Best ASUS AiMesh combo for less than 200€/$?

[Smokey613]

Has anyone mentioned the AX86U yet?

I think they did but it was more than the OP‘s desired budget range.

 

[Tech9]

but just crashed in the middle of an improtant work meeting

This is unfortunate. Send it back and replace it with something else. You may try the cheap solution in post #10 or upgrade to better Asus model.

 

[PowerForward]

This is unfortunate. Send it back and replace it with something else. You may try the cheap solution in post #10 or upgrade to better Asus model.

I returned in, in person. The store clerk seemed like a knowledgeable guy, when I told him what I saw in the logs. He responded that this should be a quality router...but we do sell loads of TP-Links with very low return percentages. I headed to the store shelves to see what they got. Based on extesive googling, there are quite of bit of dropped connection issues reported for the whole ASUS AX product line. Some models get them more than others, but every model seems to receive some negative feedback, with very similar issues reported than I had. Time is money, so I had no interest in finding out whether my unit was a dud, or managed to corrupt itself straight out of the box. I have spent 13 years of my working career in smartphone RnD and testing, and have no interest in similar work on my free time.

Back to the store shelves. One TP-Link model got my attention - the Archer AX55. What makes this device stand out from the other TP-Links and ASUS routers is that it is based on a Qualcomm SoC (not Broadcom). The price was fair and cheaper than AX-RT68U, so I grabbed one home. The model is very new, so the software life cycle is as good as it gets on TP-Link (=not great).

Same first use procedure. Minimal configuration and setup as a drop-in replacement for the old Archer C7. Defined SSIDs and kept everyhing else as default. Also the AX55 pushed an firmware update at the end of the first boot. The AX55 seems to favor the lower 5GHz channels with the Auto setting, so I manually defined it to use 106, as the ASUS did on Auto, since that range has no neighbours.

Easy setup. TP-Links are as boring as routers get, with no cool features (nerd porn) and boring visuals. This is a 2x2:2 AX3000 router. The range seems to be virtually identical to AX68U and the AX55 also covers my home corner to corner. Actually it seems to get better and usable speeds at the very edge of the range, but then disconnects. The ASUS was able to hang on, but the speeds were very low at the most distant corners. This left me thinking that most likely RT-AX56U or 58U would have done the trick as well -- apparently current routers in general have better reach (WiFi AC Wave 2 was mentioned earlier).

I'll give this a week and think about my options, and have price alerts in place for ASUS RT-AX86S and U. Let's see how this goes. We are quite far from the original thread title

 

[Tech9]

so I manually defined it to use 106

For better Wi-Fi stability use 36-48 or 149-161 non-DFS channels. This Archer AX55 has impressive features set for the price.