Yet another help me decide on a router thread

[SteelSteve]

About 2 years ago now I picked up the Amplifi Alien, and to be honest it's probably been the best router I've ever owned. No the firmware isn't flashy but its been fast and stable for 2 years. Unfortunately for me the wifi 6 channels (both the AX and 2.4) appear to have died. The Web gui and Phone app both show them and I can configure them, however no device in the house can see or connect to either. I've tried factory resets and rolling back the firmware, etc without success and though I have reached out to Ubiquity I haven't heard back yet. As a last ditch effort I have left it unplugged all day today and will attempt to reconnect this evening to see if that helps, it was recommended by someone on Amplifi's Facebook page. I'm guessing however that even if that does work it indicates a heat build up issue and will likely happen again after things have been on for a while.
Needles to say I've started looking, and unfortunately as I'll explain in a minute I need to pick up something relatively quickly so that leaves me with Bestbuy in my area. I prefer tri-band routers as I set them up the following way:
2.4 - IOT devices, since most IOT devices work best on this channel I also have my old PS4 on this channel
5GHZ AC - This is normally for my streaming devices, TV's, Amazon Echo's, ipads, etc
5GHZ AX - Here is where my Son's PS5, my Xbox Series X, and our iPhones reside

I set things up this way believing that it enables each channel to function at it fullest speed, for example I don't have a 5GHZ AC device connecting to my 5GHZ AX channel there by slowing that channel down to AC speeds. If my interpretation or reasoning is flawed please feel free to let me know, that just the way I understood things to work.

Because my lights, timers, etc are on the 2.4 and can not longer see it of course this has made functions in my house that I have taken for granted difficult, hence the I may need to replace things fast. If my Alien comes back up after I plug it back in I may have more time to re-evaluate.

The 3 routers I have found I can get quickly are as follows:
1.) The Nighhawk RAX70. Even before buy the Alien I was research the Netgear routers and there seems to be a common theme of poor stability and Firmware updates which have me leery of this brand. Have things improved?
2.) The ASUS GT-AX6000. ASUS was my second choice before going for the Amplifi, but even though they were generally the fastest performance wise, they to suffered some from stability issues and questionable firmware.
3.) Another Amplifi Alien. This would seem to be a good choice because I was happy with my last until now, but I'm struggling with the fact that it may have just died after not quite 2 years of use.

Regardless of what I do, I am thinking of setting the Alien up in my son's room as a wired Access point since he has the room over the Garage and it's the farthest point away from where the router resides.
As for what my ISP is, I have Verizon Fios Gigabit connection and I don't know the name or model of the device converting Fiber to Ethernet.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome

 

[RMinNJ]

I have one location with the latest ASUS firmware GT-AX6000 and also tried it at my location for week and had no issues..

I'm running the RT-AX86U and its been stable as my old R7800 with a bit more range (and AX capable).

I ran my R7800 with Voxel firmware for along time. My experience with NetGear firmware was its great if it works but if you have an issue... I'm not sure if NetGear support has changed...they will help you with a firmware or issue for 90 days ..anything after that you must pay them...even to report a bug.

 

[sfx2000]

I don't have a 5GHZ AC device connecting to my 5GHZ AX channel there by slowing that channel down to AC speed

That's not how it works - each station/client will get the modulation schemes it has negotiated with the AP

So if the access point radio is 11ax, it can and does work properly with 11ax, 11ac with no performance penalty. In the event of a 11a client attaching, that could impact performance, as 11g, if I recall, didn't have many of the frame aggregation features brought in by 11n HT mode.

The old notion about AP's being slowed down by the oldest access tech goes back to 11b/g days, where older 11g AP's could slow down to 11b rates when 11b clients attached for airtime protection for the 11b clients (as 11b was DSSS, 11g was OFDM).

 

[Tech9]

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome

Shorter posts to start with. You need a new router, 3 options are available, which one?

GT-AX6000, if it's ugly face doesn't scare your family too much. RAX70, if you are big fans of Star Wars. Alien, because you are familiar with it.

 

[tgl]

... Another Amplifi Alien. This would seem to be a good choice because I was happy with my last until now, but I'm struggling with the fact that it may have just died after not quite 2 years of use.

As far as that goes: either you just got unlucky, or the model has an inherent design or manufacturing flaw. If the former, you shouldn't let one prematurely-dead unit dissuade you from using a model you know and like. The way to figure out if it might be the latter is to check on Amplifi user forums to see if there are a lot of complaints. I suppose there's a user community somewhere, but it's not here at SNB --- there's not much chatter here about Amplifi.