Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsTwice as fast as Orbi RBK 50, but having issues with devices switching
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2020
I am coming from an Orbi RBK50 that I've been trying for the past week. I have a 1Gb up/down connection. On the Orbi, I couldn't get faster than around 500Mbps down over ethernet, let alone on wifi. With this Asus product, I am getting over 900 Mbps on ethernet and between 600 and 700 mbps on wifi. It has exceeded my expectations in terms of speed.
The only problem I am having is with my devices not switching between nodes. Three times in the last day, I have lost wifi connection on two phones and one iPad when from the room with the AiMesh node to the room with the router connected to my modem. On one device, it swapped over to an unrelated Netgear access point that I have up that I use to connect plugs and switches to the network. On the other two devices, it just dropped my connection completely. I had to turn off wifi and turn it back on to get it to come back.
I am not sure why it would do this, but obviously if it is continues, it's a problem. I got this device because it looked like a perfect solution to handle dead spots and keep my internet speed constant throughout my house. It appears to work well for that. But if it cannot effortlessly switch between nodes as I move around my house, it's not much of a mesh network.
Edit:
There are many things to like about this router. The speeds are amazing and I get decent wifi through my entire home. I updated the firmware a few days ago. Unfortunately, I am not having issues since the update. The first issue is that it has spontaneously rebooted a couple of times. The second issue is that I am not getting drops in wifi speed on various devices that connect to the point that I set up as the router. Rebooting the devices that I'm having issues with seems to fix it. I haven't had this setup all that long, obviously, but these issues only started after updating the firmware. I am reaching out to ASUS to try and troubleshoot. I have a couple of weeks before my return period ends, and I'd really like to make this work.
Edit 3/3/1/2020: This router continues to be decent yet very annoying at times. For a router where devices are supposed to switch between mesh points seamlessly, it certainly isn't doing well at all. I have the two nodes located at opposite ends of my house. There are a few walls between them, but they are on the same level. I've named them Living Room and Office. If I am in the Office and my phone stays connected to Living Room, then the internet speeds on my phone are almost non-existent. This doesn't make sense, unless the nodes themselves don't have a lot of power. A regular router will give me decent speed through the entire house. I would think that each of the nodes would at least be strong enough to broadcast to the entire house. The only way to get it to work is to manually disconnect Wifi on my phone and then reconnect. There are also times where it will just completely disconnect devices from Wifi and not reconnect. So I am still very hot and cold about this system. When it works, it works well. When it doesn't, it is very frustrating and annoying. Overall, I wish that I'd just stuck with the Orbi. Though the overall speeds on the Orbi are less than this, it handled switching between nodes much better and the antennas in the Orbi seem MUCH BETTER than on this thing.
Update 5/6/2020: I have regrets. I jumped on this router because it seemed like it was going to be amazing, but that couldn't be further from the truth. In addition to all of the issues listed above continuing in spite of the firmware updates, it is now causing other problems Just today, my Dish DVRs would not connect to it. When I went to re-add the network, it listed four access points with the same name. The only thing that made it come back was rebooting the router. It managed to be up 15 days. It keeps dropping various devices. My phone, my iPad, my Macbooks have all been victims of being dropped. It still refuses to switch between nodes when I move about the house. I'll get far enough away from one access point that it should switch, but it doesn't and the speed drops to nothing. My wife's phone will often just disconnect when it gets far enough away from the node it was connected to, and she'll have to shut off wifi and turn it back on to get it to reconnect. There is nothing seamless about this system. Because it was so expensive, I am going to have to run it into the ground before replacing it. I can't justify tossing it in a pile somewhere and replacing it. I wish that I could. Maybe someday they'll release an update that actually fixes these issues or maybe it's the hardware and there's just nothing that can be done. Either way, I'm stuck with this thing for the foreseeable future.
