ASUSZenWiFi Whole-Home Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6E System (ET8 2PK), Coverage up to 5,500 sq.ft & 6+Rooms, 6600Mbps, New 6GHz Band, AiMesh,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.

Included in the box are a quick start guide and the associated hardware. The guide lists three different LED colors and related meanings. The LEDs glow all sorts of colors, but what do they mean? Well, it turns out that green means the router is "optimizing." Whatever that means... The trouble is, it optimizes about every 3 minutes. When it is "optimizing" it takes down Wifi and LAN, so that there is no internet access! EVERY THREE MINS! FOR OVER THREE HOURS! How did I find out what "green" means? I had to use my phone.it took an hour to get the firmware updates to start - apparently, if you start them just after the last optimizing episode, the firmware update will interrupt this "optimizing." Firmware made no difference... constant bounces... The 35 smart light switches and security system, and smart TVs all reminding me via incessant messages to my phone that they could not find their mothers. How sad.So we took the node offline to force a single router, and yet, with no related note, the router kept optimizing. What was it optimizing? No one knows. Let's get the manual! Surely there must be a manual online! NO THERE ISN'T!! No manual! Asus spent time making a really trick box, but there's no manual. Hmmm.. Search on the Asus page for "LED colors" and "optimizing" and nothing. Have to use Google.This review/rant is related to the ZenWifi ET8, and NOT the older model. For some reason, Amazon is mixing the reviews together for these two router models.This is so delightfully overpriced, yet so sadly poorly performing, there is nothing ZEN about this. It one wonder if Asus were intending a practical joke here? The guides, and the web interface pages and menus are so poorly written; they test the lengths of this English professor's generous patience....Dear Asus, please accept this return with a plea that you release at least half-baked products? This router set isn't even remotely ready for use.