interesting, will they gonna have full line routers from low end to high end?

micropage7interesting, will they gonna have full line routers from low end to high end?

They already have some routers on the market. My biggest concern is firmware updates, of which there seems to be none, at least not on their support site. They're also already dumping the price (and have been for a while) on their first gen Predator hardware.
www.acer.com/us-en/predator/networking

Edit: Ok, they do have firmware updates, but only three since launch and I believe the W6 is around two years old.
community.acer.com/en/kb/articles/16173-predator-connect-w6-router-firmware-improvements-and-change-log

Modern looking UI though.

Am I misreading something? Comparing old vs new, the memory and capacity field appears to be going backwards :S

*E: Well it seems on one they have the channel speed of the RAM, while in the same field on the other model they have the bands. I mean, if at a glance I can spot this, does nobody who is actually employed look at these releases?

I don't know how anything (in this category) is going to compete with the TP-Link BE7200 for <$100. That appears a pretty great little box; will have to see how it performs when someone tests it.

Coupled with the price of (perhaps more well-known premium) Wifi6/e routers (like Netgear/TP-link) dropping precipitously towards ~$150, I really wonder where ASUS is going to price the RT-BE88U, which is a weird middle-ground.

It's starting to look more and more like that should be a $200 piece of kit that replaces the AX86U rather than the AX88U/pro, or at least that's the price I'll wait for...but still, even 229-249 might be pushing it this go-round.

It's going to be a lot tougher for them this time imho given the competition has largely caught-up, some models will use tri-band, and I think are likely (largely) going to try to keep their prices for 10Gb WAN under $200 MSRP imho.

alwaysstsI don't know how anything (in this category) is going to compete with the TP-Link BE7200 for <$100. That appears a pretty great little box; will how to see how it performs when someone tests it.

Coupled with the price of (perhaps more well-known premium) Wifi6/e routers (like Netgear/TP-link) dropping precipitously towards ~$150, I really wonder where ASUS is going to price the RT-BE88U, which is a weird middle-ground.

It's starting to look more and more like that should be a $200 piece of kit that replaces the AX86U rather than the AX88U/pro, or at least that's the price I'll wait for...but still, even 229-249 might be pushing it this go-round.

It's going to be a lot tougher for them this time imho given the competition has largely caught-up, some models will use tri-band, I think are likely (largely) going to try to keep their prices for 10Gb WAN under $200 MSRP imho.

A lot of things would compete with TP-Link imho, mostly due to very poor firmware support. That said, this isn't it, as Acer doesn't seem to be any better when it comes to firmware updates.
However, for those that are just looking at the initial purchase cost, you're most likely correct.

TheLostSwedeA lot of things would compete with TP-Link imho, mostly due to very poor firmware support. That said, this isn't it, as Acer doesn't seem to be any better when it comes to firmware updates.
However, for those that are just looking at the initial purchase cost, you're most likely correct.

What can I say...not all companies are blessed with the work of a magician. I can only think of a couple. :D

alwaysstsWhat can I say...not all companies are blessed with the work of a magician. I can only think of a couple. :D

But they could at least release regular firmware updates on their own for their products.
Fewer product SKUs means fewer firmwares as well. TP-Link has 5-6 SKUs of some models as well, where they drop support for the previous SKU like a hot turd.

TheLostSwedeBut they could at least release regular firmware updates on their own for their products.
Fewer product SKUs means fewer firmwares as well. TP-Link has 5-6 SKUs of some models as well, where they drop support for the previous SKU like a hot turd.

I was not aware of this as I've been Asus ever since switching from Linksys; only seen the testing on them (which appears solid), and that they both are priced very-well and sell very well. Good to know.

alwaysstsI was not aware of this as I've been Asus ever since switching from Linksys; only seen the testing on them (which appears solid), and that they both are priced very-well and sell very well. Good to know.

Typical example of what TP-Link does.
All four versions have different firmwares and although this doesn't seem to be the worst example, as the older SKUs appears to haven't been entirely dropped, the 3.6 SKU here seems to be the worst one. I had version 1.0 of one of their range extenders and it got one firmware update and was then dropped in favour of version 2.0.

The old C7 (of which I have a V3 I think) was one of the worst ones, where the V1 hardware got what appears to be its one and final update in 2014, but if you go and look on Wikidevi, all versions are based on the same QCA hardware platform, although V4/V5.x got a different SoC. V1 to V3 only appears to have different RAM, which should easily be managed, but TP-Link would rather throw its customers under the bus and have them buy a new router, than do that it seems.


I'm not saying this is exclusive to TP-Link, but they're extra bad at it.
I just took a look at one of their new models and it's the same game...
Which one do you get if you order online and what's the difference?

IMHO, buying that (later-mentioned) range of router is almost always absurd, regardless of brand. Often early chipsets; firmware teething issues. I did not know they switched (components?) so often, though.

I can imagine different regions requiring specific changes to capabilities though (to fit within different guidelines [wifi regulations really aren't globally standardized very well at all])...so perhaps that is part of it.

Australia can use a stronger signal than anywhere else on the planet; China pretty much has the whole 6ghz spectrum on lock-down for the government. It can become...complicated.

As for (NV)RAM management, well...They've all had their issue there. There are redundancies in almost all brands' firmware that often causes them to lose support when the space becomes insufficient.

That's literally where some of ASUS (stock) problems have come from, and also what Merlin does (clean out the old registries and update them [to the latest version] rather then just stacking a new version on top [which is often old by the time it releases; likely due to QA] like official releases.) It's how he kept support for older models that lost official support (due to that inefficiency), added features to models without them at stock, as well as avoiding some issues stock users had with buffer overflow.

We (Asus users) are pretty lucky in that regard though, as I think (generally) Asus just uses one Broadcom chipset/fw across most models in a family.

It's said the RT-BE88U will use the same chip as the higher-end routers, and does have the same base hw, so it's likely the firmware will be the same (for all intents and purposes; never know if Merlin will add something they may remove from cheaper kits they are still capable of doing).

As for the revisions, I would think the BE550 would be the more-appropriate example wrt TP-Link, granted I see it too has two (but still can't rule out they are for the aforementioned reasoning).
I do think more conventional models will have to compete with that (wrt price/bw) model, btw, even if it only has a 2.5GB WAN port...hence the ~$200 approximation guesstimation.


I haven't looked into it, but perhaps TP-Link use both mediatek and broadcom (and/or something else)? That, as well as memory changes, could indeed cause difficulty in long-term support across their line-up.

alwaysstsIMHO, buying that (later-mentioned) range of router is almost always absurd, regardless of brand. Often early chipsets; firmware teething issues. I did not know they switched (components?) so often, though.

I can imagine different regions requiring specific changes to capabilities though (to fit within different guidelines [wifi regulations really aren't globally standardized very well at all])...so perhaps that is part of it.

Nothing to do with that, often it ends up being because some component is EOL or they found an issue with the design, so they have to fix and they make a new hardware revision. However, I know of no other company that has so many revisions as TP-Link, which would suggest that they rush some products through.
That said, there are some router models that have ended up with entirely different hardware inside, i.e. gone from Broadcom or Qualcomm to Mediatek due to the latter being cheaper a few years down the road. For some reason the model name was kept, usually on models that sell well, but TP-Link isn't the only one doing this.

alwaysstsAustralia can use a stronger signal than anywhere else on the planet; China pretty much has the whole 6ghz spectrum on lock-down for the government. It can become...complicated.

Sure, this is a mess and in general this is due to some frequencies already being in use, usually by the military and then that's it. The EU has been very restrictive in transmit power imho, as 25 mW doesn't get the signal very far.

alwaysstsAs for (NV)RAM management, well...They've all had their issue there. There are redundancies in almost all brands' firmware that often causes them to lose support when the space becomes insufficient.

That's not the concern, it's as I pointed out above, they swap to a different chip and it seems like this is too complex for their engineers, so they make a new SKU and discontinue support for older hardware, just like that.

alwaysstsThat's literally where some of ASUS (stock) problems have come from, and also what Merlin does (clean out the old registries and update them [to the latest version] rather then just stacking a new version on top [which is often old by the time it releases; likely due to QA] like official releases.) It's how he kept support for older models that lost official support (due to that inefficiency), added features to models without them at stock, as well as avoiding some issues stock users had with buffer overflow.

Asus engineers seem to have gotten better though, but yeah, Taiwanese and even worse, xinese software engineers suck. I used to work for a router manufacturer in Taiwan, but the owner was Indian and all the software was done in India. Did we have problems sometimes? Sure did, but the software team was pretty good and resolved the problems. We ran into an issue with an MTK WiFi bug, which our team figured out the issue with, which took a couple of months and then it took MTK a further three months to acknowledge the issue and fix it. So not all issues are down to the router makers, as a lot of it is because of the hardware companies too, since they provide the SDK and base operating system for the routers.

alwaysstsWe (Asus users) are pretty lucky in that regard though, as I think (generally) Asus just uses one Broadcom chipset/fw across most models in a family.

That's not quite how it works, go and read som of Merlin's post about it. However, Asus knows how to handle things. Take the RT-AC68U as an example, there are a handful of revisions of that, yet all of them run the same firwmare, something you'll see that's mentioned on the Merlin firmware page as well. These revisions don't have the same flash or RAM, or even the same SoC (but same family) in some cases, so it's clearly possible to keep the firmware the same, if you have good software engineers.

alwaysstsIt's said the RT-BE88U will use the same chip as the higher-end routers, and does have the same base hw, so it's likely the firmware will be the same (for all intents and purposes; never know if Merlin will add something they may remove from cheaper kits they are still capable of doing).

A lot of routers use the same SoC, what changes in the WiFi configuration, but that obviously changes which drivers are needed and so on. This is also why router manufacturers like to stick to one or at most two hardware partners, as it takes time to train the engineers to use different SDKs and master the other tools need to make a router (like tuning the radios).

alwaysstsI haven't looked into it, but perhaps TP-Link use both mediatek and broadcom (and/or something else)? That, as well as memory changes, could indeed cause difficulty in long-term support across their line-up.

They use everything available to them, see the list below and it's far from complete, yet has 464 models.
techinfodepot.shoutwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Special:Ask&limit=500&offset=0&q=%5B%5BCategory%3AEmbedded+System%5D%5D+%5B%5BBrand%3A%3ATP-LINK%5D%5D&p=mainlabel%3D%2Fformat%3Dtemplate%2Flink%3Dall%2Fheaders%3Dshow%2Fsearchlabel%3D%E2%80%A6-20further-20results%2Ftemplate%3DTemplate%3AES-20table-20entry-20NC2%2Fclass%3Dsmwtable-2Dclean-20sortable%2Fintrotemplate%3DTemplate%3AES-20table-20intro-20NC2%2Foutrotemplate%3DTemplate%3AGenTableOutro&po=%3FEmbedded+system+type%0A%3FSupported+802dot11+protocols%0A%3FManuf%0A%3FFCC+ID%0A%3FCPU1+brand%0A%3FCPU1+model%0A%3FCPU1+clock+speed%0A%3FFLA1+amount%0A%3FRAM1+amount%0A%3FRadio1+chip1+brand%0A%3FRadio1+chip1+model%0A%3FRadio1+MIMO+config%0A%3FRadio1+802dot11+protocols%0A%3FRadio2+chip1+brand%0A%3FRadio2+chip1+model%0A%3FRadio2+MIMO+config%0A%3FRadio2+802dot11+protocols%0A%3FSwitch+model%0A%3FLAN+speed%0A%3FExpansion+IFs%0A%3FUSB+ports%0A%3FLAN+ports%0A%3FWAN+ports%0A%3FFCC+approval+date%23ISO%0A%3FEstimated+date+of+release%23ISO%0A%3FASIN%0A%3FWi-Fi+certification+ID%0A%3FRadio1+antenna+connector%0A%3FRadio2+antenna+connector%0A%3FCountry+of+manufacture%0A%3FHas+images%0A%3FRadio1+module+IF%0A%3FRadio1+module%0A%3FRadio2+module+IF%0A%3FRadio2+module%0A%3FThird+party+firmware+supported%0A%3FStock+bootloader%2Ffull%0A%3FStock+firmware+OS%2Ffull%0A%3FCPU1+cores%0A%3FSwitch+brand%0A%3FSATA+ports%0A%3FApproved+by+service%0A%3FCable+modem%2Fdownstream+channels%0A%3FCable+modem%2Fupstream+channels%0A%3FSATA+ports%0A%3FSFP+ports%0A%3FFLA1+Brand%0A%3FRAM1+Brand%0A%3FWAN+speed%0A%3FManuf+product+model%0A%3FWireless+class%0A%3FSeries%0A%3FCPU2+brand%0A%3FCPU2+model%0A%3FCPU2+clock+speed%0A%3FCPU2+cores%0A&sort=Page+name&order=asc&eq=no#search

I feel like you reiterated a lot of what I said (bar some semantics) while trying to say we disagree. We really don't. lol. :toast:

You were indeed more specific, and perhaps I should have clarified better.

Hearing your personal experiences (esp wrt Mediatek) were quite interesting though!

Thanks for sharing, and I had not considered that *part* of it as an on-going occurrence, as I think by the time I've bought a router in a series *most* of those issues have been worked out.

FWIW: I do read Merlin's posts. Not religiously, but enough to get the gist.

I always wondered. All those fancy routers, but how is their wall penetration? I have a 2F wooden house with no repeaters, but the signal degrades significantly between floors and distance.
I'm really trying to find a very good and powerful wi-fi router, but it seems all of those just have fancy features but not very strong signal.

Prima.VeraI always wondered. All those fancy routers, but how is their wall penetration? I have a 2F wooden house with no repeaters, but the signal degrades significantly between floors and distance.
I'm really trying to find a very good and powerful wi-fi router, but it seems all of those just have fancy features but not very strong signal.

First of all, I've been very lucky (and try to think ahead/plan for these things), so my experience may not be typical.

Many tests have shown ASUS performance is very good, especially once you hit the 88 range. That said, there are also some TP-LINKs that perform very good for less...but caveat emptor per Swede.

I live in a split with the router in the first level of the basement (so I can hard-wire my gaming pc/ps5); ac/ax-88u both singularly kept strongest signal on top floor (at least for using my phones/tabs/Roku).

I can't speak to Apple devices (because I don't own any) nor a chromecast/google tv dongle, but the built-in devices in our TVs work fine as well across the floors (LG/TCL), as well as laptops.

That said, everything here is mostly dry wall, and it's not the largest house wrt footprint. I would say it's the size most of the 'better' single-router solutions are aiming towards wrt complete coverage for 5ghz.

I also put some things on 2.4ghz just for the sake of congestion and the fact they don't really need the bw. I also (often) consider the antennae capability wrt the gadgets I buy...

...because I'm a nerd like that. I understand that not everybody is nor should they have to be.

Some reviewers do testing for those things (like penetration through certain materials); some are better than others and ofc actual capability per unit (as Swede and I both mentioned) can vary by territory/revision.

It sounds like you're the intended audience for a mesh network (perhaps due to length/wdith of area?), even if with just a couple of routers rather than a (perhaps more expensive) group of repeaters. I can't speak to what hardware you currently own (and if you have more than one if the older one will be sufficient in capabilities for what you want to accomplish....ex: do you have both an old and newer router with a 5ghz signal?), but in most instances they are fairly easy to set up. Perhaps that is something worth looking into, as well as ideal placement between them (especially wrt to what those devices need; maybe fringe areas only need/can utilize 2.4ghz).

Believe me, if I had the time/money/drive, I'd just (perhaps replace our copious coax jacks with) cat8 the whole house...and that may be an option for you...but I don't think I'm personally ever going to do it.

Judging by the testing I've seen (and continue to keep an eye on ocassionally), Asus and TP (often) appear the top performers per market; TP-Link is a great value.

Asus is Asus, but I still don't feel is too expensive if you buy a price/perf model (generally the 86/88). It's tougher with Wifi7, as I think many hoped the 88 would have 6ghz support/a new design, but doesn't.

Hence, I hope it will be cheaper than the ~279-299 the Wifi5/Wifi6 models launched...but we'll see. You never know, there might be '89' or something which includes 6ghz support but still doesn't break the bank or go overboard wrt price/feature-bloat (with negligable extra performance) most people don't need, but still brings the performance/relative value and support such as the aforementioned models.

Asus consistantly uses very good hardware per market. The 88 series often shares the same crucial components (cpu/ram/nvram) as the (imo) over-priced gaming focused routers, but you lose tri/quad-band.

I can't speak how to antanae tuning (like Swede), but it appears a very good design (given it's now third gen w/o changes). They consistantly use Broadcom chipsets, which are generally regarded as the best per generation of hardware (which is to say sometimes they are not the first to market with a new tech/process, but within a certain time period/class, especially over time, I think most consider them the best).

Firmware is tops, especially considering Merlin's support (you should just look that up yourself lest I spend too many words praising the guy) that has in some cases extended certain models life even further.

You've seen how Swede feels about TP wrt all of their choices...but again, that might not be as important to you (if you're not a fw junkie or care about future features beyond what's initially included).

I'll gladly help the best I can if you need it; hopefully I don't come across too biased. I think many agree with me, though; even those with understanding of even greater nuance.

Good luck!

Prima.VeraI always wondered. All those fancy routers, but how is their wall penetration? I have a 2F wooden house with no repeaters, but the signal degrades significantly between floors and distance.
I'm really trying to find a very good and powerful wi-fi router, but it seems all of those just have fancy features but not very strong signal.

Placement is key, as central and unrestricted as possible, like a landing. My previous home was tall but not too big, I put a floating shelf on the side of the stairs on the middle and it worked well.

I have no hope of an easy solution now! Concrete, 3 floors, 4k sq ft. So a device on each floor meshed is the only way.