Product Details
- Supporting the latest Wi-Fi standard 802.11AX (Wi-Fi 6) and 80MHz bandwidth
- Built for multi-device households
- Increase capacity and efficiency
- Commercial-grade security for your home network
CamelCamelCamel.
Better management of devices, better network analysis, better logging and whole lot more. The firmware on Asus routers are where they excel.
Can we connect Sagem from Optus in garage and Ax56u on 1st floor to create mesh?
As far as I know, no. You can only add other Asus routers that are in their AiMesh family. See here: https://www.asus.com/au/networking-iot-servers/whole-home-me…
Sort of.
Not in a mesh, but you can use a single cable between them to run 2 routers to 'double' your WiFi range.
@MasterScythe: With that setup (wired connection between the routers) is there a way to make my devices "roam" to whichever router has the better signal strength?
At the moment, my devices stay locked to one router until the signal drops out, and then reconnect to the stronger signal.
@Russ: Short answer YES.
Long answer, MAYBE.
You need to set both of the access points to identical names, and MANUALLY select different channels for each to be on.
According to WiFi standards, it SHOULD auto roam to the stronger signal. But there are a LOT of devices that don't respect that.
If you have non-compliant devices like that, you can turn down the transmit power until they don't overlap.
Not all routers have an obvious transmit power setting, so the workaround that USUALLY works is to simply turn OFF the 2.4Ghz option and use 5Ghz only. Since the range on 5Ghz is so much lower, you'll likely achive what you hoped for.
There are other things you can use, like setting a MINIMUM speed for clients to negotiate with (so it fails if it's further away, thus slow) or modifying the MTU and such, but the earlier methods are far easier :)
@MasterScythe: Ive got a telstra modem and an old fritzbox setup like this and it works very well. Good wifi throughout the whole house and front/backyards, and auto roams to whichever device your closer to.
@MasterScythe: Thanks for that. I install OpenWRT on all my routers, so I can do most of those settings. Not so sure about changing TX power though, I think my old routers may not have hardware support for that.
How good would it be for extending wifi range (compared to old exetel zte vdsl router)?. Mum recently got fttp though they installed the box in the garage so it doesn't quite reach bathrooms or bedrooms there. I was thinking google mesh etc but that router could do with an update too.
Don't know about your one but I've had this since its release (2020) on my 100/40 connection. I also haven't used these features but they're there: Trend Micro security, AiCloud (makes storage available outside of the network), Alexa/IFTTT integration.
I have Merlin (3rd party fw) running on it and mainly use the vpn server feature (openvpn or wireguard) remoting in for work while I'm overseas. I've found it pretty robust handling about 40-odd devices including a box seeding 8K torrents (linux manuals).
Does Merlin supports multiple vlans for this model?
No. I fake it using the 3 guest wifi options.
@MuddyRubber: 90% sure both it and the original firmware DO, so long as you set it up over SSH\Telnet, it's just not in the GUI.
What’s the benefit?
If you have any problems with this one, you can call Dr. ASUS
Well let’s talk about how Dr ASUS practices…
In Australia if you have a problem with an ASUS router you will be required to ship it directly to them (not your retailer) at your expense with tracking to Sydney.
Further if there is a problem that is outside their warranty, you will have to pay for shipping back to return the defective item or pay for the repair.
If you do get it ‘repaired’ for ‘free’ you might end up with someone else’s 2nd hand repaired router, as I did when I went through this process after the router died in less than 6 months.
I need to point out that Asus does have centres in nearly every capital city in Australia but it doesn’t matter — you pay to ship to Sydney.
That's why you buy it from Amazon. I just sent back my 2 yr old faulty acxx for a full refund.
@r0xz: Can confirm, have done this with other items.
One mention of Australian Consumer Law is all it takes.
@hypnOtixx: you don't need to mention it anyway unless you're unlucky enough to get an incompetent rep, which I did for a few times. Most of the time the reps were fine.
I need to point out that Asus does have centres in nearly every capital city in Australia but it doesn’t matter — you pay to ship to Sydney.
10 years ago ASUS was running around trying to get every MSP out there to become their warranty repair partners. Once they had everyone signed up…. silence. Everything ended up going through this one small Sydney repair shop. Everything. It was a 2 man band so you can imagine how that went.
@Clear: @Clear you perfectly just described my problem & situation that I encountered back in March 2023 — from what I could tell, the team I engaged with were incredibly small & disorganised. Frankly they did not care about the customer experience, consumer law: they were too busy with work and just referred me back to what the stated policy was.
I agree on the Amazon experience for refund but it's worth noting that they could send you through the ASUS loop which is absolutely horrifying.
In Australia if you have a problem with an ASUS router you will be required to ship it directly to them (not your retailer) at your expense with tracking to Sydney.
Only if it's out of warranty. This ain't how ACL works, and they can't just decide not to honor that.
@MasterScythe: Well that’s what happened to me — and they were quite insistent. They sent a form stating as much, and it was well within warranty period (router was at 6 month since purchase).
Out of interest, what should have happened then?
@tommypickles: ACL says:
If your business sold a product or service to a consumer, you cannot refuse to help them by sending them directly to the manufacturer or importer for a remedy. This applies even where the fault was caused by the manufacturer.
So the retailer has to deal with it.
@MasterScythe: Cheers thank you and @Bio both — tempted to ring up and blast the retailer now. Will know my rights for future.
A good router like Asus one vs ISP supplied one usually have following advantages : (given the download speed might not have much improvement)
- Stronger Wifi signal (stability, coverage range, speed, number of devices)
- Allow you to do mesh network (if you use ISP supplied one, you can still add Access Point, but mesh are usually better in coverage and speed)
- Better performance when handling more connected devices (eg. its easy to reach 30 or more devices these days given many appliances are internet connected, like Light bulbs, robot cleaner, garage remote, air conditioner remote, tv boxes, chromecast, smart speaker etc…)
- Better performance when handling more concurrent connections (still remember in the old days, one PC doing BT torrenting will drag the entire network down)
- Better network response time (this is probably more important for gamers where they are not purely looking at download speed)
- Some additional / advance features (eg. guest network, VPN client / server, QoS control, parental control, WOL, anti virus, advantage network filtering etc.)
- Customisation (use of third party firmware like Merlin for Asus, or DD-WRT etc)
you can’t bin the sagem, if you log support call they log into the sagem to test things like dropouts, etc, i have the asus as i was getting poor coverage in a room and it did improve.
no 4g backup
This was 100 delivered from Amazon only about a month back
Too bad it’s now more expensive:(
Held off buying last week hoping it'd be $100 again on Prime Day…
Is this the lowest it will go? Or is there a chance for further drops tomorrow?
Doesn't hurt to hold off if you're not in dire need for one.. but the price isn't too bad
Can you confirm if it is a brand new or a second hand item?
would be second hand
Second hand, and not in stock.
I have this paired with HFC. Great router. Make sure you update to latest firmware, there has been some memory leak issues previously and latest firmware fixed it.
Do you need a modem for this or can plug straight in to the NTD?
Yep, not a modem!
For HFC you just plug an ethernet cable from NTD to this device and do a simple setup (enter your nbn username and password, etc) . Not sure about other types of nbn
Thanks - yep figured that out and am slowly bumbling my way through the process of getting a new router lol, cheers
Anyone using this just as a router without the wifi enabled? Looking for something to go with 2x Unifi U6 Pros being fed from a TP Link PoE switch and this looks pretty sweet.
Without wifi, why do you need something so expensive?
On another note, can you mesh this with another brand as the main node (xiaomi ax9000)?
No you can't make a mesh Wi-Fi network with Asus and Xiaomi. You need 2 or more that are Asus AiMesh compatible.
If you just want a router without wifi, I would go with this https://www.computeralliance.com.au/5-port-ubiquiti-edgerout…
Not much cheaper. I would choose the Asus even if I don't need WiFi
Can you adjust the transmission power on these?
Can I get max speed on this on FTTP 1000/50 ?
My current netgear R8000 can only get around 400 download…
An R8000 should be faster then that like 950Mbit/s. Have you disabled QoS and the traffic meter functions and upgraded to newest firmware etc?
Yes, QoS was already disabled, the traffic meter functions have also been disabled. I upgraded to latest firmware already. Could it be that my router is the older version of R8000 and not the R8000P ?
The thing is these older, slower router can't do true gigabit speed natively, they need to cheat with hardware acceleration. 400 down sounds about right for the cap with acceleration off, you'll need to check how to turn it on. QOS/Firewall/Traffic Meter as penguincat suggested to turn off obviously turn off the hw accelerator, as those require packet processing in software.
Also, give a custom firmware like FreshTomato a try, you can turn on NAT Acceleration in the settings.
Got 900/50 wired and 700/50 using Wi-Fi. I'm using Superloop 1000/50 plan
I went with their default modem for $140. The specs of the superloop ZTE modem seemed negligible. I'll likely only upgrade when going to wifi6e
400 on wired or wireless?
using this as an aimesh node, pretty good coverage even through brick/steel.
Can really recommend a pair of these for anyone having wifi troubles. As a mesh it's been pretty seamless compared to the tenda nodes I replaced with it and nice to have the extra features that Asus include as standard.
Any real world benefits or would this be an Upgrade from rock solid RT-68u running Merlin? Just a family of 4 with 50/20 opticomm connection. We have no issues at the moment in terms of signal strength etc.
no need to buy this then :)
How would this compare to an eero 6+?
I have one of these with a couple of Lyra mesh wifi units. It's a good system. At this price I'd recommend getting one.
Is this a good router to churn to different providers? If not, could someone please recommend a router that is compatible with most NBN providers and VOIP compatible. Thank you 😊
Asus is compatible with any ISP. Who are you using for VoIP?
Ooooooh tempting. I have been toying with the idea of adding a second Asus unit to create a mesh with my AX88U.
That runs Merlin at the moment. Only thing is being able to extend the mesh using backbone cabling rather than relying on wifi. I believe that's needed to achieve optimal performance when meshed.
Anyone have any experience on that?
Running an ax3000 in mesh with an ac68u via Ethernet backbone. Once set up has run flawlessly.
Thanks.
Do you know if you could use Ethernet over power to create the backbone? Would it degrade the backbone significantly?
Don't see why not but you won't get gigabit speeds out of it so the backbone may suffer. Saying that unless you're on a 1000mbps connection it's likely you'll only notice when transferring or streaming large files internally
I have 2 of these units as aimesh for my AX88U - performance has been fantastic - even though I have LAN cabling throughout I've just stuck to wifi… maybe start with that and see if you 'need' more performance
I need to offload the Wifi networks from my TPG 5G Sagemcom router because I can't disable client isolation on the SSIDs so I can no longer cast to devices since switching to it.
How would this compare using it as just a WAP as opposed to just getting a Ubiquiti Unifi Lite Wifi 6?
Hopefully not hijacking the thread but wondering if someone can help me with the below scenario
Currently on Telstra NBN HFC with their Gen 2 (WiFi 4?) Smart Modem and want to move to WiFi 6. I like the 4G backup when things go wrong (I get random NBN issues from time to time 🤷♂️).
I have some Telstra points which means I should be able to get their Gen 3 Smart Modem for a similar price to the Asus router here if not even cheaper.
Having read the above comments, it looks like I can just buy the Asus and connect it to the little black box (NTD?) directly and skip the modem altogether, but lose 4G.
Which option would offer better performance/value, or would it not really matter that much?
For context (if it helps), I have the following devices
2 desktops (used for gaming so latency is important - both have WiFi 6 onboard but I've been using EoP Powerline adapters)
2 laptops
2 phones
1 tablet
Philips Hue system with 8 lights
2 smart speakers
1 Chromecast with Google TV (4K)
No landline
Thank you!
You can add ASUS as a second network to your existing Telstra Modem via ethernet, just migrate every device to the ASUS - therefore you will have a backup on your ASUS. But you will have 2 networks in the house.
Thank you!
Telstra smart modem gen 2 is Wi-Fi 5. You have three options;
Thank you! Leaning towards option 3 at the moment as I do not have that many remaining power outlets left where the modem is (already on a power board), but option 2 is tempting if there is an exceptional deal during Prime sales!
This is the regular discount price. Comes across fairly often.
I've been waiting for another $100 deal to add to my mesh.
Good to know, I was tempted but want to avoid Amazon.
I used this to replace my NetComm nf18acv, noticable better reception and speeds (even for AC devices) which is nice.
Web interface is a bit buggy and often kicks me back to the start of the setup wizard. But once it's working it's solid.
Worth the upgrade from Tenda MW6 3x Pack Mesh w/ FTTP 250/25 for small double story stand alone house ?
no way joise
any tips on best way to replace my current modem router?
I have the NBN where it uses the old school phone cord to be plugged into a modem router before it can do anything.
To get this to work, do I just plug in a ethernet cord into the WAN and from my modem?
How does this compare to the AX58U deal posted a few weeks back in terms of coverage, features, signal strength? https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/783158
No VDSL port on this one? So ethernet only and no FTTN?
RT-AX56U doesn't have a built-in VDSL2 modem for FTTN. You can bridge your VDSL2 modem to this RT-AX56U router.
Asus make the DSL-AX82U with a VDSL2 modem and router all-in-one for FTTN. $379 Delivered @ Wireless 1. JB Hi-Fi might price match it.
I've never setup a mesh before, would this work okay with an older asus model: RT-AC68U ? Since I got fttp, they moved my router location and I no longer get coverage through the entire house.
+1, that's me too.
That will work. You have a three options;
cheers!
https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net Merlin support for the win! That is a good sign for advanced users — perhaps DD-WRT or another project support won't be far behind.
I tried this and found it unstable, so reverted back to original.
Good Range With just two antennae, I’m in a single storey 3 bedroom and get good coverage anywhere on the property and outside.
Anyone run one of these with fttp 1000/50? I have an RT-AC68U (Merlin) and I can't get full uploads, apparently because the NBN policer kicks in - if I turn on QoS to limit to 50mbps up, the download speed tanks.
Yes it worked fine but i upgraded to an GT-AX6000 and moved this as an AI Mesh node.
I also use a separate device to limit the upload speed. It moves the workload out of the router
Yeah I guess the upload limit is the main thing I'm looking to upgrade for, since the RT-AC68U can't do the QoS
Probably just something that's worth investing in. The cheaper model's had a good run.
Not even my RT-AX86U can handle that - but there's a trick to fixing it (hopefully you’ve figured it out by now?)
Is this a good option for a large house? We probably would connect 20-30 devices to it over wifi and a few wired connections.
Currently running a router that supports 160MHz but is rated for more devices and only runs wifi 5. Maybe running two of these in a mesh would be better?
Are the ports POE enabled on this unit?
No built-in PoE. You need a PoE injector to use with the RT-AX56U. Ubiquiti have routers with built-in PoE.
Is this router only i.e. you need to plug into the NBN box or modem?
![[Prime] ASUS RT-AX56U AX1800 Wi-Fi 6 Router $129 (RRP $229) Delivered @ Amazon AU](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/51/786551.jpg?h=3fa24679)
Any real difference to a sagem from Optus. I get 106mb on a 100 connection. What’s the benefit?