ASUS ZenWiFi Whole-Home Tri-band Mesh WiFi 6E System (ET8 3PK), Coverage up to 7,500 sq.ft, 6600Mbps, new 6GHz band, AiMesh, Lifetime Free Internet Security, Parental Control, EasySetup, Instant Guard

I recently cut the cord on cable TV and upgraded to 1Gbps (fastest I can go in my area) service to my house. I started out the with typical all-in-one modem-router provided by my ISP but I was having the typical 1st world problem of coverage, lack of flexibility/control, and stability - so I used the money I "saved" on my cable bill to splurge on Mesh WIFI. It was between the Zen and Netgear's Orbi and I ultimately picked Zen - I can't imagine going wrong with either, but the Zen was a bit more "affordable" and I used the "extra" money to pick up a pair of MoCA 2.5 adapters (Hitron HT-EM4) to backhaul the paring mesh node by wire vs. wireless.I've had them now for several months to see how they would break in and I'm still very pleased with the outcome. The installation was really way too easy - the mobile app install, setup, and configuration UI is really good - kudos to ASUS on the quick guide, the app, and thinking through the setup - everything just worked out of the box.I have an IT background but I'm not a network engineer by any stretch, I'm familiar enough with the concepts & practice to use some of the more technical features, and was impressed with the flexibility that's available between the "easy" options to protect less technical consumers. QoS for instance can be as functional as picking a category that Zen then interprets by application type to prioritize traffic for you OR you can drill down to MAC level to prioritize traffic explicitly by device with a few more clicks. Nice.One particular feature that saved the day is the ability to break away from the default DNS gateway - again you can functionally choose from a list of common DNS services or manually set the primary & alternate gateways by IP addresses. My ISP's gateway kept dropping, so having this handy to centrally configure my own DNS gateway settings was fantastic.There's also some great diagnostic tools, to include speed test that runs from the router on the wire - which I made use of when I switched to my own modem and discovered that the support rep that activated my new modem missed a step and hadn't increased the modem to my subscribed speed (by binding channels). It was a simple mistake, but was easy for me to find with a few clicks on the mobile app. You can run a similar test from your end-device, but it adds in a bunch of extra factors that muddy the number. I was able to use the speed test on the router to show Support the results a close to modem as you can get.There's a ton more features, to include functional - technical options for firewalls, IP routing, mode of operation, monitoring of inbound & outbound traffic in real-time, logging options, security features, family mode settings (sure wish I had that when my girls were growing up!) etc. I also have made use of the web-based interface built into the unit which affords more advanced features (and UI real estate) and both are well organized and visually enhanced - I was pleasantly surprised at the level of polish.Although I ultimately got rid of my all-in-one cable company modem-router in place of a dedicated modem to front this router, I did discover for a few weeks that the Zen was able to coexist alongside my cable company's WIFI signal without any real issues.There are a lot of options out there and I've only real-world testing this particular consumer level solution, but I have a bunch of gadgets from 4 computers, 5 smart TV's, a few Amazon Fires, a half dozen Echos, smart garage openers, cameras, mobile phones, etc. The Zen handles them all in 4k+ sq ft coverage area with options to manage & organize said devices. And.. I've worked from home since COVID and I'm in front of at least one computer nearly all day all the time for conference calls while at the same time running VPN tunnels to my company's secure servers and running remote terminal sessions, while family members are potentially streaming hulu - really happy how solid it's been.

After setting this up, including finding what I thought was a good location for the satellite router, all was working fine... for awhile. I enjoyed not having to rely on my range extender with my old router and connections to the new wi-fi network were seamless, even as I moved around the house. Then after a couple of weeks, the two routers lost connection with each other. Not only that but the main router refused any connection for managing it, via the app or the web interface. The only way to regain control was to power cycle the main router. Following this, the 2 routers had to be placed near each other again in order to reestablish their relationship. Once done, I placed the satellite at a new location, closer to the main router, then optimized the connection for the new spot. Again, all seemed well, until they lost site of each other again. The same things all over again. I repeated this dance for a few days, then decided to try a wired backhaul connection. Much to my surprise, the same disconnect eventually happened with the wired backhaul. Fortunately I had a couple of days left in Amazon's 30-day return policy and the package is currently on its way back.Other notes... there is no comprehensive user manual for this product. Very strange for a very complex and expensive product. I was OK with this as the web management interface mirrored my old router (except for new features), and there is a full manual for the very similar XT8 product which for the most part would suffice. I called ASUS about this, asked for customer service, but could only get tech support. Tech support said they'd escalate the issue and a day or so after calling, I received an email from tech support asking what issue they could help solve. Uh... you could write a user manual?So, customer service appears not to exist, tech support could not solve the missing user manual, and unfortunately the product is unreliable for more than a day at a time. I think that's 3 strikes, you're out.