RT-AX86U Pro abandoned?

[Justinh]

Just wait.

And wait. And wait. ASUS is already on another round of updates and this model still hasn't received one from the last round.

 

[Tech9]

I'll make a phone call...

 

[bennor]

GT-AX6000 in the same club.

Nope, not the same club. The RT-AX86U Pro and the RT-AX88U Pro haven't had an update since March.
The GT-AX6000 was last updated on August 27th.

 

[bbunge]

Nope, not the same club. The RT-AX86U Pro and the RT-AX88U Pro haven't had an update since March.
The GT-AX6000 was last updated on August 27th.

I'm not over concerned about the wait. Might be better than getting an update that was half baked. For now, I am running a beta version and that is working very well for me. With the "official" firmware I had problems with maintaining a 2.5 GB Ethernet backhaul but this version seems to work OK.
Besides the Firmware Upgrade there is the Security Upgrade that seems to be active but does not show any sort of upgrade information. Maybe these two routers are getting security fixes and the firmware does not need to be upgraded as often as others?

 

[bennor]

Maybe these two routers are getting security fixes and the firmware does not need to be upgraded as often as others?

Made similar speculation up thread. Without more concrete info about all we can do is speculate that maybe its something specific to these models as to why they didn't get the August/September firmware. If they're fixing more issues great. If they eventually roll out only the August/September updates to these two models and nothing new that will likely raise some eyebrows as to why Asus took months longer for these two models.

 

[NoLight]

It's also possible that the last few security patches have mitigated the current issues enough that they feel like they can hold off until more bug fixes/new features are ready before needing to issue a new build.

 

[AStaUK]

If they are pushing security updates it would be nice to see what has been pushed and installed on the router.

I’m not to concerned about the lack of firmware updates provided my router is secure against current threats, if that’s achieved through security updates then so be it.

Otherwise my router is working fine with no issues.

 

[iFrogMac]

I also wanted to point out that I have the original RT-AX86U (Gundam edition), and there have been times where I've wondered if it was done. Then Asus drops updates, in fact we got one the 20th of this month, and the first of September. The router still runs and is stable. I also haven't seen any specific threads on here suggesting the 3.0.0.6 firmware is better over the 3.0.0.4. In fact, it seems like people still have more issues with it over the older branch.

 

[bennor]

I also haven't seen any specific threads on here suggesting the 3.0.0.6 firmware is better over the 3.0.0.4. In fact, it seems like people still have more issues with it over the older branch.

Guest Network Pro/VLAN/SDN is probably the primary advantage of the 3006 over 3004. In my use case 3006 is better overall than 3004 once I understood how Guest Network Pro operates and it's limitations/quirks. The main problem is Asus hasn't provided much detailed information on the Guest Network Pro/VLAN/SDN feature, particularly how it works with AiMesh and 3004 firmware nodes, so its left to users to try and figure things out and find the features boundaries. As always YMMV.

 

[iFrogMac]

Guest Network Pro/VLAN/SDN is probably the primary advantage of the 3006 over 3004. In my use case 3006 is better overall than 3004 once I understood how Guest Network Pro operates and it's limitations/quirks. The main problem is Asus hasn't provided much detailed information on the Guest Network Pro/VLAN/SDN feature, particularly how it works with AiMesh and 3004 firmware nodes, so its left to users to try and figure things out and find the features boundaries. As always YMMV.

In my personal experience, I had the BE92U for almost a year before running into issues I couldn't resolve, and then tossing the router out based on all the negative reviews it had. I used the iOT network for my lights, and really didn't see a difference in functionality over using Guest Network 1 on my RT-AX86U, which gives a different IP from the main network. So the differences with Guest Network Pro, are most likely things I won't use, or need. I initially thought having a dedicated iOT network would tune the settings specifically to smart / legacy devices, but in reality, it seems like a standard guest network can be manually tuned for the exact same settings. The other thing(s) I've observed is, the smart bulbs in conjunction with Alexa control, don't seem to like a tri-band WiFi 7 Router, something about how they operate over a dual band seems to mess functionality up, and I never found the exact reason why. So, I'm either going to have to stick with WiFi 6, or if I need to replace the 86U at some point will need a dual band WiFi 7 Router to ensure stability. It's too bad too, because, everything else was fine on the two WiFi 7 routers I've tried. I kept the TP-Link BE9300 as it's better than the Asus was in this strange issue, but it still has it's quirks. My only real concern at this point would be if Asus were to start adding the latest security patches to the 3.0.0.6 patch only, and the 3.0.0.4 lags behind, similar to what Apple does with the latest version of macOS vs the two generations behind they support. So far, I haven't seen this to be the case, and for a router, that probably wouldn't happen the same way a desktop OS support changes.

 

[NoLight]

If they are pushing security updates it would be nice to see what has been pushed and installed on the router.

I’m not to concerned about the lack of firmware updates provided my router is secure against current threats, if that’s achieved through security updates then so be it.

Otherwise my router is working fine with no issues.

The Security Upgrades are the malware scanning Asus Security Deamon (ASD). It's been around for years, it's just the ability to toggle it off is new.

 

[maxbraketorque]

Nope, not the same club. The RT-AX86U Pro and the RT-AX88U Pro haven't had an update since March.
The GT-AX6000 was last updated on August 27th.

I guess I missed that, but still, its a bit odd for the GT-AX6000 to receive an update while the AX88U Pro and AX86U Pro have not. All three are very close to the same device.

 

[Analog-1]

I'll make a phone call...

RELAX......

 

[Tech9]

RELAX......

Got a Voice Mail anyway...