Asus RT-AX88u Pro - Odd Product??

[Sander_H]

Also when trying to register the product with Asus the system tells me that the router has ran out of warranty - very strange and odd customer experience yet, support ticket is open.

Same for the AX86U Pro - you can't register it properly. Opened support ticket, was asked to fill in form, but the same still happened the second time around. Expired immediately. Probably something wrong in the back-end.

 

[Spartan]

Just upgraded my RT-AX88u to an RT-AX88u Pro - oddly enough there seem to be no manuals avail at this point in time, also when trying to register the product with Asus the system tells me that the router has ran out of warranty - very strange and odd customer experience yet, support ticket is open. Hope I m not yet sitting on a dead-end street product. Maybe I should wait a bit further before selling the AX88u ... :-(

For registering the router, try the link I mentioned in this post: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/register-your-product-greyed-out.82773/post-814369

@Sander_H

 

[SpringThing]

The AX88U Pro is indeed an odd product because the main new feature, VLAN, is only available in the beta software. I bought this router mainly because of the VLAN feature. I was thinking going all the way and buy a unit that I could install pfsense on and use the other wifi routers I already have to set up 2 different wifi networks. Now that AX88U Pro had VLAN I thought the smart thing to do was to use the VLAN feature on that router and at the same time get a new wifi router that I could incorporate into a asus mesh network. EG create a mesh network with AX88U pro as the main router - use AX86U as a node for the main network - both cabable of creating a 2.5 GB with ethernet backhaul. And from the AX88U pro use the VLAN feature to connect to another an AC86U, and from this router create another mesh network with another AC86U - all with ethernet backhaul. Then I would have 2 different truly separated (mesh) networks all connected with ethernet backhaul. The main mesh network (AX88U Pro + AX86U) would consist of all my main computeres related to (home) work etc - the second mesh network should be a IOT network and for my children and friends to use. I've always used merlin firmware, but as merlin always use a stable version - his latest firmware does NOT have the VLAN feature of the AX88U Pro. I find it a little bit frustrating that Asus is selling a feature, EG VLAN, that has to rely on beta software to work.

That said - I do hope Asus soon releases a stable firmware version for this router that has VLAN - and that Merlin will follow up with a release. My test so far regarding wifi coverage and speed with my AX88U Pro against the AX86U seems to be very similar but not 100% on par with clients using only AC network. I really don't know why, but maybe it could have something todo with beamforming that I do no longer see as an option in AX88U Pro with the 5GHz band? So right now it seems that I got a new router that has a little bit worse speed for AC clients than my AX86U,and that the stable firmware on AX88U Pro does not bring anything new to the table like true VLAN. I have very few AX devices - so I did not speed compare the AX86U vs AX88U Pro - only AC clients was tested. And I feel I do have to mention that my old AX86U based mesh network was fine tuned - and I've not have the time to fine tune it with my AX88U Pro as the main (mesh) router. So the small performance degradation I see against my former AX86U based mesh solution with AC clients may disappear in time as I start fine tuning all the settings..

 

[maxbraketorque]

The ASUS 3.0.0.6 beta firmware for the Pro routers and the GT-AX6000 is a significant update to the ASUS firmware. After the ASUS 3.0.0.6 firmware goes final, Merlin will likely begin the processes of merging his mods to it. Don't expect it to happen any time soon. I would guess 9 months from now for Merlin FW using 3.0.0.6.

The newer 3.0.0.4.386 and .388 firmwares actually have some VLAN capability cooked into them. If you want Merlin firmware and VLAN right now and are comfortable scripting, I suggest you look into scripting a VLAN config with the 388 firmware to meet your needs.

Also, I've noticed a lot of people talking about using Pro or GT-AX6000 routers as their main router and then using other routers for AIMesh notes. You may find that using lesser routers for AIMesh nodes (that will never run the 3.0.0.6 firmware with GUI VLAN control) doesn't give you the VLAN capability that you want, at least not without scripting. With this in mind, I am wondering whether it makes sense for Merlin to bring some of the built-in VLAN capability of the 388 firmware into a GUI.

 

[John_]

That said - I do hope Asus soon releases a stable firmware version for this router that has VLAN - and that Merlin will follow up with a release. My test so far regarding wifi coverage and speed with my AX88U Pro against the AX86U seems to be very similar but not 100% on par with clients using only AC network. I really don't know why, but maybe it could have something todo with beamforming that I do no longer see as an option in AX88U Pro with the 5GHz band? So right now it seems that I got a new router that has a little bit worse speed for AC clients than my AX86U,and that the stable firmware on AX88U Pro does not bring anything new to the table like true VLAN. I have very few AX devices - so I did not speed compare the AX86U vs AX88U Pro - only AC clients was tested. And I feel I do have to mention that my old AX86U based mesh network was fine tuned - and I've not have the time to fine tune it with my AX88U Pro as the main (mesh) router. So the small performance degradation I see against my former AX86U based mesh solution with AC clients may disappear in time as I start fine tuning all the settings..

I am still running my AC routers for AC clients as I get better speeds that way than connecting them to an AX router.