Replacing the Asus RT-AC68U - need something with good range

[gabzprime]

A week ago my trusty AC68U suddenly stopped working. I was able to reset it so its ok for now. I also noticed that the last firmware is July and Im thinking that if it ever break, what can I replace it with. My main considerations are:

• range - I can't wire things in the house. We also have thick walls. The AC68U was able to provide wifi on most areas of the house.
• preferrably less than 400USD(if single router).
• Im open to mesh if its stable nowadays.
• FYI(if it matters). Right now Im using it as an access point only as I still have a dedicated router. If my router breaks I might use it as a router as well.

Im not living in the US(Im from Philipppines) so I can't buy and return and we don't have the whole selection of routers available in the US.

• We have asus routers here(AX86U - 290USD, AX6000-350USD, AC86U and some other ROG routers)
• We also have TPLink available (AX72/73, GX90, AX6600, AX1100)

Honestly if the AC68U is still being supported I won't mind buying one again if my current one breaks.

Mods: Sorry I just realized that I should have posted this on the wireless buying advice. Can we transfer? Thanks.

 

[bennor]

Honestly if the AC68U is still being supported I won't mind buying one again if my current one breaks.

For now the RT-AC68U and other AC series units are still being supported. See the following posts by RMerlin where he indicates that while the AC series are to remain on the 386.x firmware, Asus hasn't EOL'd them yet. The updates will apparently be less frequent going forward.
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/dev-asuswrt-merlin-388-1-development.81087/page-29#post-798670
https://www.snbforums.com/threads/asuswrt-merlin-388-1-beta-is-available-for-select-models.81644/

AC models will stay on the 386.x code base. Asus hasn't added any of these to their End-of-Life list as of now, so that means they will still get updates, just not as frequently. Most of these models being 5-7 years old now, having reduced support isn't unreasonable (as opposed to competitors typically completely dropping ALL support within 2-4 years). On my end, I currently don't plan to drop support for these AC models for the time being, but as with upstream updates, these older models will get less frequent updates from me as well.

RMerlin recently put out the Asus-Merlin 386.9 for the AC series including the RT-AC68U where he updated to the Asus GPL 386_50757. See the Asus-Merlin change log for more: https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/changelog

 

[Spartan]

A week ago my trusty AC68U suddenly stopped working. I was able to reset it so its ok for now. I also noticed that the last firmware is July and Im thinking that if it ever break, what can I replace it with. My main considerations are:

• range - I can't wire things in the house. We also have thick walls. The AC68U was able to provide wifi on most areas of the house.
• preferrably less than 400USD(if single router).
• Im open to mesh if its stable nowadays.
• FYI(if it matters). Right now Im using it as an access point only as I still have a dedicated router. If my router breaks I might use it as a router as well.

Im not living in the US(Im from Philipppines) so I can't buy and return and we don't have the whole selection of routers available in the US.

• We have asus routers here(AX86U - 290USD, AX6000-350USD, AC86U and some other ROG routers)
• We also have TPLink available (AX72/73, GX90, AX6600, AX1100)

Honestly if the AC68U is still being supported I won't mind buying one again if my current one breaks.

Mods: Sorry I just realized that I should have posted this on the wireless buying advice. Can we transfer? Thanks.

out of the routers you mentioned, the AX-GT6000 is the best one now for the money in terms of performance and wireless range. It also has the newer 2.0 GHz CPU. I bought 2 of them as I live in a large 2 story house to cover the entire house in AIMesh mode. It's the best router I've owned so far.