About me and my prior experience with wifi routers:
I'm a linux guy with 20 years experience, I like to tweak my wireless routers to make them do extra stuff like wake on lan for my mythtv, or run custom scripts to monitor my house, or whatever. I've used many different linux based WiFi routers in the last 10 years or so, including WRT54G, to WRT600N, WNDR3800 (those you can hack, but WiFi is still not reliable with openwrt for me which is a shame for a WiFi router), to the less friendly WNDR4500 (powerful when I bought it, but couldn't install 3rd party builds on it back then).
I really wanted to like and buy the WRT-1900AC until I saw that linksys mislead us, and it's only about a year later, that it's starting to see some open source support, and it's not fully working yet. To be fair, my WNDR4500 Wifi has been rock solid, but I only use it as a Wifi bridge, not even as a router, and run nothing on it since the stock firmware won't let me run what I need.
The Review:
I'm not going to review on the Wifi aspects of the RT-AC3200, other reviews have done this and honestly the Nighthawk X6 and RT-AC3200 are going to be pretty close since they use the same chipset. Note that most bad reviews are from people with basic Wifi issues and setup problems that could happen with all WiFi routers.
The Asus however offers smartconnect aka band steering, the option of moving your WiFi clients automatically from 5Ghz #1 (high band, more speed, less range), 5Ghz #2 (low 5Ghz band, a bit less speed, a bit more range), and 2Ghz (less speed but much more range).
The Nighthawk only supports handoff between its two 5Ghz bands. Smartconnect as of April 2015 still causes problems for many, and most turn it off for now, but 1) it will get better so you can turn it on later, 2) if you don't mind tweaking, it can likely be made to work for you depending on your clients. Google for "rt ac3200 smart connect missing manual" to hopefully get 5Ghz->2Ghz handoff working for you.
There is also a reported issue of frequent disconnects on the Asus (hourly). This is due to a WPA key rotation option you can turn on and doesn't work well with some clients. Don't use it, and you should be fine.
Now, let's get to open source. While you might not care about supporting the company that does a better job supporting the opens source community all those products are now based on, Asus provides you with a router you can install your own 3rd party linux programs on. If you are hands on and/or know linux, you likely very much care about this.
This is my first router which supports open source out of the box, you can add your own software trivially and don't have to wait a year or more for a working open source build of dd-wrt or openwrt, with sometimes only half working wireless due to binary driver problems.
Again, for comparison, my linksys WNDR4500 is only going to be getting dd-wrt now after 2 years, and I'm a bit wary of how that's going to turn out (after way too long of no real working open source support). Another example was the linksys WRT-1900AC, supposed to be the ultimate hacker router. It barely works with openwrt one year later, with manual work, and it's not stable yet.
Asus RT-AC3200: unpacked it, turned on sshd, ready to add 3rd party open source software. Asuswrt is already great, it's based on tomato-usb (open source router platform) and out of the the box you can install 3rd party linux software (perl, whatever) with Entware. I'm glad I gave my money to Asus just for that. Google Entware asuswrt-merlin for details on this.
Then there is a developer who makes the asuswrt-merlin build: you get a few extra features on the base router too while keeping working wireless. It's so good out of the box that I have no need to install openwrt on it should it exist later.
So this router strongly exceeded my expectations. Thank you Asus.
Minuses so far:
- $300 is obviously a steep price, but it's market rate for now
- Asus support is supposed to be good on the phone, but I Emailed networking_support@asus.com on a monday early morning. Heard nothing 24H later.
I have tried all 3 of these routers. I have had more time to play with the Netgear X6 and Asus Rt-AC3200. My internet is through Comcast. I get about 127 Mbps down and 12 up. So far I find they are all pretty much ok. I feel like if you drop $300 on a router it should be amazing. I know you will find people that cry and say expect bugs for new technology and I should be hung for saying this. Yes I do expect some but for flag ship routers I expect them to be squashed very quickly. So far they all have been coming out slow. And by the way I am coming from an old Netgear R6300.
RANGE
So far range is not that impressive of any of the three. I expected more. I do get a signal in all of my house and outside but I did previously. The signal in the garage is pretty weak which is only 30-40 feet from the router. I would have to say Asus had the weakest not by much and the D-link and X6 are about the same.
DESIGN
I know this is personal preference but I prefer the Asus, followed by the D-link and then the X6. The D-link does seem like the nicest quality. If it were black it would probably win in my book, I keep it in my living room and it is bright red. The X6 seems like cheap plastic and the antennas are very cheap looking.
SMART CONNECT
So far the smart connect works the best with the D-Link. It hasn't dropped connections on me so far. I just don't understand why at times it puts some of my AC devices on the 2.4 Ghz band. I find with the Asus that is its biggest flaw. The smart connect is terrible and drops constanty. I got really tired of my 6 year old bringing me his tablet multiple times a day telling me “The internet is broken again”. It disconnected after some devices went to sleep and after about 10 seconds being awake they would reconnect (wifi is set to never turn off even during sleep). The Dlink and Asus have one SSID for the 3 bands. The X6 has two SSID's. One for 2.4 Ghz and one for 5 Ghz.
SPEED
Besides usage I tested the speed using speedtest.net. I do find the D-Link to be on the slower side. It is hit and miss. I might get half my download speed. Other times I get all of it. I always get full speed with the Asus and X6. But besides using the speed test I have no problems with any of them being slow. Unless you use QOS...
QOS
This is important to me because I have about 12 devices hooked up at the same time. Sometimes more sometimes less. Tablets, phones, Chromecasts, a Nexus Player, Tv, Xbox. You name it. The QOS winner hands down is Asus. You can assign priorities to each device and it works well. The X6 has a couple boxes to check to enable QOS. D-links is terrible. I have tried it. It cut my download speeds down 40 Mbps on every device. Even the one assigned as the highest priority.
UI
Each one has their own user interface. D-link definitely has the worst one. There is not much to customize or change. It is by far pretty much worthless. The Asus and Netgear are both pretty good. I personally like the way the Asus one is set up better and hands down their QOS setup. I also like Netgear and Asus traffic meters better. Asus has the best one of these also. You can see by device % of what data was used for on each device. Handy.
Overall I have to say they are all very good routers. Amazing $300 routers? Hell no. If Asus would get off their butts and fix the dropping connection problem I would own this hands down. But its not worth a $300 gamble. As of right now I'm still torn between the D-Link and the X6 being the best. I will attach a couple photos of a D-link and X6. There is an upside down Blu-ray for size reference.
**Updated 4/14***
So I have been using the Asus router since the review because I really liked the one SSID and the interface it has. Well on 4/12 the updated they firmware for the fourth time and finally got it right! No disconnects! When I turn my tablets on they are actually connected! I highly recommend this router right now. Thank you Asus! Fourth times a charm!
Amazing router, even though it's expensive. I replaced my RTN66U "Dark Knight" router with a Netgear nighthawk, and was thoroughly unimpressed. It had broadcast issues, and performed poorly on NetSpot testing in a relatively small home.
THIS router has two 5Ghz bands, so the coverage issue I experienced with the Netgear were immediately solved. The 5Ghz coverage is as good as the 2.4Ghz band because of this. Now, I can attach more devices to the 5Ghz band, and free up bandwidth on the 2.4 band.
I prefer the Asus UI to Netgear's. It has a more intuitive look and feel to me, and it seems more powerful as well for the users who are more experienced and knowledgeable in setting up home networking.
I've attached wireless speedtests from my router through google fiber. Tests were done about 15 feet from the router.
********4 month update********
Added a photo from pulling a file from my NAS to my laptop. Speeds average 7MB/s when reading. NAS is connected via powerline ethernet adaptors, computer was wireless.
For anyone complaining that this router can't handle gigabit speeds, see my "connected" speedtest. This was done connected to the router via cat5 ethernet cable into my Dell XPS 13 with a USB3.0 ethernet adapter. Note that in the screenshot I included the systray to show the laptop being in airplane mode. I have Google Fiber, and the reason the download isn't FASTER, is because I also have their TV service. The TV leeches bandwidth from your connection, to the tune of about 250-300Mbps because of the lower compression google uses to deliver higher quality television broadcasts. However as you can see on the upload portion, it handled gigabit speeds easily.
I also do a TON of media streaming in my home. This is primarily why I bought this router. I have tried and succeeded streaming up to three 1080p movies from my Synology NAS to my Roku 3, Roku 2, and PS3 which are all connected wirelessly.
It's my opinion that anyone complaining this doesn't do gigabit speeds needs to check their own hardware/connection out, and not blame this router as it CLEARLY will do all it says it will.
-----edit 2/11/2017--------
Added a screenshot of iPerf results. The first set is of 1 laptop to another with one on the 2.4ghz band, the server on the 5ghz band. The second is both laptops on the 5ghz band. I didn't shut anything down on my network to perform these tests, and both "server" and client were wireless.
I am a retired Network Specialist, I have install or configured at least 2000 router over the last 15 years just wanted to throw in a qualifier here. I have aprx 45 devices connected to my network including a Sinology DS415+, 2 network printers, Linksys Wireless-AC Universal Media Connector (WUMC710) and a TP POE (Power over Ethernet) wireless 2.4 & 5Ghz range extender. Cell and tablets are DHCP everything else is static network setting I have Comcast Blast 120 Mbps down and 12 Mbps up.
So I waited for the bugs to be worked out and have had the RT-AC5300 up and running for about 2 months now. The main reason for purchasing this router was the Dual band 5 Ghz channels, our family streams a lot and I hate Buffer notices. First thing I did was turn off smart connect " I think its a non usable feature for myself" set up the wireless network and split my devises accordingly.
I have had NO ISSUES with any disconnect at all the router has worked flawlessly. Wireless signals throughout the house are higher and faster, I ask my 9yr old daughter who streams from the server to her pad nightly if she notices any problems, her response was the pad app was responding faster to her inputs. Good. I would recommend the router as a perfect performer in the above configuration. Like I stated Not one drop or reset yet.
Pros: Extremely fast wifi, strong signal, Ai Mesh
Cons: Not as easy to set up as other routers, the app is far less intuitive, large hardware, price
This is an expensive router, but after using it, I've replaced all of my routers with this one. I have a particularly large home. Mesh networks have proven to be unreliable in the past. I've used Linksys Velop, Eero, and Google WiFi mesh networks. I have gigabit internet, and none of those mesh networks were able to provide more than ~100Mbps throughout my home. I then tried just one of these Asus routers. It covered most of my home, only instead of ~100Mbps like the mesh routers, I was now getting ~600Mbps. I then decided to purchase another to fill the last little gap in coverage, since these support ASUS AiMesh. Now my entire home has extremely fast WiFi. Even when connected to the second node, I still am able to pull ~400Mbps down. That's incredible!
Feature Product
- Smart Connect automatically selects the fastest band for all devices individually, based on their demands and capabilities
- Built-in USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports for up to 10-times faster data transfers to USB storage devices1, printer sharing, and 3G/4G dongle support
- ASUSWRT graphical user interface for easy, CD-free 30-second setup and hassle-free advanced network control.Dimension:11.4x 7.4 x2.28 inches (WxDxH) (Without Bezel)
- Protection with Trend Micro with triple-strength total network security, plus robust parental controls and privacy protection
- ASUS AiCloud 2.0 lets you access, sync, share and stream your files anywhere, on any internet-connected device. Coverage- Large homes. Wi-Fi Technology-Beamforming- standard-based and universal, 256QAM high data rate, 20/40/80 MHz bandwidth
- AiProtection with Trend MicroTM for complete network security .High performance antennas with AiRadar universal beamforming for unrivaled Wi-Fi
- 802.11ac tri-band Wi-Fi router boosts speeds up to 3200Mbps for low-latency online gaming, smooth 4K UHD video playback and extremely fast file-sharing.
Description
ASUS RT-AC3200 Tri-band AC3200 Wireless Gigabit Router. RT-AC3200 redefines wireless performance for all your connected devices! With the world's first fastest combined speeds, the widest-ever coverage, plus total security, RT-AC3200 takes your wireless network to the next level. Its state-of-the-art design allows every device to work at full speed, ensuring lag-free online gaming, silky-smooth 4K/UHD video streams, and effortless downloading.. Provides an extensible design that enables service prioritization for data. Design that delivers high availability, scalability, and for maximum flexibility and price/performance. The country of origin is United States.
ASUS RT-AC3200 Wireless-AC3200 Tri-Band Wireless Gigabit Router, AiProtection with Trend Micro for Complete Network Security
I wrote this honest, enthusiast-ic and long-ish review without receiving any free samples for my opinions (don't we all wish they handed out routers like this, just for giving good reviews?). There were no monetary inducements or enticements offered to me from any company or entity for writing this up (hand over heart). I do like Asus products, and I don't own any Asus stock; even the lower cost Asus products I've owned are still working years later, when other brands sputtered and went by the wayside. I purchased this router from Amazon after spending an inordinate amount of time researching all of the Tri-Band routers now in production, as well as the newer MU-MIMO units, which still have a long way to grow before they mature for the prices being asked, IMO. I've had good results with my Asus routers, and have never managed to brick one while installing or running RMerlin's firmware. I've never hesitated to recommend Asus routers with Asuswrt-Merlin to friends and former clients. If anyone wants a solid-performing, off the shelf dual-core A/C Wi-Fi router, they shouldn't mind taking the time to research and keep up with a continual learning curve. I don't recommend Tri-Band routers for the faint of heart. That said, after time invested in learning and tweaking the RT-AC3200, it's been worth it for me. I was almost to the point of building a Linux box from scratch to get the security I wanted, since router security isn't plug and play. This router has come a long way since Asus first released it, a bit over a year ago. The Asus factory firmware for this unit was famously flakey, but has matured out of necessity; Asus was forced to institute security fixes in all of its software. Most router companies had neglected us for too long and millions of us were hacked and worse. While it's 'possible' that you might get lucky using this router as it ships from factory, don't count on it. Count on an hour spent setting and securing this router before starting to tweak for super performance; this ain't your grandpa's router. This is a very deep piece of tech for less than $200, and it's worth it, performance-wise. It looks (and is) massive, whether on the shelf or mounted on the wall, which is a cool side benefit, just don't overlook ventilation since it gets fairly warm in operation. You won't go wrong by installing RMerlin's latest firmware, currently at 380.65 beta as of this writing, and go for it as soon as you login to the router, before putting it online. RMerlin's fork has been with us for a fair number of years; I didn't bother updating to the latest Asus factory firmware, as Asus recommends, but that was my choice, YMMV. There's much to read on the Asuswrt-Merlin wireless forum on snbforums.com, so take some time to do so. There are many advanced and worthwhile Wi-Fi A/C forums and articles to help with tweaking this unit where you want it to go. RMerlin has continually tightened and improved the Asus firmware and feature set, while leaving the familiar Asus GUI in place, and there are other firmware options available if you live for the cutting edge of what's possible. I don't know him (he didn't pay me either) and thousands of router owners believe in his firmware. The Asus 'Smart-Connect' Wi-Fi for this router has drawn many to it; thankfully, the feature has improved a great deal since it was released. Don't expect Smart-connect to do all your work for you, to magically assign all 3 bands (one 2.4 and two-5.8Ghtz bands) to cover all of your devices equally; there are simply too many variables involved, i.e., how many wireless tablets, phones and computers you have to cover, distances, etc. If you're not easily discouraged by the fun and adventure tweaking represents, to get the best possible performance, you'll be pleased with your investment in this machine. I've had 8 wireless phones, 8 tablets and all four Gigabit wired ports running with PCs, 4K TV, etc, and feel I haven't pushed the router to even half of what it can do. So far, I'm extremely pleased with the RT-AC3200 and should get several good years of performance with it. Amazon was extremely helpful after shipping this purchase. Apparently, the shipper had problems, and wound up crushing/bursting the outer shipping box, which was left broken open at the front door a few days before Christmas. Crunch-time; considering the time of year and work ahead of me, Amazon didn't quibble once I explained. They cross-shipped another new router with my concurrent return of the first unit. I'd have been in the lurch if not out of the water for at least two weeks during the holidays, as our LAN was then running on an older backup router. I never mind spending a week or two of setup and adjustments, but wasn't willing to have my work thrown away due to shipper mistakes. Amazon's stellar customer service treatment is why we're pleased to remain Prime customers.
Love this router. We've tried countless over the years and this one has by far the fewest drops, best speed, and best range out of any we've tried.
The asus rt 68u running Merlin was the only one more stable than this, but can't come close to the range.
This router covers 8000sqft Office with no dead zones plus all the outdoor WiFi switches around the building for landscape lighting. Tried the chicken coop 100' from building but lights wouldn't come on about every third day, so I suppose that's the limit.
If the kids randomly turn the antennas down as they apparently love to do, we start getting drops all over the place.
I haven't tried any mesh solutions yet, which obviously have the potential to be even better, but figured I'd give it a few years for kinks to be worked out. As for plain jane single router solutions I don't think you can do better than this ac5300
Bought this router to replace the CellSpot ASUS router that we had in our house. Wanted something with better throughput and range. This router isn't necessarily cheap, but you DO get what you pay for....and for what you get, it's well worth the price.
1) Easy Setup. Out of the box to completely set up took less than 15 minutes.
2) Second 5GHz channel. LOVE this. Allows me to have a separate network I use just for my wife and my devices and 1 for the kids/other devices.
3) Great throughput. The old CellSpot is still a great router, made by ASUS, but it did get overly congested when we connected multiple devices. The AC3200 has no such problems whatsoever.
4) Easy sharing of Network drive/printer.
5) Range is excellent. Not that the CellSpot was a slouch, but this thing is equal or better in every regard.
CONs:
1) It's pretty huge. This isn't the kind of thing I would want sitting on a desk, as it takes up a lot of space. Also not going to be something that most people will agree works with their decor...there are more stylish routers out there....though I would be willing to bet this is much better than those options
I installed it in a closet on the wall vertically and it negated the size/style issue altogether.
Overall a great router
I've owned the RT-AC3200 for 2 years and have recommended to friends and family of which 3 bought the exact same router. The Smart Connect feature which auto-selects which of the three bands is best for each device has been optimized in firmware updates; basically since Dec 2015 it has been good. All but one of my friends have set Smart Connect On; the other likes the option to pick and stick to a band for each device.
What you need to know when you buy this is two steps in addition to just setting up your Wi-Fi and plugging in cables.
First, update the Firmware. This may sound complicated, but it's not. From a web browser you simply download the firmware file for your model router and from with the ASUS interface (also in the web browser) you click on the firmware link to upload and update the router.
Second turn on the Smart Connect. You'll know it's On if when you try to connect to your Wi-Fi you only see 1 access point in your wireless list instead of 3 (1 2.4ghz and 2 5.0ghz options with your network name).
Out of the box I tested the system by streaming video as follows.
1. Streamed Dateline NBC in HD to an iPad 4
2. Streamed an HD Netflix movie to an Apple TV 3.
3. Streamed an HD on demand movie over Dish Network to a Hopper 2.
4. Streamed local live radio to a Sonos Play:3.
5. Updated all my apps on my iPhone 6 from the Apple App Store.
In 2016 I did this with a Comcast 50mbps connection on a Harris Surfboard modem. And the video and audio was flawless all simultaneously running. This is above and beyond what normally goes on in our house but not unheard of.
Fast forward to 2018. I work out of the house in the IT field. I'm frequently using Zoom Meetings VoIP while streaming Music or Video. Also it's not uncommon for me to be downloading several gigabytes of data for work purposes. All of this traffic runs through the RT-AC3200 and a now upgraded Comcast connection to 100mbps. Some of that is on the Gigabyte ethernet ports but most of it is on the Wi-Fi.
For me this ASUS router has been a reliable workhorse and worth the money. I had been paying Comcast 12 bucks a month to rent their router. After 2 years I've saved $288 and counting.
# Summary
The AC5300 is replacing my old AC68U as the main wifi router in my house, and so far I'm pleased. I use the new AC5300 and the old AC68U in an AiMesh setup to eliminate dead zones in my house. It took about 10 minutes to set up the new AC5300 to replace the old AC68U. Contrarily to what some other reviewers have written, I did not have to work around issues in the configuration. For instance, the review by Richard S. Smith says to turn off the auto selection of channels. I did not have to do that. It... just... worked.
# Background
I bought this unit to deal with a dead zone problem in my house. A single wifi access point will necessarily cause dead zones in my house because we have a stove and a fireplace that are centrally located. The metal work and brickwork attenuate the radio signal enough to be a problem. There's no amount of "move the router" that fixes this. If you move it to fix one dead zone, you create another one elsewhere. I know about extenders but they come with limitations that I don't find acceptable. I figured our best bet would be to use a mesh.
I researched those systems marketed as "mesh" systems like the Orbi RBK50, Google Wifi or Plume. Most of them did not make the initial cut because they simply do not offer the level of configurability I want. The only one that made the initial cut was the Orbi. Then I discovered a fatal flaw. I setup guest networks to isolate some of the "smart" devices on my network from the rest of the network. So if someone manages to hack one device they won't be able to go far. (Yes, I tested it.) Turns out the guest networks on the Orbi don't do any isolation! This has been known since at least February 2017 and as of June 2018, it is not fixed. For me, that's fatal.
I had noticed that ASUS' recent firmware upgrades added AiMesh to the AC68U. I figured that just replacing the old AC68U with a AC5300 would probably not fix the dead zone problem *by itself* but that I could just make the old AC68U into a mesh node paired with the new router and place it to eliminate the dead zones. As expected, the AC5300 *by itself* did not fix the dead zone, but using it with the AC68U in a mesh did fix the dead zone.
0 comments:
Post a Comment