Yes I've actually closely/obsessively followed all of your posts and others' posts on snbforums for several years now... mostly for my AC and AX routers, but also the last couple of years trying to decide which BE model to buy for my next upgrades... it's all been really informative and the reason I've been holding off so long monitoring the progress and fixes... and getting some analysis paralysis in the process, lol.Standard Power is impressive, which I know is partly I am lucky where I live. With that, I think you have to try it. That's the only way you'll know it works where you are. TP-Link has a few offerings with AFC if you are so inclined. With them you need to get the HW Version # and check the firmware release notes to verify the feature you want...
If I may suggest, only buy the router if you know it has the feature you are looking for. I was actually surprised that the BE19000Ai got AFC because it was not on the website product pages....
Sorry I deleted my post, I had searched for pricing on the GS-BE18000 based on your post, but did not realize the listing at B&H was cheaper because it was a lower model....
Definitely do ask your questions from those who have experience with the router model you are interested in. I actually have a beef with the default WiFi settings being setup. (I've been tinkering with ASUS WiFi 7/BE98 Pro since the beginning of December 2023)....
Yes I was going to say that I think only Best Buy sells the STRIX GS-BE18000 with AFC in the USA... Asus doesn't even sell it on the US website - they refer the sale to Best Buy. I think other retailers sell the GS-BE12000 currently.
I did check out that router in the store and read LOTS of reviews about it - after some early troubles with reboots, it seems much more stable now and the AFC seems to work for people. The only things that held me back was the lack of Merlin support and the lesser 2.5G LAN ports (vs 10G) and lesser quad 2.0GHz processor (vs 2.6GHz)... but right now I only have up to a 2Gbps fiber plan available to my residences anyway. Not sure if the lesser CPU would make much difference with my OpenVPN and Wireguard servers. But the form factor is much easier to fit in than the spider routers, not far off from the ZenWiFi routers.