[Preview] Work in Progress

[RMerlin]

st think of the amount of options available in GL.iNET like MAC clonning, camouflage mode and TTL changing and you'll realise that this Asus is unlikely to have any chance here. I

Asus has supported both MAC cloning and TTL changing for many years already.

 

[RMerlin]

RMerlin got one for testing so maybe it’ll become a Merlin FW candidate, then anything is possible

Support was already implemented a few days ago as per my screenshot.

VPN support is a core feature for travel routers, yet it appears thr Asus will not be great at that either.

It will still be better than what is offered by GL.inet's travel routers. That Beryl AX GL.Inet has a dual core 1.3 GHz CPU, they rate it for 120 Mbps in OpenVPN and 300 Mbps in Wireguard. The Asus RT-BE58_GO has a quad core 2 GHz CPU.

EDIT: Just ran a speedtest through a Wireguard connection with ProtonVPN, and the router was able to achieve 530 Mbps in download.

EDIT2: OpenVPN is closer to around 80 Mbps. That's with the speedtest running from the router itself, so it might be slightly faster over LAN/Wifi, but probably around that range. The GL.Inet gets better OpenVPN performance because despite having a much slower CPU, it leverages DCO. So, WireGuard is probably what you'll want to use with this router, where the Asus will smoke even the Wifi 7 GL.Inet router (it only has a quadcore 1.1 GHz CPU).

 

[Aiadi]

Asus has supported both MAC cloning and TTL changing for many years already.

View attachment 68351

Oh. Will have to dig my RT-AX57 up now and check these features out. I think that managing to get these travel routers to work with cruise ships' WiFi is the litmus test of their capabilities nowadays. I sincerely look forward to your further evaluation of the new travel offering from Asus.

 

[RMerlin]

Oh. Will have to dig my RT-AX57 up now and check these features out. I think that managing to get these travel routers to work with cruise ships' WiFi is the litmus test of their capabilities nowadays. I sincerely look forward to your further evaluation of the new travel offering from Asus.

As per my tests so far, OpenVPN performance is not very good (as expected), but WireGuard performance is excellent. Providers like ProtonVPN offer downloadable config files, while with NordVPN you would need to stick with the stock firmware and use their built-in NordVPN support.

 

[Wisiwyg]

As per my tests so far, OpenVPN performance is not very good (as expected), but WireGuard performance is excellent. Providers like ProtonVPN offer downloadable config files, while with NordVPN you would need to stick with the stock firmware and use their built-in NordVPN support.

Second on ProtonVPN... their router profiles work first try every time for me.

 

[bits]

Do Asus travel routers support wifi eap and wifi captive portals?

 

[RMerlin]

Do Asus travel routers support wifi eap and wifi captive portals?

From what I understand, the Captive Portal must be handled by the client (as the router has no way of automatically handling the form itself).

[Wireless Router] What is WISP (Public WiFi mode) and how to setup? | Official Support | ASUS Global

 

[fruitcornbread]

That was also my initial thought, but Asus' marketing has bigger plans than just have it be a niche traveling product. I reckon the price will determine everything. For a small apartment, a sub-$200 WIfi 7 router might be interesting. Time will tell. Worst case scenario, it goes EOL sooner than the rest.

ASUS US web store just listed RT-BE58 Go at USD $160.

https://shop.asus.com/us/90ig09q0-ma1c0v-rt-be58-go.html

It'll probably list in Canada at CAD $230.

 

[CaptainSTX]

ASUS US web store just listed RT-BE58 Go at USD $160.

https://shop.asus.com/us/90ig09q0-ma1c0v-rt-be58-go.html

It'll probably list in Canada at CAD $230.

Pricey when compared to GL-iNet travel routers. Usually the best download speed I get at a hotel is 25- 40 Mbps either connecting directly with my devices to the hotel 's WiFi or repeating using WISP and a travel router. Speeds are sometimes less on both connection types but usually good enough for streaming using Netflix, email and casual web browsing. If purely buying the BE58 as a travel router hard to justify the additional cost for WiFi 7 and more powerful processor. The QCA9563, @775MHz SoC processor in my current travel router gets the job done including running a WG VPN client.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I thought this thread was meant to be about the Traffic Monitor? All I see is interminable discussions about new routers.

 

[bennor]

I thought this thread was meant to be about the Traffic Monitor? All I see is interminable discussions about new routers.

It now includes discussion on routers because of RMerlin's post #5 (and several that followed it discussing routers):

Next couple of weeks will probably be quite busy. Two new routers just arrived from Taiwan tonight.

 

[Tech9]

At USD160 this device will be extremely popular, no doubt about it. There will be long waiting list for it. @RMerlin, tell Asus affordable entry-level Wi-Fi 7 device is TUF-BE3600. They sell it for USD60 in China. And please update the FAQ which router model is getting Asuswrt-Merlin with "Asus strongly recommends supporting that model". Thank you!

 

[elorimer]

I personally don't think this model will be very popular. It's a niche product similar to GL.iNet travel routers. They are good for few local devices at best. Faster than GbE ports and Wi-Fi 6/7 are totally irrelevant features for most common use cases.

If it is Merlinized, it will have VPN Director, which GL.iNet has only recently matched in the Beryl AX. AI Mesh is an additional advantage: use it as a node, take it on vacation. Actually, that would be the first and best use of the multifunction switch, but probably too much for it to handle: have it sit on the shelf as a mesh node, move the switch, unplug it, take it on the road as a travel router with (in my case) two VPN clients configured through VPN director to handle traffic to the US and traffic home. Bring it back, switch it back. The Beryl doesn't have that or mesh (but does the VPN handling pretty good). But GL.iNet has done remarkable work handling captive portals. It used to be you logged in with a laptop or phone, completed the process, and then logged the router in with a cloned MAC address. And repeated the next day. But the most recent 4.8.2 software seems to do this within the router GUI itself, which of course you are accessing through a device. The real advantage is not to have to reconfigure every other device to connect to wifi. Just the one. But I agree about faster FbE and Wi-Fi 6/7. I have a sense that has more to do with the chipset.

 

[Aiadi]

If it is Merlinized, it will have VPN Director, which GL.iNet has only recently matched in the Beryl AX. AI Mesh is an additional advantage: use it as a node, take it on vacation. The Beryl doesn't have that. But GL.iNet has done remarkable work handling captive portals. It used to be you logged in with a laptop or phone, completed the process, and then logged the router in with a cloned MAC address. And repeated the next day. But the most recent 4.8.2 software seems to do this within the router GUI itself, which of course you are accessing through a device. The real advantage is not to have to reconfigure every other device to connect to wifi. Just the one. But I agree about faster FbE and Wi-Fi 6/7. I have a sense that has more to do with the chipset.

Amnezia WG recently trialled by GL.iNET will also likely to be a game changer for a lot of people when it comes to travel. I am just shocked by the daylight plagiarism of the design done by Asus here and would have liked more innovation from their side.

 

[visortgw]

ASUS US web store just listed RT-BE58 Go at USD $160.

https://shop.asus.com/us/90ig09q0-ma1c0v-rt-be58-go.html

It'll probably list in Canada at CAD $230.

Now available at Best Buy (USA) for $129.99.

 

[RMerlin]

Off-topic posts moved elsewhere.

 

[Clark Griswald]

Interesting that the Asus description specifically states for use on a cruise ship which the last two ships The Family cruised (Disney and Carnival) stated the use of router type devices was strictly Verboten!

 

[John Fitzgerald]

Interesting that the Asus description specifically states for use on a cruise ship which the last two ships The Family cruised (Disney and Carnival) stated the use of router type devices was strictly Verboten!

They are watching you closely Clark and are prepared to set you free:

 

[RMerlin]

 

[Viktor Jaep]

View attachment 68511

Hi @RMerlin ... quick question, please. Where do you pull the Memory stats from that you display here? I've been using "top" to scrape memory stats, but I'm just wondering if there's a better method somewhere like where you're pulling these from? I'm looking at revamping RTRMON and trying to see if I can match your stats a little more.

Also... are these truly MB, or are they MiB? When I look at the "free" tool, my router shows total RAM of 1018508 KiB (or 995 MiB)... How do you determine that total RAM is actually 1024 MB?