Amazon has
2-Pack Asus ZenWiFi AX6600 Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System (White, XT8) on sale for ~$204.58 - $60 when you 'clip' the
coupon on product page =
~$144.58.
Shipping is free.
Thanks to Deal Hunter
phoinix for posting this deal.
Note: Price may fluctuate. You must be logged in to clip coupons; coupons are typically for one-time use.
Key Features: - Banish WiFi Dead Zone—Tri-band mesh WiFi system with unique antenna placement delivers strong WiFi to every corner of your home providing total wireless speed of 6600Mbps
- Next-Gen Wi-Fi 6 Technology— With OFDMA and MU-MIMO ZenWiFi AX enables more efficient stable and faster transmission even when multiple devices are transmitting data at the same time
- Hassle Free Control – 3 steps setup and easy management with ASUS Router App
- Always Up-to-date Protection— The lifetime free network security powered by Trend Micro makes sure your privacy on connected devices is protected
- AiMesh Supported– Mix and match ZenWiFi with AiMesh-compatible routers to form powerful and flexible whole-home WiFi system
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I got 3 of them ( (2 for $25, 1 for $15)), one I tried to load OpenWRT and I bricked it, the other 2 I left on stock firmware and have gotten them to MESH together.
They work, but just wondering if these are better since the 1301 was EOL when I got it, and have not had luck with OpenWRT.
The good is really good though: When working this mesh system is a dream. Super fast speed, excellent wireless coverage (friend of mine has a 2-pack of these: router on top floor, mesh node two floors below). And the 5ghz band is awesome. Tri-band system means the 2nd 5ghz band is dedicated to mesh communication, so regular client traffic is unaffected and gets its own 5ghz band as well. These also work great with wired ethernet backhaul (connected via ethernet instead of wirelessly).
A warning - ASUS tech support is absolutely pathetic. Any time you need to contact them it leads to an email exchange, so if you have a broken wireless network are you going to want to email back and forth to ASUS tech support over several days to try to get things fixed? First they request logs, then they tell you to reset the system and reconfigure. That's about it. Oh, if you are very persistent they may ask you to send back the system to them so they may "evaluate and repair or replace." Who knows how long that would take as my friend did not bother doing that. If he did he would have no wireless network or router! Eventually he got it working (this was in year #2 of ownership, purchased in June 2021 so this specific problem was in mid-2023). The biggest challenge was the mesh node kept disconnecting. Out of frustration he tried to factory reset it but it refused to reset. He left it powered off for a week and forgot about it (during that time he just relied on the router itself for wireless). A week later he remembered the mesh node, tried to factory reset it and this time it worked (even though he followed the exact same steps, which didn't work the prior week - no idea why factory reset attempts didn't work previously). After that he was not able to get the node to re-join the mesh network, so he looked online for help since ASUS tech support takes too long. Someone suggested ethernet-connecting the mesh node to the router during AiMesh setup of the node, and it worked! But why??? We have no idea. Once that was done the router saw the node, so he moved the node back downstairs and when he powered up the node, the router saw the mesh node and it rejoined the network. This is absolutely a crapshoot at times whether it works or not.
Since 2023 it's been working pretty good, but then a recent weird issue happened. ASUS released a firmware update last week that told users to "factory reset and reconfigure your router after installing the update." So they are telling their customers to basically wipe the system and start over, reconfigure from zero! How frustrating. So he updated with the firmware, but didn't factory reset. Then a day later he went into the ASUS phone app to remove some port forwarding rules, and about 5 minutes later he noticed the wireless network stopped working. The app showed no issues, all lights on router/node were indicating normal behavior, and you could connect to the wireless network.. but there was no internet access. It's like changing the port forwarding (by deleting rules) freaked out the router. So to fix this he tried rebooting the system from the app, something he has probably done hundreds of times. The app confirmed the operation was completed but when he watched the router the entire time and saw the lights didn't change.. the app said it rebooted the system but it actually did nothing. So he manually power-cycled the node, then the router, and finally things were working again.
As much as he likes the system when it works (which is now most of the time), these little issues that crop up from time to time are very agonizing and can sometimes waste 30 minutes to an hour (or more) of time to resolve. ASUS firmware is a black box and their software has tons of options. I think ASUS does not (cannot) test interaction between all the features in their code, to confirm things won't break. So it's a miracle it works well so often. He's currently waiting for prices of WiFi 7 technology to drop, at which point he will dump this system and switch to a new system. Last time I asked he said he wasn't looking at ASUS hardware, as he has spent way too much time babysitting this system.
The price of this brand-new system looks very appealing, and perhaps it will work well now with mature firmware and a brand-new installation. I say buyer beware.. when these work they are awesome but if it fails, ASUS tech support is very unhelpful, takes too long and the advice they provide is extremely basic (reboot, reset, reconfigure.. didn't work? try again.. didn't work? send it to us, and we'll fix it and send back). Good luck to those who venture down the ASUS mesh system path!
https://github.com/gnuton/asuswrt...ile#r
I got 3 of them ( (2 for $25, 1 for $15)), one I tried to load OpenWRT and I bricked it, the other 2 I left on stock firmware and have gotten them to MESH together.
They work, but just wondering if these are better since the 1301 was EOL when I got it, and have not had luck with OpenWRT.
If you search for "ASUS XT8" on www.reddit.com [reddit.com] you will find posts from folks complaining about issues. While this is generally true of any technology (people rarely post if they have an excellent or good experience), it seems to me there are quite a few for the XT8 mesh system specifically.
Edit: oops, my mistake. I actually have the XT9.
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