ASUS ROG Rapture WiFi 6 Wireless Gaming Router (GT-AX11000) - Tri-Band 10 Gigabit, 1.8GHz Quad-Core CPU, WTFast, 2.5G Port, AiMesh Compatible, Included Lifetime Internet Security, AURA RGB

I purchased the ASUS GT-AX11000 gaming router to improve WiFi coverage of my 3600 square foot, 2-level home in a densely packed beach cities neighborhood where spacing between homes is about 10 feet side-to side, and where there are a LOT of overlapping WiFi domains competing for capacity.Sifting through many, many reviews, the consistently strong points of this WiFi router seemed to be a very broad coverage area, unusually high capacity at a distance plus ability to handle a LOT of throughput and clients. And I found that these claims were quite true, in my application.In particular, I wanted seamless WiFi calling as cell coverage at this location is very poor. Friends who've installed mesh systems reported mixed WiFi calling results, with node handoffs often dropping calls. In this capacity, the GT-AX11000 installation was very successful. I now have seamless WiFi calling throughout my home and yard ... and a bit beyond. (Yay!)In addition, my family has been "sheltering in place" from COVID19, with three of us working remotely (2 VPNs, many video conferences) and my two sons are avid gamers and we all like to stream media (movies, TV, music) from the usual internet sources. This situation severely strained the old LAN infrastructure.Internet service bandwidth to this home is 200+ Mbps down/10+ Mbps up. Service distribution in the home is through a mix of wired gigabit Ethernet and WiFi networks.The previous wired/WiFi system was built around a Linksys WRT1900AC router, with a wired Netgear Access point to extend the network at one end of the home and another Netgear wireless repeater to fill the remaining WiFi voids at the other. WiFi service capacity varied from 90 Mbps in close proximity to the router, down to 20 Mbps at any significant distance, and WiFi calling was unreliable do to many "dead zones" and the different coverage areas provided by the access point and repeater.A key complication is that the home has numerous large mirrored, 2 and 3-panel closet doors and also has very large mirrors in each of its four bathrooms. These mirrors are break up "line of sight" RF transmissions and have been problematic with every WiFi system installed. Plus home construction is stucco over wire mesh - not very RF-friendly, either.Placed in the same exact location as the previous 4-antenna Linksys WRT1900AC WiFi router, the 6-antenna ASUS GT-AX11000 somehow manages to cover the entire property all by itself (no need for the auxiliary WAP and extender) with no dead spots on 2.4 GHz, and just ONE very tiny dead spot on 5 Ghz. The ASUS WiFi router appears to put out a 6-7 dB stronger signal than the old Linksys, but somehow the return channel from wireless clients, like cellphones, is also much cleaner.In most of the home, 2.4 GHz WiFi now supports 80-200+ Mbps, with 35-40+ Mbps out in the extreme front and back yards (lot is 50x150 feet). This is twice the speed and much better coverage than the old Linksys WRT1900AC.Oddly, 5 GHz service is almost uniformly 200+ Mbps (service provider limit) - I expected this band to drop off rapidly with distance but it seems to work at full speed throughout most of the home, except for one very small "dead" location. Remarkable. Of course, it helps that there is absolutely no other routers in range that supports the 2nd 5 GHz band. But our new laptops DO. (Yay!)Setup was easy. The GT-AX11000 was a nearly drop-in replacement for the old WRT1900AC and required only one or two minor tweaks to its basic settings to bring everything else up seamlessly. This includes supporting about 30 clients on a typical day. ASUS went out of their way to make router menus user-friendly and self-explanatory, and since this unit has been out for more than a year, the firmware seems pretty bug-free too, though there are a LOT of gaming tweaks I haven't tried. I did NOT buy this expensive piece of gear for gaming.The whole family seems happy with this new arrangement. Even the gamers.In conclusion, applied as a my home's central WiFi/wired router, the ASUS GT-AX11000 is a stellar performer in a large home in a densely populated area where many WiFi networks compete. The home's many large mirrors and stucco-over-chicken-wire construction, which hampered the performance of previous routers, does not seem to be a problem for this beast.And it IS a beast - looking like a giant alien spider sitting on top of a bookcase.Quite expensive, but delivers and works great (so far) - and that's what I REALLY care about!

We upgraded from an ASUS AC66U. The previous router was also ASUS. The initial setup took about 30 minutes, and we were able to get things going pretty quickly after that. First thing I did was upgrade the firmware, and we haven't had any issues at all. The only restarts have been from me after configuring new items like the VPN.The one hangup I had was that I was using the ASUS DDNS and didn't see the info that I needed to contact them to release the old domain from the old router before connecting it to the new one. That info is on the bottom of the one of the FAQ pages, but I wish they would make it more prominent. So far this is my only interaction with customer support, but they were very helpful and got it taken care of right away. Hopefully there aren't any more difficult requests that I need to send their way.Previously we had the two routers providing connectivity for the house, and had issues when devices wouldn't disconnect from one, and go to the other. They were setup as a main router, with the secondary as a wired AP. This new router has been working great without need for a second router, although I did setup one of the old ones just in case, it has remained unplugged on the counter. All of our devices for a 4 adult household have been seeing much improved speed, as well as, signal strength. I can easily get signal a couple hundred feet away from our house and browse the internet. The house even has aluminum siding, so I'm sure most people will probably get better signal than I would. The previous router was unable to really handle the full throughput of our connection to Comcast. It would top out around 150Mbps, but the new one easily runs past it around 470Mbps (on a 400Mbps connection).Another thing I setup was the VPN. I decided on the router hosted one for IPSEC with PSK/Secret. That works great and is the one I'm more familiar with having worked with CISCO stuff in the past. It also doesn't require that the traffic go through a 3rd party before going through your router. This is great for if we're traveling and want to make sure that our traffic is transmitted securely even though the WiFi we're on might be open or shared. Additionally, you don't have to pay for a VPN service.In terms of total cost, it is pretty expensive, and fortunately I had a bit of cash that we weren't expecting to have that I used in order to bring down the total cost of the router to about $250. At that price it's basically a steal, but at the full $450 it was something we were contemplating, but would probably not have pulled the trigger on.Having said that, the number of features that are provided are very impressive. I especially appreciate the network security through TrendMicro. I'm sure it's not on the same level as a FireEye appliance, but for the home you probably couldn't do a whole lot better with an all in one solution. We don't have any kids yet, but when we do, I would like to try out the parental controls. I could try them out on the other three people, but I'm not sure how happy they would be.The AIMesh would be nice to try, but both of our older ASUS routers don't support this. There's not a lot that the system can do besides attempting to band steer clients from one AP to the other, so if you really want, you can setup your network to basically provide the same functionality as AIMesh, it just won't be able to do the band steering as well. You can do this by setting your dynamic IP address range like this: 192.168.1.100-254, then statically assign IPs to any APs in the .1.1-.1.99 range. This essentially works like daisy chaining switches together, but over WiFi. You can then adjust the settings for each router where it will either attempt to allow the client to continue to connect, or cede the connection to a "better" one.One more thing I hope for is that they will be able to add WPA3 support in the future, but even if they don't, I'm not super concerned.All in all, this appears to be a pretty good upgrade from our old router. I usually use equipment such as this for longer periods of time by buying the top of the range, then making sure that it will continue to meet our needs. This helps to stomach the cost a bit more too. The older routers will probably see reuse as time goes on, if someone I know is in need of a router, or if I am experimenting with things. I have often thought of setting up a stand alone server to serve this purpose and act as the router and firewall, then using APs for WiFi, but in terms of a total functionality, time spent, money spent (including power), and ease of use for the home environment, I have found myself coming back to these routers, and specifically ASUS for the broad feature set that is offered. Obviously there is brand familiarity too.