Best moderate priced router for Merlin, streaming and limited wireless

[oldserverguy]

My home network covers both a separate garage with my "computer room" and the house. Most of our devices are wired and a powerline network is used to connect the two. We use wired streaming TV and with the new VPN need to be able to split the traffic by IP - hence Merlin. Our wireless needs are not high especially with the new femtocell that we have for cell phones. Our internet speed is low - we might eventually get 30 Mbps but that's not guaranteed.

What's the best moderate priced ASUS router that's compatible with Merlin and will likely have ongoing support for my unique situation? I've been looking at RT-AC3200 and RT-AC87U.

 

[Grisu]

RT-AC66U_B1 (compatible to or almost same as RT-AC68U in laying housing)

 

[oldserverguy]

Thanks for the input.

I see the RT-AC66U (doesn't list B1) is a supported router on the NordVPN list but it's about the same cost as the RT-AC3200. But the RT-AC66U_B1 is the about half the price. Given our dreary internet speeds just have to try to get the most out of what we have. I hate returns even to "Amazing" but this looks decent.

 

[Grisu]

they are very different models, 66U-B1 is same as 68U (exactly same firmware) only in 66U design, that's why they used this name for it, 66U I wouldn't recommend any more (even for much lower price), maybe it will soon get on EOL list (last update from spring and no AiMesh).
But 68U in the meantime got 5 years old hardware too, so to be more future proof you could take the RT-AC86U with new and much faster hardware (especially for VPN usage and SmartConnect support).
Depends on your needs, money and future planning.
Maybe best to take the cheaper one 66-B1 for now and in 2-3 years get a common AX router when they have stable firmware and finalized standards.

 

[oldserverguy]

Thanks for the comments. I'm going with the RT-AC86U (AC2900) for my main Merlin VPN router to NordVPN unless someone says that's a silly choice. I will say that ASUS has so many routers (I just counted 27 with a where to buy tab) as opposed to someone like Cisco it's difficult to analyze all the specs - oh well.

 

[Grisu]

good choice, only not very moderate priced (but worth the money I think, have a 68 and 86U), wait for black friday, some got it in the past for less than 130€ with flash deals.

 

[oldserverguy]

That's about $170 USD and the current pricing here is $175 so I'm just going to order it by tomorrow.

 

[oldserverguy]

I got it in and working. Couple of interesting things. The ping speeds to 8.8.8.8 are less than my old network - I'm guessing that the significantly greater processor speed and power are part of it. It's not my DSL router as it's ports are only 100mbps. The split was easy - just did a 10.xxx.yyy.0/24 to the VPN and then 10.xxx.240/29 for streaming devices pointed to the WAN. My only problem was related to using the NORD DNS server of 103.86.96.100 in my testing Apple TV - when it went down it wouldn't work. But since it's going out the WAN just changed it to 8.8.8.8 and all was well. I was worried that not appearing to be in my local area for all the other devices was going to cause search engine problems for stores/vendors but it's been easy to just use the town name. Wife hasn't reported any problems so all is well on that front.