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Best unit for my requirements?

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aj_84

Occasional Visitor
Hi all,
Been a long while since I came on here and have stumbled across a number of threads following on from a few issues I'm having with my current RT-AC87U which I will probably create a separate thread for any thoughts etc under the Asus area.

With the high possibility of replacing it, dare I ask, what is the best unit to go for currently and is there anything in the pipeline that is worth waiting for?

Rather than just saying what is best - I've listed a number of requirements that I have which might help...

1. Suitable for home use but for a large number of devices - this is due to adding a number of phones to a guest wifi ssid for testing - I am a phone repairer as a side hobby and so I can add 50-60 phones a week. Ideally lease time is good for this to let it expire after x hours etc.

2. I also have home automation installed. This does not require network to work but does if you want to use a phone/laptop/tablet to control the lights etc.

3. Good for strength - Due to the house having some crazy insulation, the signal generally is not very good in this house - this also adds to the fact the unit will be housed in a small cupboard type room with no possibility of moving it outside anywhere.

4. Good for 4k/video streaming - Recently got Sky Q installed so 4k is important as is good throughput for the multiroom boxes to be able to stream of one another wirelessly (though I am thinking recently that it creates it's own network for that)

5. Nice to have would be redundancy - I have a CCTV kit connected to it along with the home automation etc - would be great if I could connect a 4g mifi style device or better still, insert a sim into the router

I think this covers the main points - what do you think?
In a way, the Asus has let me down a little - I do use Merlin and few versions out but I don't think any of the new releases fixes the issues I am having - with that in mind, I don't think it's the Merlin firmware at all that is causing it in the first place and has only opened up the functionality of the router 10 fold ...having said that, I did come from a 66u and that was good but just not suitable for my requirements.

I've also had hell with Netgear as a company back in the day in terms of support - have they changed?

Finally, there seems a lot of noise around for the Linksys range - worth listening to?

Appreciate your thoughts/advice on this
 
so the only issue you have is with range? Sky Q uses internet and in the UK the fastest internet so far is 200/10, which any broadcom ARM A9 router will handle with ease without hardware acceleration (or even the AC87U perhaps?). So dont worry about that.

My suggestion however with the AC87U is avoid connecting port 1 as that is shared with wifi.

You could buy the AC3200 from me which is in the FS thread if you have lots of wifi clients. Not sure if this is on stock firmware but on RMerlin's firmware you can use USB as a 2nd WAN so if you had a 4G modem connected on usb it will work but i am sure @RMerlin can elaborate on any issues or restrictions.

Netgear isnt so bad to deal with as last time, infact they have one of their guys here providing support but i dont know how active he is. With netgear the firmware isnt so great but their hardware has always been good.
 
Sorry I wasn't too clear - I think the range/performance is secondary to the primary issue which is down to the stability of the unit itself. It could be heat related, it could be something entirely different but it seems to be unresponsive in terms of connections too often recently. Wifi cannot connect (but devices can see the SSIDs) - Android states unable to gain IP address whereas others try to connect and drop out.
But more importantly, cabled devices also cannot connect even those with static/reserved IP addresses.
http://www.snbforums.com/threads/ac87u-no-connection-issues.34855/

I'll have a look at the 3200 but keeping options open especially if it is heat issues I am having in which case I need to re-think options on the next unit
 

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