ASUSZenWiFi XT9 AX7800 Tri-Band WiFi6 Mesh WiFiSystem (2Pack), 802.11ax, up to 5700 sq ft & 6+ Rooms, AiMesh, Lifetime Free Internet Security, Parental Controls, 2.5G WAN Port, UNII 4, White

I purchased the XT9 2-pack mesh system after having issues getting acceptable service from the Verizon CR1000A and extender mesh. I had an older ASUS router when I was at a different home (and had the Comcast router on Bridged mode) and I had nothing but good experiences. I did a lot of research on mesh systems in general and found the Eero, Google and even the TP Link were lacking in the customizable features and included parental controls that the ASUS still had - so then I did research comparing various ASUS routers. I thought about the XTE12 but that just seemed overkill for me - and at twice the price-point of the XT9, I wasn't biting.At first, I only setup one XT9 router to replace the Verizon CR1000A router and extender I was using - and I noticed an immediate improvement with just a single XT9 router in speed and signal strength (range through walls/floors) vs. the meshed Verizon system.After a couple of days, I setup the 2nd AP using wireless back-haul (dedicated 5-2Ghz channel) and moved the 2nd unit around to figure out where it provided the best overall coverage. What I quickly realized - and ONLY due to where I had the initial router setup - I would actually benefit from a 3rd XT9 and a 3-unit mesh system, so I ordered a 3rd unit. Was it overkill - likely yes :) ... but I have 3 teens with 8-10 devices each and I wanted to ensure things were as good as they could be. Plus it was a combination black-friday cyber-monday deal so I was able to bag all 3 units for less than a single XTE12 normally retails for.With the 3rd unit, I was able to setup units 2 and 3 on opposite ends of the house (router is in the office, which is pretty much front-middle of my house). I kept all 3 units on the main/entry floor - as I noticed the signal to the basement and to the 2nd floor was just fine, especially with 3 units covering both ends and the middle.I receive 1GB service from Verizon - and, depending on the speed test server I connect to, time of day, overall external traffic, etc. - I can see download and upload speeds in every room of the house using the 3-unit XT9 mesh of up to 800MBps - although the usual speeds I'm seeing (on average) are 350 +/- 100. And that's quite acceptable for wireless backhaul and wireless device connectivity.A couple of things I ran into, though. First - I live in a neighborhood with a lot of traffic and I noticed, with the Mesh enabled, the entire network would disconnect for 1-2 minutes randomly, but often (I'd say every 1-2 hours). This was clearly not acceptable. I did some research and found I needed to (a) disable the roaming assistant, and (b) use a downloadable app like WiFi Analyzer to figure out what 2.4 and 5 channels my neighbors were flooding so I could manually change the channels my routers were using - and ever since those two changes, I've had amazing and consistent speed and connectivity for all of the devices in the house.I decided to leave the Verizon CR1000A router broadcasting it's IoT (2.4) signal for all of my smart devices, which also means they don't clutter the view of connected devices when I use the ASUS router app. I also have a Verizon Extender which is wired-backhaul via the coaxial so the wife and I have ethernet connections for work-from-home, and one MoCa adapter that can be used by the kids for wired-backhaul gaming. They can fight over who gets to use it (hahaha).Finally - I didn't like the auto-assignment of some stay-put devices in my home moving from one AP to another, so - for a select few devices like TVs, Echo Dots, etc. that stay in a single room, I bound them to specific AP's so that the bound devices are pretty evenly distributed across the 3 XT9 routers. I also turned on website logging (parental controls), assigned the kids devices to various "family groups" so I could pause one kid at a time if need be, and used the QoS feature to change the bandwidth usage priorities so WFH was #1 (sorry kids). I quickly realized this feature could also be used to push "Gaming" priority way down the list if wife and I were looking to get the kids off the games without them knowing we paused them. Nothing worse than lagging games - and if it's "Verizon's fault" (they have no idea) maybe it's best to just give the games a rest and come watch a movie with us! Sneakily encouraged family time.The kids are happy - nobody is complaining anymore. Next on my list of potential add-on's would be (a) hard-wired back-haul - which should be pretty straight forward in my house; and (b) opening up the 5-2GHz channel for device consumption. I may also consider getting a couple more MoCa adapters so the kids don't have to share for PC-based or console-based gaming.

We purchased a new, larger house, and I needed to resolve some coverage and speed issues. My AX86U did an admirable job and while I could have just purchased another, we have some Wifi 7 devices so I figured I'd go ahead and futureproof.I read a lot about my options (primarily Wifi 6E and Wifi 7) on several sites, but ultimately, DongKnowsTech is what convinced me to buy this unit over others. My main reason for writing this review is because there are not many reviews yet, and there are a lot of experiences posted elsewhere that were not good. Based on my experience and what I've read, I believe that this is likely related to bad software on release and has been resolved with firmware updates. Perhaps my experience will help you feel more confident about buying this unit if you are strongly considering it.I was nervous about the setup and performance based on experiences some other people had. The only issue that I had during setup was that the node MUST be close to the main unit when setting it up. Even though they can communicate in different areas of the house, it has a difficult time completing setup if they're not close by and will just flash blue. If you experience this and it's in another room, move it in the same room temporarily to complete setup.Once the setup was complete, I updated firmware on both devices, and updated the MAC address on my ATT Fiber modem which was already in Passthrough mode. Once that was complete, I moved the node upstairs and confirmed that it was working.Since I have ethernet in the room that it's in, I plugged in to utilize ethernet backhaul. I also changed a couple of settings in the Asus router app to prioritize ethernet backhaul over wireless backhaul. Once that was done, I confirmed that I still had a connection upstairs, and the app confirmed that it was using wired backhaul.Ran some speed tests on my phone and I was getting 700+mbps on the unit upstairs on 5ghz. Faster than I expected.Wifi downstairs is just as strong. My office and gaming pcs are plugged in ethernet, and I'm capping out at 900-1000mbps whereas I was previously hitting 600-750mbps.NOTE: I switched out all of my ethernet cables to Cat 6A, so this may have had an impact on speeds. Previously, I had Cat 5E and some cables that were not marked and may have been lower grade.One odd thing that I have run into is that my Bravia 7 does not want to connect to any network that has 2.4, 5, and 6ghz available. If I limit it to 2.4 and 5, or one or the other, OR just 6ghz, it will connect fine. But, it will not connect to a network with all 3 active. For now, I have it on it's own network using 6ghz but I'll have to dig into this.I have not had any issues with any other devices connecting. That includes TVs, Hue bridge/bulbs, tablets, game consoles, soundbars, robot vacuum, smartwatches. Everything is working.Overall, I'm very happy with the product. The setup was painless and though I expected good coverage, the speeds are better than expected. It has the same Asus features that I'm familiar with, without extra fees. The only thing that I'm not happy about is the price. I know it will come down and Wifi7 devices will be cheaper in time, but I needed a solution now and didn't want to re-visit again in a couple of years. Since I used Amazon Rewards, in combination with a lower priced Like New unit with Amazon Resale, the price was quite as hard a pill to swallow.