ASUS - RT-AX88U PRO

Buy an Asus AX88U Pro on Amazon used for $184. Even better than AX86U Pro.

2nd this. Have one running my home. Everything works all the time, plus 2.5gb ports for future speed upgrades.

No issues. I use some ax1800s for wired mesh points but the 88 is my main router still.

I sold my asus 68 and went eero. Sold the eero and a month later went to a asus 88 rx pro. For me and my old house, the single asus had better range and perf than the mesh. So my single asus that hasn’t had a firmware release in like 6 months continues to chug along. Maybe we are getting to the point now where upgrading doesn’t get you much

Top options are the ASUS RT-AX88U Pro for strong performance, the Netgear Nighthawk RAX120 for reliability, and the Synology RT6600ax for good features. These offer solid coverage and handle multiple devices well without huge speed drops.

Asus RT-AX88U is the best router I’ve owned and I just keep linking them together in an air mesh for complete home coverage as we moved in different homes over the years.

Your Asus should be setup as WDS bridge, since you are not WiFi signal out of reach on the other end of house, WDS bridge is to use the router's WiFi to get the signal from source and then allow the ethernet network behind to join as the same network. If you run in repeater mode you are generating another WiFi signal in short distance which might interfere original signal if channel setting not correct. By using WDS bridge, your Asus AX88U Pro can connect using all 4 antennae to form a much faster wireless backhaul without interfering others (it's operating as client) [https://www.asus.com/support/faq/109839/](https://www.asus.com/support/faq/109839/)

I went to help a family friend set up their wifi mesh, brought 3 RT AX88s, they could not be linked. It seems that some old houses have used it for structural purposes and it really blocks the signals

I like ASUS for consumer needs like yours. They have gaming features, but they're gimmicks. Look at the Asus RT-BE88U for a larger router, or the RT-BE86U for a bit smaller. These are the wifi 7 models which you may not need ot want. You can find the Wifi 6 models as RT-AX88U and RT-AX86U respectively on Amazon. They have some other models as well. I wouldn't pay a premium for any TUF or ROG branded "gaming" routers, the others do the same thing.

I’ve not paid any attention to the fork of the firmware you’re using, so I may be talking from left field, but my rt-ax88u pro running the Merlin firmware has the capability of 3-4 guest networks *per band* of wifi; for you, I would make one for your cameras, and another for everything else “smart” on 2.4ghz within the mesh. If you’re running with wifi at its highest level according to the slider on the wireless setups page, turn it down on both the router and the node and see how things go. Live with these changes for a number of days to see if it’s making your connection more reliable, and then decide if you need to engage QoS.

You must have a very large home with lots of metal in the walls, or lots of concrete/brick: I’ve a 2500+ sqft multilevel home and my rt-ax88pro blasts throughout my home and well past my yard, into the neighbourhood. My car connects to it before I’m in my driveway. So I ask, is your wifi coverage lacking from poor router positioning or is it related to the construction of the house?

So your budget is around $300 and you want to learn some networking… https://mikrotik.com/product/hex_s_2025 And A ubiquiti u6+ (download the ubiquiti app portal to see pricing in your area direct from them) You *should* be able to take the fibre out of the AT&T machine, stick it into an appropriate SFP carrier, and then into the hex for routing. The hex should pass enough PoE to power the Ubiquiti AP. And then, as they say, Bob’s your uncle, and under budget. Even with a Cat6 cable to connect them. Solid little combo that will treat you well for many years to come. And easy to upgrade components as required. You might consider the U7 Long Range if wifi 7 and maxing the budget are priorities and you don’t want to address things for 5+ years (the hex has enough PoE power to run this one too) I’ve an ax88pro from Asus. I regret not knowing this when I had to upgrade, and also not having enough time to properly research and acquire kit like this. But I also only have 120Mbps cable, so wifi7 and a fibre router are a bit over the top in my world.

Do not overbuy now for a place you haven’t bought yet. I’m going start there. I say this because technology will inevitably improve between now and then, and there’s no way to predict how up to speed what you buy now will be at that time. So- buy what you need now (and that’s a current AX router like the 86 or 88 pro from Asus). It will be able to take 2nd fiddle to a BE router in either Mesh or AP or even Media bridge modes, and that BE router will be less expensive than current models because that’s how it works.

They’ll be supported longest.

Their modem and my own Asus RT-AX88U Pro router.

Their modem and my own Asus RT-AX88U Pro router.

I'm running an Asus RT-AX88U Pro with Merlin firmware and two Pi-holes. DNS Director in the Merlin firmware is awesome.

The 86U only has one 2.5Gbe port, configurable for either LAN or WAN. The 88U has two, for both LAN and WAN. If you have gig or faster internet, you need 2.5Gbe to get maximum throughput.

I run the Asus RT-AX88U Pro. It has 2.5 GbE ports for WAN and LAN.