ASUS AC2900 WiFi Gaming Router (RT-AC86U) - Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Internet Router, WTFast Game Accelerator, Streaming, AiMesh Compatible, Included Lifetime Internet Security, Adaptive QoS

OK, first up I bought this from Hot Deals 4Less, what isn't clear when I purchased it from the seller was that they were based in the US. Shipping took longer than I'd have liked to the UK but the package did turn up duty paid at least. The issue from this seller if you're based in the UK is that the router is a US SKU and only comes with an American power supply. There are no UK or Euro adaptors included ( or indeed mentioned by the seller). The power supply itself is multi-voltage and I happened to have the necessary US to UK adaptor lying around so wasn't a major issue for me but others need to be aware if using this seller. I bought this router to work with my BT Infinity 2 package to replace a BT Homehub 4. Luckily it's just a case of plugging the OpenReach modem into the routers WAN port and looging in the the BT credentials. For me they were [email protected] with a password of BT. Range is much improved over the Homehub on both 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands I've been able to remove a second wireless ap that I was using to fill in some poor reception areas in the house. Throughput on 2.4ghz is a match for the homehub but slightly down on the 5ghz band tested using my Oneplus One in the same location. It's not clear to me why this would be the case but this router does utilise two 5ghz networks so I suspect it will be much better at sustaining any rate as the number of clients increases versus the homehub. It is rather large and somewhat imposing to look at, mine is in a study but I can imagine it looking somewhat out of place in a living room for example. The set up is very simple and the gui is probably the best I've ever used in a router. I've had some issues with disconnects but overcame these by not using the smartconnect option for wireless and removing wpa key recycling option. Others have reported the same elsewhere with the same fix, I'm sure a later firmware update may see this fixed but I'm happy seeing separate networks anyway. There are a complete myriad of options available from network attached storage to using 4g modem as a failover, it's all the router you'll ever need I'm sure.

Fast delivery, was worried when I found out it ships from USA(after I purchased) but it arrived within a few days via FedEx with no duty or VAT to pay (rightly so) set it up last night, excellent traffic monitoring and wifi range, using as my main router with 1 RT-AC68U & 1 RT-AC66U as access points upstairs and in garden, running gigabit switch with about 15 clients all DHCP ETC NAS working great. Asus are the best! Getting 156-160mbps internet download speeds across all devices as well as gigabit transfer speeds across whole home network (wired) 802.11AC link speed shows as 1300mbps but in reality it does not transfer at that speed.

Excelente router, inicialmente lo compré por su gran alcance y para usarlo como access point, pero durante ese tiempo cambié de ISP (De Telmex a Axtel) y me actualicé por fin a la fibra óptica, y qué decir, el Módem/Router que te da Axtel es horrible, es común que a ratos las páginas no quieran cargar y debas actualizar la página para que termine de cargarla. Y como tenía este router, aproveché y pedí a Axtel me cambiara su módem a modo puente, de esa forma, el router administra toda tu conexión y el módem sólo se encarga de "Darte Señal de Internet", para quien quiera usar este Router de esa manera, el mismo sí cuenta con la opción de clonar la MAC, que es lo que piden los ISP para poner sus módems en modo puente. En mi caso, a lo mejor el router me queda grande, administra muy bien las conexiones, nunca me he quedado sin Internet, y eso que lo tengo conectado las 24 horas, pero la máxima velocidad que aguanta es de conexiones de 1 Gbps, cuando en México las más rápidas llegan a 500 Mbps, o sea, este router te aguanta velocidades hasta 2 veces más rápidas que la más rápida que tenemos en México. En mi caso funciona más que excelente con mis 50 Mbps simétricos. Como advertencia, a pesar de que el router se los notifique, NO actualicen el firmware, el que ya trae de fábrica es el más estable hasta la fecha, evítense dolores de cabeza. Y aunque creo no debo aclararlo, este router tiene configuraciones digamos "fáciles" para el usuario promedio, pero si no usarás muchas de las opciones, como filtrado de MAC, soporte de IPv6, control y disparo de puertos, DMZ o incluso asignar manualmente tus IPs, tal vez deberías optar por una opción más barata, en caso contrario, el router contiene todas esas opciones esenciales para alguien que siempre administra su propia red o incluso la red de una empresa. Llevo con el router ya 6 meses y hasta la fecha sigo muy satisfecho con mi compra.

Before I start let me just say that wifi performance can vary depending on your home/apartment walls material and interference. I've read some great and some good reviews about the GT-AC5300. Some reviews say it's way too much money to spend and some say it's great in every way. At the end of the day, the only way to know what you will like is BUYING IT and TESTING IT for days. I ended up testing both the RT-AC5300 and the GT-AC5300 to see which one I liked more. I ended up sticking to the GT-AC5300 for some good reasons; hardware specs, tools and the awesome webui that I liked the most. I will go over the things I liked first and then what things I didn't find too great which was totally not a deal breaker at all. If 8 ports and gaming boosts with the different webui is not a thing for you then the RT-AC5300 is more than enough to support your network. Plus with the RT version you can get merlin firmware (asus alternative firmware that is a more minimalist approach which I really like. I spend a good time also on small netbuilder website and its forums to watch how the GT-AC5300 firmware improved over the past year. Hardware - This router has pretty insane specs. A 1.8Ghz CPU with 1GB of ram. This thing is like a gaming computer, pretty nuts. The bootup is a bit faster than the RT-AC5300. The 8 ports are one of the reasons I liked this one including the link aggregation. By the way, if you will not use this feature you need to turn it off so that you can use port 5+6 with different devices or they won't connect! I tested the network under heavy load with my smart TV doing netflix 4k along with my laptop transferring files to my NAS in the same time over wifi at over 75 MB/sec and the wife watching her youtube videos on her cellphone with zero issues. I do know that the GT-AC5300 and the RT-86U both have the newer wifi chips so that's nice. Connectivity - A neat feature are the first two gaming ports that I use for my two gaming stations. I noticed they get a little nice performance boost. Things just respond faster on the network, the web and gaming wise. Lovely feature. I also really like the dashboard webui that shows network ping and ping deviation. Another feature that I have yet to test but is really awesome is the VPN fusion where you are able to assign specific clients on your network to be on VPN. I attached speed tests I did on speedtest by ookla and dslreports.com. DSLreports one can vary as their servers aren't really the best but it shows that the QOS I setup works well so I have zero complaints there. Keep in mind that these tests can vary time to time depending on the server load. There are times you can have bit slower speeds which doesn't mean you have any issues on your end. Before I got these two routers to setup I actually had spectrum come out to improve my cable signal since the signal was too strong (I only have the cable modem I use in my apartment complex so usually they send stronger signals since most homes have more than one device). I was also getting more error logs in on my Netgear CM600 cable modem before the fix and after the fix I only would get maybe one T3 error in 3 weeks now instead of a few daily. Wifi range and speed are absolutely incredible just amazing. Gaming/Performance - I really love the gaming features of this router. When you combine the WTfast gaming network with the game boost for specific game like how I tested for Destiny 2 for PS4, you can get some pretty damn low pings in the low 10's. I really like also the game radar that shows you the servers that are close to you in your region. For the WTfast network, it only boosts one device for free which is perfectly fine as I mainly do online gaming more on the PS4. I used to play world of warcraft a lot on my PC but I quit that game a while back. Overall compared to the RT-AC5300 I like these small features that the GT version comes with that helps in small ways. Anything that helps to me is good in my book! Here are some other things I noted that weren't maybe the best about the GT-AC5300 which I can improve over time. Wifi radar. When I initially tried this the feature just did not work. I found out that you actually have to click the "start data collection" button to be able to scan the wifi in your area to get information.The information you can gather is quiet nice and can be useful. 5GHz-1 and 5GHz-2 Wifi performance. The two wifi bands actually have different performance. The 2nd 5GHz has better signal and performance than the 1st one. I verified this using the wifi analyzer app on my phone and the wifi radar app on the router. I disabled the 2.4GHz and will leave the 1st 5GHz for visitors/friends to use while I use the 2nd faster wifi band. I am using the latest firmware that is dated 9/19/2018 which has noted "fixed wifi stability issue." Not that I have any wifi problems or stability issues but that's kind of interesting. I sort of was hoping that maybe in future Merlin would support this router and make firmware for it but that is definitely not going to happen as the hardware is quiet different. That's all. Overall I highly recommend the GT-AC5300 if you really are going to use the awesome features it comes with, want the 8 LAN ports and better hardware specs. I am just in love with this router and it's awesome features.

Great router. Installation was a breeze. The Asus router app is intuitive and gets the job done. Compared to the router given by the ISP this one is phenomenal... Big boost in speed and coverage. Have two of them and linked to the app. Slightly on the expensive side for the features and performance. But a single router, well placed, can easily cover a large house.

While this is a great router from ASUS and everything now works perfectly, this purchase required the use of Google Translate as the initial setup is in Chinese. Once I'd figured out to use the translator, I could then change the language to English, update the firmware and now everything is fine. Given the price saving, this was a small inconvenience.

I thought I had reviewed this router some time ago, but apparently I forgot to do it. I bought one in December 2017 and one in March, 2018. Both are being used and are set up in my two-story, 3100 sq-ft house, in router+AP mode to provide high strength 5 GHz coverage for the entire house. I'm not using AiMesh mode and haven't tried it. These have been great routers for my needs. Fast, inexpensive, reliable. I started with just one RT-AC86U that replaced my RT-AC3100 that had replaced my RT-AC68U, and I found that, overall, RT-AC86U provided better range and speed for both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands than either of those two routers for multiple types of devices (Mac laptop, Android phone, iPad). I did a fairly extensive set of tests that can be found on the SNB forums. I was able to connect in the far bedrooms on the 2.4 GHz band with just a single router and had no problem doing typical internet surfing, but while the connection strength and speed was better than the two previous routers, it still wasn't what I wanted. After doing a fair bit of reading, I realized that no single router would provide the 5 GHz coverage that I wanted in the far bedrooms, so I bought a second RT-AC86U, and set it up in AP mode at a location suitable to provide good signal strength in the far bedrooms. Running in main+AP mode requires a dedicated ethernet connection between the two routers. Running this cable is easy for some, but not others. AiMesh is an option for those who don't have the option of running an ethernet cable. For the main AC86U, I have both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios enabled, and the satellite AC86U has only the 5 GHz radio enabled. I did this because the 2.4 GHz band on the main AC86U does sufficiently cover the entire house. This dual router setup has been 100% reliable since the day I set it up. My router settings are fairly simple. No attached storage because I have a dedicated NAS. I have several ports on my "server" computer forwarded. The VPN server on the router is enabled, and I use it routinely without issue. Most of the other bells and whistles are disabled. I'm not using traffic monitoring, nor am I using AiProtection. No gamers on my network. I have a typical range of devices connecting - several computers, several phones, security cameras, NAS, printer. All work without issue. WiFi speeds with a strong signal are as good as can be expected. My MacBookPro with 3x3 5 GHz consistently has a 1300 mbps link speed in the vicinity of either router, and transfers to/from my server computer from this laptop go at 70 MB/s. LAN speeds over ethernet are quite fast. If I set up jumbo frames, I can saturate the 1GB/s ethernet between my server computer and NAS in both read and write mode. Its a bit slower with a standard MTU. I will say that obtaining good hand-off between the two AC86Us as people move from location to location in the house took a bit of tuning. I had to enable the Roaming Assistant option on the main AC86U to kick devices off it when the 5 GHz signal strength falls below -66 dBm. Something like this has to be done because most devices don't readily disconnect from one access point until signal strength is in the pits, even when there is another high strength access point in the vicinity. To summarize again, this is a great, inexpensive, high performance router in my experience. 04/05/2020 UPDATE I'm puzzled by the nearly 20% 1-star reviews because I now have four of these in service, two at my house and two at my cabin (large property), and all of them work perfectly. Either I've been really lucky with all four, or there is something about the settings and/or other equipment for some people that is causing issues. 07/21/2021 UPDATE My four RT-AC86Us continue to work flawlessly. Performance and functionality of the devices continue to improve as ASUS and Merlin continue to improve the firmware for this router and other ASUS routers. At the current price of $150, this is an outstanding router to have even considering that AX (WIFI 6) routers are now available. IMHO, WIFI 6 is a bit of a gimmick. 98% of people will not benefit from WIFI 6 even if your laptop/phone/tablet are WIFI 6. There just aren't many needs for that kind of speed, and the reality is that the half-duplex nature of all wifi along with the additional error checking result in a data transmission latency that reduces the value of a very high speed wifi protocol.