Asus AX56U upgrade to AX86U or AX88U worth it?

[poolbeetse7en]

I am considering upgrading my current Asus AX56U to either the AX86U or AX88U, but I'm not sure if this is really worth doing.

I've had the AX56U for a few years now and it's been great. I even have a second one in my garage purely as an AP. I find sometimes it slows down and takes a while for pages to load etc. I have a few things tunning on the router like AdGuard, so maybe it isn't quite powerful enough. I've also moved the router to the other side of a brick wall which has impacted the WiFI signal strength, so something with better range is also a bonus.

I changed to a GL.iNET MT-6000 OpenWRT router, but I'm really struggling to get IPTV to work, and I'm not a massive fan of the OpenWRT 'Luci' GUI. I wish I could get Merlin on this router and I'd be more than happy to keep it!

Is there another router I should consider that I am overlooking? I just want it to run my IPTV multicast service from my ISP, AdGuard, and a few guest networks. Nothing too fancy. I think I'm maybe asking a little bit too much of the AX56U. Appreciate any suggestions. Thank you!

 

[poolbeetse7en]

Sorry just to add further to this, what do the 'Pro' variants add? Are they worth the additional premium? Thanks

 

[Justinh]

Pro gives you a newer platform = longer time before EoL, and it gives you VLAN configuration. Hardware specs can be found online. (FW 3.0.0.6 has network templates to help config new networks; don't know if 3.0.0.4 has the same.)

 

[Tech9]

Sorry just to add further to this, what do the 'Pro' variants add?

Non-Pro versions are still supported, but discontinued. There is no new units anymore, only old stock, returned or used. RT-AX86U is 2020 model, RT-AX88U is 2018 model. They will reach End-of-Life first. Get the newer RT-AX86U Pro or RT-AX88U Pro instead with 3006 (Asuswrt 5.0) support.