Buying advice - ASUS Blue Cave

[Oscarrandle]

Can someone share some user experience of ASUS Blue Cave?
According to the article in below link, looks like Blue Cave performance is very amazing, would like to get more suggestions of real user experience before purchase, I would like to replace my current RT-AC66U to this lifestyle router as I was attracted by it's elegant design, and I think it will be more suitable to my room.

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/asus-blue-cave-ac2600-review?page=1

 

[WiFiNemesis]

I too am curious.

• ASUS calls this a "large home" router. How so, what's different about this one?
• New platform (Intel). Take a year or so for ASUS to get it right?
• This comes after the bungled (imho) Lyra intro, and amidst the AiMesh intro. Asking too much of ASUS Support?
• First firmware update and User Manuals are already online. Encouraging signs (compared to Lyra)?
• At $180 on Amazon, what does this not do that ASUS's more expensive routers do, or do better?

SNB review coming?

 

[thiggins]

From what I see, firmware is not stable yet. Intel is still tweaking.

Just remember, everyone puts their Wi-Fi pants on pretty much the same way.

Ya can't beat physics...and transmit power limits.

 

[WiFiNemesis]

Ya can't beat physics...and transmit power limits.

Guess you've got a point. From The Verge...

Just read this quote from Alsa Lo, networking product manager at Asus, describing the various hurdles engineers had to overcome just to put a purely aesthetic hole in a router:

Most high-performance routers use external antennas to get the best Wi-Fi performance. To achieve Blue Cave’s unique shape we needed to use internal antennas, but the challenge was to do this without affecting the performance. Internal antennas can make the router more bulky and prevent users from changing the antenna orientation. But if we try to make the router smaller, the Wi-Fi performance can suffer due to interference between the circuit boards and the antennas.

Asus seems to indicate that it overcame all of those hurdles. But what are the benefits we get for all this work? Asus only promises the basics: “stable and reliable Wi-Fi” that’s “simple to set up and use.”​

 

[thiggins]

Guess you've got a point. From The Verge...

Just read this quote from Alsa Lo, networking product manager at Asus, describing the various hurdles engineers had to overcome just to put a purely aesthetic hole in a router:​

​

Pure marketing FUD. Manufacturers have been using internal antennas for awhile, without negative effects on performance.

I guess that means Lyra has crappy performance due to its internal antennas...

 

[sfx2000]

Manufacturers have been using internal antennas for awhile, without negative effects on performance.

two of the craziest internal antennae I've seen - they work well, but from an engineering perspective - a fair amount more work than dual-band dipoles...

Then we have pretty much every smartphone in the world these days - and then every laptop with WiFi, internal antennae...

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for posting the pix.

What's the point of playing with antennas? Radiated Tx power limits include antenna gain, so don't provide performance advantage.

There is no limit on antenna gain for receive. So is ASUS separating Tx and Rx chains and using separate antennas for each?

 

[WiFiNemesis]

Thanks for posting the pix.

What's the point of playing with antennas? Radiated Tx power limits include antenna gain, so don't provide performance advantage.

There is no limit on antenna gain for receive. So is ASUS separating Tx and Rx chains and using separate antennas for each?

Might be. From the Airgain website:

In a recent example where we upgraded a commercially available 55” flat screen smart television with Airgain technology, we increased the probability of the television supporting a wireless (Wi-Fi) 4K UHD content video stream connection (4K UHD requires uplink capacity in the range of 25-50 mbps) by up to 100%.​

 

[sfx2000]

What's the point of playing with antennas? Radiated Tx power limits include antenna gain, so don't provide performance advantage.

Antenna gain defines the pattern - if ERP is the same, a 5 dB antenna is going to have a very flat pattern, and a 0 dB is going to have a very round pattern on the X and Y axis.

There is no limit on antenna gain for receive. So is ASUS separating Tx and Rx chains and using separate antennas for each?

Probably not - but with internal antennas, like the Apple example I provided above (6 radiated elements), you can get a better match for each frequency band - the external Dipoles that many vendors use also do a match (in many, there are two radiators, one a straight dipole wire, and then a loaded element at the one of the two ends) - for internal antennas like PIFA's, one can play the same game with the feed lines.

Rx - the antenna comes in to play, but it's really the LNA gain that is important in the design - Antenna gain again, defines the sensitivity and directivity of the antenna, not the overall performance of the device itself, just the patterns...

 

[Dave in NM]

Just bought one, i'll tell you about after it get it on Tuesday. Noted it has an intel CPU instead of qualcomm or broadcomm, so not sure about that. But saw one more in-depth review and the throughput numbers all look good. This is one of the few reviews I found, it looks pretty good https://www.digitalcitizen.life/asus-blue-cave-ac2600-review.

 

[sfx2000]

Just bought one, i'll tell you about after it get it on Tuesday. Noted it has an intel CPU instead of qualcomm or broadcomm, so not sure about that.

The Intel GRX350 is MIPS based off Lantiq technology - that's the chipset in the BlueCave...

So this is not x86 in Asus Router Land...

 

[Dave in NM]

Just got my Blue Cave today. Setup was easy, really impressed with the operation, feels a lot more polished than i'd expect from new intel processor in it. Web interface and app is good. Have two separate 8 port 1gb switches on two of ethernet ports, works great. Seems solid and everything is running properly. Have had several other routers before so i know all about home routers and this is a good one. Packaging is above standard. Lighting is nice. 3 Cores. Feel free to ask me about this.

 

[thiggins]

Feel free to ask me about this.

What problem is it solving that your old router didn't?

 

[Duke Silver]

Just for kicks I replaced my R7800 with the blue cave to compare performance in AP mode. Used same cables, same channels, same SSID, same main router (AC-88U).

The biggest issues I noticed are with 5GHz download throughput. On every client I tested 5GHz DL is about 25% of baseline R7800 throughput when connected to Blue Cave (~120Mbps avg) then when the clients were connected to R7800 (~500Mbps avg). Distance of 12 ft line of sight.

I used WiFi Explorer to measure range over distance and blue cave 5GHz range seems roughly the same as R7800 When connected to blue cave I get consistent 120 Mbps DL throughput in most locations in my house, whereas I always get above 350 Mbps with R7800. Seems Firmware still needs to finish baking.

Blue cave does not support DFS channels nor Merlin FW. Outside of the “cave”, which my 11 yr old wants to use as a nerfgun target, there is nothing interesting about the blue gimmick...I mean cave. It is not replacing my R7800 as my main AP.

 

[Klueless]

Just for kicks I replaced my R7800 with the blue cave to compare performance

Thank you ... my wife really likes the looks and is hoping I'll "upgrade" to something that looks like that. Hoping to hear about improvements with future firmware updates. If/when I will be happy to accommodate her : -)

... my 11 yr old wants to use as a nerfgun target

Thanks for the word of caution. My grandson would do the same ... firmware ain't going to fix that!

 

[Oscarrandle]

Just for kicks I replaced my R7800 with the blue cave to compare performance in AP mode.

Which FW version do you use? I've got my Blue Cave for around 1 week, and I am now using their latest FW 383_19145, everything works fine, what I am surprised is the coverage is even better than my old RT-AC66U, its 5Ghz is extremely strong, my internet bandwidth is 80Mbps , I can always get full speed in the living room and around 70Mbps in the side room, its performance is good enough to me, maybe you can try to reset or upgrade the FW to try again...

 

[thiggins]

Has anyone run routing throughput tests? I'm seeing only about 250 Mbps max. This is with all bells and whistles (AiWhatever) disabled.

 

[sfx2000]

Has anyone run routing throughput tests? I'm seeing only about 250 Mbps max. This is with all bells and whistles (AiWhatever) disabled.

That's odd - one would think it would be similar to the Phicomm since it's based on the same chipset.

With other chipsets, Asus has been fairly consistent across different chipset vendors...

 

[thiggins]

That's odd - one would think it would be similar to the Phicomm since it's based on the same chipset.

Same chipset. Waaay different firmware with very different feature sets.

 

[sfx2000]

Same chipset. Waaay different firmware with very different feature sets.

Makes me think perhaps they're doing on the routing in linux software, and not taking any advantage of "fast lanes" in the switch - integration with Asus mainline code perhaps?