Well, it looks like I will be sending back the AX86U-Pro next week.
Yea, big surprise
The one recurring issue with Asus is their wifi simply does not work as reliably on "MY" network as the old eero Pro units I have.
I wonder if the Qualcomm radios in the eero Pro is the reason for this. ??
The AC86U and my old Asus AC1900P ( now on loan to a neighbor) work pretty good, but alas, look to be "obsolete" before too much longer.
TBH, even the new eero wifi 6 units do not work as reliably for me as the older eero Pro. I have tried the eero Pro 6 and finally sold them to a friend who loves them.
The big difference is I have a LOT of 2.4g IoT devices that obviously do not play well with the newer wifi units.
My current setup of TP-Link ER605 v2 and 2 eero Pro in a wireless mesh just "work".
I was hoping to move off of cloud controlled equipment, hence my trying to stay with Asus.
I even toyed with the idea of using the AX86U Pro as just a router and then using the eero Pros in bridge mode for the wifi. This seemed like a waste of the AX86U Pro so I abandoned that idea.
The other positive is the eero Pro are the only eero units that work great with the Firewalla Simple mode of the Blue Plus unit. I know it uses ARP "poisoning" but so far, it is working great. The plus side is if the FWB+ dies, my network will continue to function.
The FWB+ handles my VPN client requirements perfectly and does a very good job of AD blocking for our Apple products and laptops. It also does DoH very nicely.
Anyway, I will continue to visit as I enjoy the forum and following everyone's SNB journeys.
PS- I am keeping my two AC86U units as they have no resale value and who knows, I may be able to use them for something.