Use recent ASUS router models for AiMesh and Smart Connect and all will be fine.

then I noticed that the speeds slowed and trouble connecting by the fifth month I was unable to connect and the device was showing a red WAN connection which means it is not connected to the internet

When I switched back to 'Smart Connect" the 2.4 Ghz band disappeared again.

Specifically, (1) Smart Connect is inconsistent, and (2) regardless of whether Smart Connect is enable or disabled, very often devices on one band could not see devices on another band (2.4 vs 5).Asus Merlin firmware has the same problems

I have the latest firmware installed and the Dual Band Smart Connect enabled

And no other router offers the high-level of tech support or warranty that Asus offers.

After struggling for over a week to fix it on my own, I called Asus tech support.

I have work with ASUS tech support for weeks on these issues

I called tech support (asus) and we back dated the firmware and it worked for about an hour

The tech support on Asus is also the worst in the industry.

DON'T DO IT....if you don't like long range, fast internet

Awesome well worth the money great range very easy to setup

Awesome well worth the money great range very easy to setup

I chose this router because it was suppose to have good range

This router has continued to drop 5ghz radio and has poor range.

No reliability problems, coverage is amazing, and its loaded with lots of useful and neat features

It's the monster of the routers and has a great coverage

Great Coverage - Purchased the RT-AC88U Router to upgrade from old

This router solved those and we now have great coverage outside.

The 5G network worked only for 30 days but since then, it has not work

In sum, this router meets all its claims and is a model of easy basic setup

Excellent Tech Support (west coast) , along with, easy setup of this fast router

It's easy to use, setup was simple, looks cool, but the range falls short.

Setup wasn't too bad coming from a techie, but I could see it being fairly easy for those uninitiated

Great router, easy setup, phone app administration is great when away from

Devices with dual-band capability switched to 5 and kept working but others with 2.4 only died.

So far everything to do with this router works great and is easy to

Told them this was unacceptable and they are currently working to get a new unit out faster... will update this review at that time.

We are using this router at our business in a metal building and it is working great.

Anyway this router works great, easy set up, can be controlled in numerous ways on your

Asus support painfully slow to fix and lots of back and forth

ASUS support had no answer as to when issue would be resolved

I contacted Asus support and provided the problem information

And what does Asus "support" tell me, sorry, "this does not qualify for a replacement unit" so they refuse to replace

Eventually I had to contact ASUS support, which I did yesterday.

The feature appears in the configuration but does not work at all.

I disable the wireless feature on FIOS Wireless Router.

If you're interested in a router with many great features and don't care about your privacy, this one is also for you

Game BoostThe main feature of this router simply doesn't work

but I needed better wireless strength and this router has delivered on that and has other great features.

Awesome router, speeds thru the roof and coverage is unbelievable!!

This router would be great if it was not killing my speed.

I may think about upgrading to the FIOS gigabit speed to see if that would increase speed sufficiently or if it's the router that is actually throttling the speeds

Can't even use the 5GHZ channel because the speeds are so slow.

The speeds are amazing throughout the house and to date no amount of connected devices slow it down

I get a strong signal throughout my house, in my outbuilding, and through my entire yard

fast fast fast signal strength good all over the house.

Signal is weaker than the basic router I used previously.

NETGEAR range extender works with the router but picked up weak signal.

Old router's signal was very weak on the 2nd floor directly above the router (in the basement), but the signal was non-existent just 30 away

This product worked great for five months, then failed.

I will not be strong armed into paying a fee for an expensive product they should support.

And you will see I'm not the only person that complain this product!

Great product and great company, would highly recommend

Within a month of having this, I have had no issues and the product has been great

The 5 gig band does hold on to its connected devices but suffers from poor performance.

What good is great performance, when that performance is short-lived

I did go in and tweak some of the setting because this router had some better features and performance.

At this price the performance of this router is unacceptable

This is a router for superb performance, especially with multiple connections at once.

I had only been using the damn thing 5 days and BOTH wireless bands just stopped working for no reason at all

If this thing was stable, it would be a totally awesome router!

Cons...this thing is about as reliable as my dates on tinder

The only good thing is that it died before the return period was up and I had to deal with sending it to ASUS.

I'm really bummed as I was excited about this router and have had nothing but good things to say about ASUS from my experience with my old router

The most important feature, it is realy realy fast connection

I cannot get a consistent connection between my devices on my home network

Enabling Any of these combinations causes all wired and wireless devices to lose connection to the internet

Initially, the wireless connection would work for a while, then disappears again

After I had a secure connection, I turned on my computer

-Wifi signal drops for a split second for a client who's far enough for the router to switch them from 5Ghz to 2.4GhzThis problem can be fixed by disabling smart connection (automatic change to wifi band based on distance, 5Ghz has small range so when you go abit further the router automatically switches to 2.4Ghz and for the switch gap -a split

The 5G network worked only for 30 days but since then, it has not work

I disabled the 2.4GHz and will leave the 1st 5GHz for visitors/friends to use while I use the 2nd faster wifi band

The 5GHz bands worked fine, but 2.4Ghz -- which is what most smaller electronics use -- never worked

The 2.4G covered most of my house and the 5G covered much of it as well.

They will not give you a refund for the unit and will continue to send you a refurbished unit that is very likely to break as it seems these are hit or miss on hardware issues

Using the smart connect rules, I was able to get the router to stabilize as long as I kept everything from connecting to the 5Ghz-1 (Lower) channel.

Predictably it did not help as it was obviously a hardware issue.

We puzzle over it for a while and decide it must be a hardware issue

We have multiple clients attached, our labtop can finally work as it was designed

The first one I got had a bad radio (1/3 and if I hadn't just bought

I asked for a warranty replacement instead because I have no other router, but they have to escalate it up and get it approved as that is not standard procedure

I've had high hopes of one day it may just start working as it should considering what I've paid for it

I've had to resort to disabling the 5Ghz radio all together which makes me very angry.

The number 1 5GHZ radio just went out and stopped broadcasting

Do a google search for "asus router overheating" and you'll see that other people also have overheating issues with these routers since they lack adequate case ventilation

I have researched since then and many people have the same issues

It seems like people pay for external antennas without looking at the product

Other people with the same problem report Asus' tech support to be non-existent

Clearly, some people have issues unrelated to this router and unjustifiably blame the router.

Only a reboot would work

Often times after an abnormal reboot the router will be completely unable to restore internet connectivity until a hard reboot is done by completely cutting power to the device.

I've had this router crap out multiple times and required a hard reboot (pulling power) to get it back up

Did a reboot on the router and cleared up the network showing the new names

Absolutely update the firmware first, and do a hard reboot.

Well after powering down this router and my modem it took about 30 min before the this router started working again.2nd problem-was straightening up the wires behind my entertainment unit and had to unplug the router-took and hour for it to reboot correctly after at least disconnecting and powering down the modem-5 times.3rd problem-today, 4/22/18 woke up, turned on the computer and wifi from this router not working.

He had me print to the printer while hard wired to the router and it printed fine

Devices such as my laptop can still obtain the internet if hard wired to the router

Fast on every level, wired and wireless, with wired obviously speedier.

I have around 32 devices connected to wifi, and a couple of hard wired devices.

When I first looked at this router it was a bit more expensive than I had planned on spending

I was a bit hesitant in buy this router at first because it's so expensive

FTP.It's a bit pricy but well worth it.

So I was a bit skeptical in looking at this Asus router with only 3 antennas

This is by far the best router I have ever tried, it was a little bit difficult to configure at the first time, even for me (Computer Engineer), but once it is configured it works like a charm

I had the fastest verzion FIOS with their best router but had dead spots.

Power output eliminated some soft spots in my home, especially the downstairs units.

Powerful wireless that has made what was once dead spots in my house get 150/150 without the need of an extender

i don't have dead spots anywhere in my home now, and the WIFI speed has more than doubled from what I was getting from my previous router

Bought this because I dead spots in my house with my old asus router.

I was continuously having dropped signal and having to reset my previous router, which was becoming a nearly daily occurrence and it was extremely frustrating, I have multiple smart TVs, iPads, laptops, wink, Alexa’s, smart home devices and 8 ip

Simple example: setting up a DMZ for the Xbox, I needed to designate a static IP address for the Xbox

You can do a lot with this router -- VPN Client support, selective IP parental controls, remote admin, iOS admin app

After troubleshooting, found that 2.4 GHz network was still broadcasting but unable to handle DHCP or connect via static IP address

No matter, the DHCP routing table has a "offline devices" menu to pick the old Xbox MAC address off the history to designate for static IP.

You can plug in an external hard drive and share it using SMB or FTP protocol

Ive even added on a portable hard drive to the

I will likely just write this POS router off as a loss, trash it, and buy a good Netgear or D-Link.

If you have mapped hard drive arrays, the router will not always connect to them - even if you make the SSID static

And on top of that, it can even scan your attached hard drive for errors.

Well 'Jelico' had me do a hard reset of the router (which I had already tried) with the same results

I have tried to recover firmware and reset to factory and the same thing happens again

I couldn't access the router after doing hard resets and power cycles.

Call customer support, she asked me to hard reset router by press router red botton

First thing I did was update the firmware and then do a hard reset

My whole house now gets 100 mps with no dead zones at all.

There were dead zones for our last router in several spots in the house and they have a good signal with this router

I got tired of dead zones in the house and splurged on this machine

The problem we had was our last router wasn’t strong enough to cover some of the areas of our house, and we had these dead zones

I use the new AC5300 and the old AC68U in an AiMesh setup to eliminate dead zones in my house