RT-AC68U v4 Discontinued by Asus

[Tech9]

I'm highly in doubt RT-AC68U is still in production. It's still available here and there. V4 is on EOL list from quite some time. It may also be still available here and there. Last unsold units with some ridiculous scam offers around:

 

[RMerlin]

I'm highly in doubt RT-AC68U is still in production.

The RT-AC66U_B1 was on clearance around here recently (at least at Staples as I was looking for an emergency replacement router for a customer), as low as ~$45 CAD (which is a pretty good price if you just want an inexpensive AP). The original RT-AC68U probably isn't manufactured any longer.

However that doesn't mean the complete end of support, I suspect Asus will still support the RT-AC68U with security updates for a while due to its very large install base. That would explain why it's not on their EOL list yet.

 

[wouterv]

A large supplier in the Netherlands still offers the RT-AC1900U.
The price seems increased though compared to a couple of months ago, and it is more expensive than the cheaper AX models.
For plain small networks the RT-AC68 series and variants is still a proven solid and trouble free product.

 

[gpz1100]

I finally dumped the rt-ac68u as AP after a number of years. Have a number of ax200/201/210/211 clients around the house. Wanted better wifi performance.

Tried the ax-88u pro as it supports vlans. The implementation was extremely poor, clunky. Returned it. Got a EAP670 for $100 less which integrates nicely with the rest of the network. Supports 8 vlans for each band. 16 vlans (ssid's) total. Plenty for the guest and iot stuff.

Have 5 or 6 of the rt-ac68u in various form (real rt-ac68u and tm1900ac). Not sure what i'll do with 'em yet.

Best I've seen with an wifi6 client (2x2) is ~1.6gbps sustained.

 

[Tech9]

FYI: Read the reviews from Farming Engineer and David Palmer

Read the reviews carefully and what product they apply for:

Note the product - N300 Outdoor. Is it the same as EAP670?

This is EAP110, N300 Outdoor:

This is EAP670, ceiling mount AP:

 

[Intrepid]

It seems you are correct. Amazon made a mistake. It hard to know whether these reviews are for the TP-Link EAP110-Outdoor or the EAP670 since the reviews are tagged all the same. This is an all too common mistake with Amazon.
See reviews by Farming Engineer and David Palmer here:

Amazon.com

 

[Tech9]

It's the same router on Amazon. The TP-Link EAP670 (Amazon calls it a N300 for short in the reviews)

No, Amazon combines the reviews for products in the same category or from the same seller.

EAP670 is Omada compatible ceiling mount Access Point, not a Router. Don't you see the difference between EAP110 and EAP670 above?

EAP670 AX5400 class is called N300 for short?

 

[Intrepid]

No, Amazon combines the reviews for products in the same category or from the same seller.

EAP670 is Omada compatible ceiling mount Access Point, not a Router. Don't you see the difference between EAP110 and EAP670 above?

I edited my comment at the same time you were posting this. I agree.

 

[Tech9]

This is Amazon marketing. When you search for a specific product you see many reviews and make an "easy" purchase decision, but if you look closely the product you are interested in may have only a small % of the reviews and they may be mostly negative. They just do everything to sell more.

 

[gpz1100]

Read the reviews from Farming Engineer and David Palmer:
The TP-Link EAP670 has a serious security flaw that has not been fixed in years and should not be used.
See: https://www.amazon.com/product-revi...r&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar

That's amazon for you.

I take most amazon reviews with a grain (or kilo) of salt. Hard to tell which device the review actually applies to. The reviewer(s) also failed to indicate which firmware version they were using and whether devices were in standalone mode or adopted to the omada controller. I did try googling for this issue but didn't find anything.

My unit (bought ~a month ago) came with fw 1.09. There's been several fw updates since then (https://www.tp-link.com/en/support/download/eap670/v1/#Firmware). There was 1.0.11 and now 1.0.12 which is what the unit is on. I've not had any unusual/strange behavior such as self resetting. I did play around with the omada controller. It offers a lot, overkill even for my use case. I ultimately decided to run the unit in stand alone mode. A single AP covers the entire house and then some (up to 125' away outside with still usable internet on both bands).

I suppose anything is possible and it's easy enough to configure settings should this issue occur. I see a reasonable work around as defining the default vlan to a non-existent one for the switch port eap is connected to. That is, should the unit factory reset itself, it will effectively have no network connectivity other than wifi clients connecting to itself.

I have my unit configured to send me an system log email daily at 0800. Usually it looks like this. Log data resets if unit is rebooted. If it does factory reset, of course this email will not be generated.

###########################################################################
# EAP670 System Log
# Time = 2023-12-10 8:00:08 162703s
# H-Ver = EAP670 v1.0 : S-Ver = 1.0.12 Build 20230922 Rel. 53972
# L = 10.10.4.2 : M = 255.255.255.0
# MAC = 50-91-E3-XX-YY-ZZ
###########################################################################

2023-12-10 02:45:40 AP_C_FL WARNING [client:00-E0-1E-XX-YY-ZZ] failed to connected to [ap:50-91-E3-XX-YY-ZZ] with SSID "xxxxxxxxxxxxx" on channel 100 because the user is blocked by Access Control.(79 times in a minute)
2023-12-09 08:00:53 OTHER INFO Mail successfully
2023-12-08 10:48:40 DEV_IP_C WARNING The LAN IP address/mask of [ap:50-91-E3-XX-YY-ZZ] were changed to 10.10.4.2/255.255.255.0.
2023-12-08 10:48:40 OTHER INFO System started

Each day the "mail successfully" line increments.

 

[Tech9]

Not sure what i'll do with 'em yet

Sell to someone who needs them, use as wireless bridge (Media Bridge in Asuswrt) or recycle.

 

[gpz1100]

Sell to someone who needs them, use as wireless bridge (Media Bridge in Asuswrt) or recycle.

Or add 'em to the pile of wrt54gs's I have

 

[Tech9]

This thread is for a specific RT-AC68U version - V4. It's an HND hardware device very different than other RT-AC68U variants.

Not sure why you replied to this thread. Your old RT-AC68U's and TM-AC1900's are unrelated as well as your new EAP670 access point.

 

[gpz1100]

I think the "discontinued" caught my attention. Didn't even know there was a v2+ of this thing. My apologies.

 

[Tech9]

No problem. The other versions are still supported. The latest firmware with ASD/DCD fixes was released days ago:

Looking at the file size - it contains dual images and perhaps even End-Of-Life V4 got an update along with the others.

@RMerlin, do you know if V4 firmware included is just the last available before EoL status or it also still gets updates? This is interesting case.

 

[RMerlin]

@RMerlin, do you know if V4 firmware included is just the last available before EoL status or it also still gets updates? This is interesting case.

I don't know. Someone would have to flash it on a V4, and see what firmware version shows up. I think there's a good chance it will be the newer firmware.

 

[Tech9]

I think there's a good chance it will be the newer firmware.

The EoL'd model RT-AC1900P still goes along RT-AC68U using the same non-HND firmware image:

I'm also pretty sure V4 got the fixes too.

 

[glens]

I fetched and extracted the firmware and it's got a UBI image which has all the trappings of other HND firmware I've seen.