Linksys - Velop AX5300 (MX5300)

I guess it goes down to use case. More ram and flash is good if you're doing more than standard wifi, and routing. Which was the original intend of the LN1301 (it has some vpn setup for work from home). But the MX5300 has faster wifi. The MX5300 is more useful for most people.

LN1301 is MX4300, making the MX5300 faster ? in the LN1301 one of the 5GHz radio's 2x2, while both are 4x4 on the 5300.

Got 7 velop nodes all wired backhaul. Able to provide seemless internet in all 7 apartment units. 1 for each apartment. All my nodes are bought second hand in FB marketplace at barely 30% of the original price. 😁

Bile ka 2nd hand market at around 30% price lng, OP yang mesh systems ng carrier. I use 6 velop nodes. 3 MX5300 wifi6(bought for 5k ea, bnew price 18k ea, 3 AC1200 most basic velop(bought for 700ea, bnew price 2.5kea). Parent node is MX5300. All connected via wired backhaul. 4 storey 12 unit apartment bldg 100% coverage, no issues, also better ask your carrier to bridge mode your ONT to avoid double NAT issues.

Was talking to the slickdeals guys on this. Other than the obvious (AX5300 vs AX4300), they cited a few differences (I will list the first as MX5300 and the second as MX4300). RAM: 1 GB vs 2 GB Flash memory: 512 MB vs 1 GB CPU: 2.2 Ghz quad-core vs 1.4 Ghz quad-core WAN Ports: 1 Gigabit Ethernet port (same for both) LAN Ports: 4 Gigabit LAN ports vs 3 Gigabit LAN ports Radio: Both triband. One 2.4ghz radio and 2 5ghz radios. No 6ghz radio (no Wifi 6E) By the way, according to some old articles, this thing used to retail for $700 when it first came out in 2019. That's the same price as these LN1301's did when they retailed in the Enterprise space under the Fortinet moniker. I don't see any announced DD-WRT support for the MX5300, but if the hardware in the MX5300 is similar to the LN1301/MX4300, I imagine someone would be able to provide support for it. There apparently is some movement on the Open-WRT side. From what I can tell, this seems kinda like a sidegrade because you're giving up more RAM/flash memory (which allows devs to make chonkier firmware builds, and the extra RAM helps with handling larger loads of traffic) for 1 extra Gigabit port (which can be solved with a cheap 5-port Gigabit switch), slightly faster WiFi, and a faster processor. What's confusing about this nomenclature is that you would imagine an MX5300 router would be seen as the "newer" model, but the LN1301/MX4300 HomeWRK came out in 2021, whereas this came out in 2019. Which begs the question, where is this stock coming from?

Is the firmware on these 5300's the same firmware that came shipped with the LN1301's? That stock firmware felt so barebones. I also read that Linksys' firmware support for these particular MX5300's was really bad. Last firmware update appears to be from 2022.

I just went through 3 different 3-node mesh systems to find one that worked well. Linksys Velop was fast, but for some reason, its router was throttling upload speeds on my wired gaming PC that was plugged into it. I returned it and tried Eero 6+. No router issues on that one, but it was 100 MBit slower around my house on WiFi. Returned that and tried a TP Link Deco 6E. Finally found something that was fast and had a good wired router. Now I’m finding out there’s some privacy issues with TP Link, but at this point I just don’t care because I’m done trying mesh systems

I did the EXACT same thing…my velop died and got the Eero 6eplus. All works much better. I don’t need to constantly configure settings or paid for the extra stuff to analyze traffic

Yeah, these can all be part of a Velop mesh even though it's unofficial for the LN1301 it'll just work with any of their other Velop capable routers if you do the CA trick. You can run a surprisingly ridiculous mishmash of Linksys routers in a mesh.

In 220 sqm, you shouldn't need more than 3 nodes, unless you want more coverage outside, but with too many as you've already experience, they will sometime fight for the best signal, even more so when they are just wifi based. If you can get more Cat6 installed, the location of the router (primary node) becomes irrelevant since they will all share the same exact signal with the same bandwidth so you should be able to test it now and confirm better coverage. If you have baseboards, they make 1/4 round that has channels in them where you can hide the Cat 6, and if that's not an option there are some manufacturers who make flat cables. As for me personally, both system have been challenging but that is more related to my own person situation than the hardware. The Linksys Velop system started out great, but as my need for IoT devices grew, the system struggled a bit. I came to find out well after the fact, the nodes which I thought I set up as wired, someone defaulted back to wireless which impact my bandwidth for devices connected to it. I ended up giving them to my inlaws since the coverage at their home sucked and they have been working perfectly since. I moved over to the Night Hawk system on the recommendation of a friend who has their gaming router and overall it has been really good. It took a lot of additional setup and tweaking to get it up and running at full capacity. The biggest challenge I had (again my own issue, not product issue), was I forgot how many of my IoT devices only run off 2.4 gHz. The Night Hawk system (unlike the Velop) has a default SSID that combines the 2.4 and 5 gHz bands. The Velop had these automatically separate with different SSID's. Due to this, some of my IoT devices had trouble connecting and I regularly lost their signal. (see Ring Cameras, smart switches/outlets, etc) so this meant I had to reconfigure my network with customized networks. But on the Nighthawk system this works differently than I was used to. The main 2.4/5 ghz network will always remain, so I had to create a custom standalone 2.4ghz network and then reconnect all my IoT devices to that. This was a tedious effort, but again, this was my fault, not the hardware/software. Since I have finally got all of that figured out, its run flawlessly. I have a 1GB fiber line. If the device is hardwired, I will get 850 Mbps (up and down) on average (www.speedtest.net). On a wireless device it will vary from 100Mbps to 500Mbps which is dependent on how much bandwidth is being used at any give time. The coverage is better than the Velop overall. I have a few friends who have the Orbi systems and swear by them. Since I run a lot of wired, I wanted some more raw high performance in certain locations. (Night Hawk lets you prioritize devices better IMO) I both game and run a home theater server so I stream not only from the net, but also across the network from that service to 4 different locations in the house. Even if they are all running at the same time, the wired connection means they don't bog down and don't impact the wireless bandwidth that is remaining. The Orbi overperforms with wifi only based stuff and provides a stable network across a larger area. From what I understand the setup is also easier on the Orbi. If and when my night hawk system dies, I will seriously consider and Orbi system but thats not going to be for quite a long time.

I'm in the same boat -- I have a Linksys Velop system. It's been garbage since I bought it. Just FYI, I'm considering Eero (I actually owned an Eero system previously) and also Ubiquiti UniFi. The UniFi seems really solid but requires PoE (which I don't have now), so I'm considering whether it's worth adding that into the mess and worth any potential upside.

We recently moved into a new home and now have gigabit internet. I have tried two different systems so far: the Linksys Velop system with two points. I would only get the speed I pay for in the room the router is in, but as soon as I go into the next room, it drops to around 200 mbps. Upstairs, it drops even further, even with the second point, unless you are hardwired into the second point. I am currently using the Nest Wifi router with four points, but I now only get a maximum speed of 500 Mbps downstairs and 150 Mbps upstairs, even with two points upstairs. Unfortunately, the Nest points don't have Ethernet, so I can't check that speed.The house is 1,328 sq ft. I just need a system that gets my speeds better for both downstairs and upstairs, as it is needed in both areas.