BE86U - worth upgrading from AX86U Pro?

[SkippyP]

My dad is currently using an AC86U, which has been end-of-life for a little while. He doesn’t want to spend a lot to upgrade. Rather than him spending any money at all, I was thinking of giving him my AX86U Pro and I’d buy a BE86U. I like the vertical/upright design (fits nicely in my space), so my options are somewhat limited

What are everyone’s thoughts on the BE86U? Is a dual band WiFi 7 router kind of pointless, especially at $410 CAD? Is not having the 6 GHz band really a big deal? My AX86U Pro doesn’t have it either and I’m not bothered by it.

The other option is that I just keep my AX86U Pro for now and wait for Asus WiFi 7 routers to drop in price. My dad can then either wait for me to give him mine when I eventually upgrade, or he can grab an AX86U Pro now (currently on sale for $210 CAD).

Thoughts?

 

[Tech9]

It all comes down to how much money CAD410/210 is for you. You perhaps don't need to upgrade your router and your father may continue using his existing router for quite some time after EoL.

 

[_Harald_]

My 5 cents.. I’ve been using RT-BE86U since December and fairly disappointed for product maturity. Some observations:
- LAN1 port very often negotiates speed 100M instead 1G to my switch (managed one). This is really annoying making LAN1 port unusable at the moment and I rather/have to use another port instead.
- WAN connection. I’m using Citrix for remote work at home. Citrix teams not functional, serious quality problems with audio and desktop sharing. With old RT-AC86U no problems at all.
- web user interface is often very sluggish. Sometimes it is even hard to access router while waiting page loading.

General feeling is that SW in general is not yet mature. At the moment I would stick with old AC/AX router and wait until Asus fixes probs and SW in general achieves more matured status.

 

[SkippyP]

Thanks guys. I’m sticking with my AX86U Pro for now.

 

[jzchen]

@_Harald_ I hope someone has directed you to ASUS support and they addressed this LAN port speed issue already? Because if you haven't already better contact them as your unit may be faulty...

 

[jzchen]

Thanks guys. I’m sticking with my AX86U Pro for now.

Sorry for the delay of my input, part of it was researching options in Canada while in the USA is somewhat difficult, ie I don't know good go-to vendors there except for maybe Amazon.ca...

Do you have any 6 GHz (6E or 7) devices? The RT-BE92U is soon to be released there from my perusing the ASUS Canada website. It sacrifices some 5 GHz bandwidth but adds 6 GHz, AND at a lower price point...

 

[_Harald_]

@_Harald_ I hope someone has directed you to ASUS support and they addressed this LAN port speed issue already? Because if you haven't already better contact them as your unit may be faulty...

Asus support recommended replacing device and seller agreed as well. I will get a replacement during weekend and report back.

 

[SkippyP]

Sorry for the delay of my input, part of it was researching options in Canada while in the USA is somewhat difficult, ie I don't know good go-to vendors there except for maybe Amazon.ca...

Do you have any 6 GHz (6E or 7) devices? The RT-BE92U is soon to be released there from my perusing the ASUS Canada website. It sacrifices some 5 GHz bandwidth but adds 6 GHz, AND at a lower price point...

Thanks. I don’t have any WiFi 7 devices. I think I have two WiFi 6E devices. The rest are a mix of 6 and 5. I’ve been very happy with my AX86U Pro. No problems whatsoever. I consistently clock 800Mbps over WiFi on my ISP’s 1Gb connection using an 80MHz channel. Only reason I was consider a WiFi 7 router is for the reason I mentioned in my original post and for future-proofing. But I’ll stick with my AX router for now. My dad is also more than fine with his AC router for now.

 

[_Harald_]

Asus support recommended replacing device and seller agreed as well. I will get a replacement during weekend and report back.

update to my probs.. LAN1 port problem seems to be fixed now.. While commissioning, device was restarted several times and LAN1 always stable. Installed Merlin SW as well, Diversion & Skynet + some additional apps and no problems with those either.. Uidiversion had issues after router restart with flapping high IO related CPU load. After removing Uidiversion cpu load stable and low.

Also Sluggish web user interface seems to be better. Not as responsive as with older router but better.

Problems with Citrix workspace for remote working not solved. There is something wrong with WAN connection but not visible to end user - no specific log writings or hints what is wrong.. QoS settings did not help situation. This remains mystery still.

Bandwith is good..

 

[jzchen]

If it is Citrix and Windows you can Google search the error that pops up. I was able to help my wife fix it once doing that...

 

[_Harald_]

Yes it is Citrix & Windows11.. and yes, I have searched with google with various searches, wasted hours but no solution really. Mystery part is that Citrix works just perfectly with old router.

 

[routerq]

Having Merlin FW for the RT-BE86U is a very big plus IMHO ...

 

[jksmurf]

Having Merlin FW for the RT-BE86U is a very big plus IMHO ...

I’m in the very early stages of considering the RT-BE86U to switch up from my RT-AX86U non-Pro.

I have been using Merlin FW for 10 years or so, addons for slightly less than that, so I know what features I like, but I’d be interested in hearing exactly what fixes or features in Merlin FW that you consider a big plus over stock?

 

[routerq]

I’m in the very early stages of considering the RT-BE86U to switch up from my RT-AX86U non-Pro.

I have been using Merlin FW for 10 years or so, addons for slightly less than that, so I know what features I like, but I’d be interested in hearing exactly what fixes or features in Merlin FW that you consider a big plus over stock?

In all honesty, I have never run my Asus routers without Merlin. I liked the stability and some additional features and the more updated components (did give me a feeling that my router is more secure), but since I don't have any exp with OEM FW, I can't comment much. DNS Director was a thing I used a lot.

I do use a RT-AX86U now which does not have Merlin on the 3.0.0.6 FW, and many things don't work (e.g. MAC blacklist, no internet blocking on the SDN SSIDs etc..).

Given the budget I would get a Merlin supported router over a non-supported one. As I am sure in future those small tweaks etc will be needed

 

[Jeje2]

Upgraded AX86U (not pro) to BE86U roughly 2 months ago as found a good deal... To be honest, I do feel I was bit early out, just as @_Harald_ wrote.

Our main drawback findings are:
- My wife (we both work from home majority of time) isn't happy, as this new router has an small extra delay to the MS office cloud where all her work is. Earlier when she saved documents from other cloudbased software she could access them immediately, now there is a 5-30 seconds delay.
- We have Nedis smartlife WLAN products in our home: The wireless power sockets work fine, but fire alarms can't be found. (Nor could Nedis support help me)

 

[ualdrivr]

My advise? Stay with the AX86U. The router is very stable. Here is a link to my story with the BE family of ASUS routers, if you are interested.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/new-rog-gt-be98-pro.93339/

 

[jksmurf]

My advise? Stay with the AX86U. The router is very stable. Here is a link to my story with the BE family of ASUS routers, if you are interested.

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/new-rog-gt-be98-pro.93339/

I'd happily get/stay with an RT-AX86U Pro if I KNEW all the Guest Wifi (or VLAN Wifi on ASUSWRT 5.0) was going to propogate correctly to the non-ASUSWRT 5.0 AIMesh Nodes (and not just Primary SSID + GW1) but as per my separate post here, that is simply not known and not guaranteed.

It is no longer even 100% clear if it does so if you have ALL ASUSWRT 5.0 Nodes (as well as main), although I think you're probably fairly safe with that.

It seems though, reading various posts on this forum, that even that has potential issues e.g. in one case I read recently, IIRC a user determined that IoT devices only stay on the dedicated VLAN if the user did not have 2.4GHz enabled on the Main Wifi and conclusions like that. Of course there may be hundreds of different reasons for this observation, which makes it all just so ... uncertain and frustrating.

 

[Tech9]

uncertain and frustrating

Perhaps because you're not professional enough.

Running an AiMesh network is truly hassle-free.
It's a truly professional tool for anyone who wants fully-tailored network settings.

Yours truly,
Asus

 

[jksmurf]

Perhaps because you're not professional enough.

Running an AiMesh network is truly hassle-free.
It's a truly professional tool for anyone who wants fully-tailored network settings.

Yours truly,
Asus

Lol. I knew there was a reason. Right, I am off to 'professional' school ... !

 

[Tech9]

I'm more interested how AiMesh is going to work after introduction of Network setup process. It will require fully VLAN aware nodes and everything with slow support or EoL will become incompatible unless the user is happy with basic main network.