough to elaborate on radio efficiency, this is a wrong methodology.

In WIFI only one equipment is on air at a time. This usually divides performance figures by a factor of two. There could be several equipment on the same channels, we don't know the methodology of the test. Also AP and client need to be at a minimum distance of several meters (they could be too close). Again wireless equipment needs to be tested in a lab in a radio free environment.

Furthermore, we don't know whether the AP is in routing or gateway mode.

I would be very surprised if Mikrotik released an equipment not able to reach the limits of radio.

The blog also gives false information ;

As I stated above, I will be using it mainly in a multiple access-point deployment situation. In such a case, not being able to hit the absolute maximum in performance is compensated by having multiple access-points which can handle clients at the same time literally doubling or tripling your potential throughput.

I know, I know, it doesn’t actually work that way.

To my knowledge, you cannot connect to several APs at the same time; All this is wrong. The writer does not have enough WIFI knowledge to perform a survey.

Let's rank this article : double or triple zero (Europe) / F minus (US)

I saw many references to this article on the web. It could be false information designed to sink Mikritik.

Anyway, I will do my own testing of this equipment under OpenWRT and report.

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10

I have 2 of those devices but yet unable to put them in openwrt mode. Did not suceeded to change the OS.
Can you please share how you did it? I tried TFTP as instructed but for some reason, does not work.
MOREOVER:
your comment on that review is very interesting.
Did you have the chance to test those routers in Dumb AP? This is exactly the same use I would make of those mikrotik. (if I manage to switch them to openwrt).
If you did switch to openwrt: what are the performance you get?
Thanks

11

Hello,

Sorry for this late reply. I managed to install OpenWRT after dowgrading RouterOS. It was quite painful and complicated. In the end I got bad performance under OpenWRT, especially on Ethernet, so I dropped the idea of using OpenWRT on these devices. I have 5 of them and will resell them.

On converse I confirm WPA3 support, which is a nice feature.

Please follow this link:
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/mikrotik-hap-ac-tftp-kernel-image-booting-fixed-sfp-fixed-poe-in-fixed-poe-out-fixed-slow-switch-not-fixed

Kind regards,

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