"Upgrade" from Asus AC86U to AX86S?

[ct1615]

Currently running my Asus AC86U w/ Merlin in a 1900sq foot ranch. The router covers the property, my basement (also 1900sq ft) and my yard with ease. No problems with the router other than the 2.4ghz channel seems to go out every six months or so, I just re-boot the router and works fine. This just started happening last year. My ISP provides 500Mbps up and down and we hardly push the router in terms of bandwidth. Kids stream youtube, wife serfs the web. At most we have six mobile clients going at once.

Is there a benefit to upgrading? If so, what would it be? Much appreciate any feedback.

 

[Adooni]

if AC86U met your needs I would wait for wifi7 technology to be mature and easy accessible before replacing it.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Currently running my Asus AC86U w/ Merlin in a 1900sq foot ranch. The router covers the property, my basement (also 1900sq ft) and my yard with ease. No problems with the router other than the 2.4ghz channel seems to go out every six months or so, I just re-boot the router and works fine. This just started happening last year. My ISP provides 500Mbps up and down and we hardly push the router in terms of bandwidth. Kids stream youtube, wife serfs the web. At most we have six mobile clients going at once.

Is there a benefit to upgrading? If so, what would it be? Much appreciate any feedback.

The problem with the AC86 for many people is its reliability. It was a big disappointment for many people who started with an ASUS N66 and then upgraded to the AC68 both of which were rock solid. If your AC86 is already suffering problems better to move on now and not wait for the AC86 to fail. If you want to wait for what seems inevitable just be sure you have a spare router to put into service to cover until you can get a replacement for the AC86.

While people are morning the end of support for the AC68 just announced not many people complaining about the AC86 being EOL.

 

[Tech9]

not many people complaining about the AC86 being EOL

Not too many AC86Us survived to retirement age, I guess.

 

[ct1615]

So I "upgraded" to the AX86S from the AC86U (installed merlin with no issue) speeds and range seem to be the same (2.4ghz may be slightly slower).

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[Tech9]

speeds and range seem to be the same

This is expected, speeds will be limited by your clients, range to the same clients will be about the same.

What you can get close to the router in a relatively quiet Wi-Fi environment and 80MHz wide channel:

2-stream AC client ~500Mbps
2-stream AX client, 5GHz ~800Mbps

You upgraded the reliability and extended the support, basically. Hopefully the new router serves you well.