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ASUS AC2900 WiFi Gaming Router (RT-AC86U) - Dual Band Gigabit Wireless Internet Router, WTFast Game Accelerator, Streaming, AiMesh Compatible, Included Lifetime Internet Security, Adaptive QoS

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Availability: Only 5 left in stock, order soon!
Fulfilled by Amazon
Arrives Tuesday, Jan 7
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Style: AC2900


Features

  • Connector Type : USB
  • Dual-band (2.4 plus 5 GHz) AC2900 wireless router with the latest 802. 11AC MU-MIMO technology for data transfer speeds up to 2900 Mbps
  • 1.8GHz 32bit dual-core processor optimizes network traffic and connectivity speeds from the USB 3. 1 Gen1 and 4x Gigabit LAN ports
  • Designed for lag-free online gaming and flawless 4K UHD streaming with WTFast game Accelerator and adaptive QoS; Product Segment: AC2900 ultimate AC performance: 750 plus 2167 Mbps
  • A protection powered by Trend Micro provides built-in 24/7 protection from external attacks and threats, neutralizing them before they reach your network or connected devices. DC Output : 19 V with max. 1.75 A current
  • Manage your network with the ASUS router app setup your network, manage usage and parental controls, even get instant notifications about important network-based events. Connected devices must be 802. 11 ac-compatible for best results. Ac input: 110v240v(5060hz)

Description

Designed to deliver jaw-dropping network performance, The ASUS RT-AC86U features a 1. 8GHz dual-core processor with the latest 802. 11AC MU-MIMO technology. Maximize your online experience with game-boosting Adaptive Qu's, gamers private network by Waist, and built-in network security from Protection. Use the ASUS router app to manage your network while on-the-go. Wi-Fi technology is 20/40/80 MHz bandwidth. Note-if having issues connecting to 5 GHz network make sure that wireless device supports 5 GHz or features dual Band capabilities.


Wireless Type: ‎802.11ac


Number of USB 2.0 Ports: ‎1


Brand: ‎ASUS


Series: ‎RT-AC86U


Item model number: ‎RT-AC86U


Operating System: ‎Windows® 10;Windows® 8;Windows® 7;Mac OS X 10.6;Mac OS X 10.7;Mac OS X 10.8;Linux


Item Weight: ‎2 pounds


Product Dimensions: ‎6.2 x 3.3 x 8.66 inches


Item Dimensions LxWxH: ‎6.2 x 3.3 x 8.66 inches


Processor Count: ‎2


Voltage: ‎19 Volts


Manufacturer: ‎ASUS Computer International Direct


Country of Origin: ‎China


Is Discontinued By Manufacturer: ‎No


Date First Available: ‎August 22, 2017


Frequently asked questions

If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is: Tuesday, Jan 7

Yes, absolutely! You may return this product for a full refund within 30 days of receiving it.

To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.

View our full returns policy here.

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Top Amazon Reviews

    • So close to gigabit wifi speeds, but yet so far
Style: AX6100 Router 2-Pack
Review Image by DarkSideMilk
EDIT: I had another opportunity to set these up in a different environment for a family member. She had just bought a 4000 square foot house, she has 250 Mbps up/down fiber internet and does not live near any weather radar stations. I opted to not update to the latest firmware (5/2020) and instead installed the second latest (3/2020). Everything went smoothly setting up as wired access points. Was able to get the full internet speed in almost every room of the house, the lowest it went in a far corner room was ~150 up and down. What's even craziers is the 2-3 ms ping over wifi. I would strongly reccomend this mesh 2pk system (even though I didn't choose to use the "mesh" system) for larger houses far away from weather stations. Upping my review to 4 stars as these do great in more well spaced out neighborhoods, but not so great in a townhouse or condensed housing setting near an airport. ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is a review for the 2 pack of RT-AX92U Here's the TL;DR I really really really wanted to like this mesh router system. I think that if you happen to be nowhere near a weather radar station, the nodes are very far apart, you're ok with compromises, and you're very very patient, then maybe you could make it work. But sadly there are many features that are only available when certain other settings/modes are enabled, and many things that you lose when you enable other modes (I'll go into more detail below). I was actually able to obtain a gigabit level download speed in a speedtest from my isp, but on that connection to anything outside my isp, I got dial up speeds. Trying to get this to work as expected was an emotional roller coaster that sadly ending in returning it. A little background on me, I'm an IT engineer. Before I got my degree in IT, figuring out how routers worked and what every setting means and does has been a hobby of mine since I was 12, starting when I setup our first 802.11 b router. So I've been self taught and professionally taught in the ways of home and enterprise wireless networking for the last 20 years. Not saying I know it all, but I just want to assure you that this review isn't a case of someone that just didn't know how to configure it. Let's break this down by each feature and how it betrayed me Aggregate WAN I have gigabit comcast internet. The provisioned download speed (according to dslreports) of comcast's gigabit internet is actually 1.2 GBps. Since I have a modem with the ability to do a aggregate wan link, I was hoping to achieve a connection speed above the cat 5e ethernet threshold of ~940 Mbps using the 160 Mhz wifi bands. I don't actually have a wifi 6/ax adapter in any devices yet, but I do have a intel ac9560 adapter (2x2 160 Mhz) which is capable of a 1.7 Gbps link. I figured being close enough to the router I'd be able to theoretically see above 1 Gbps on a speed test. So I set up the aggregate WAN on the main router and on the modem and got it hooked up. It did make the start up take quite a bit longer, but it got a connection and showed 2Gbps in the web gui, huzzah. I was able to get a 1.7 Gbps link near the router, but sadly never got the speeds I desired (I also didn't have anything at home capable of testing a aggregate LAN link, but on a single ethernet cable from the router I was able to get download speeds of 950, which is better than 940, so that's something). Here's the real kicker, I discovered as I played with various settings that the router would go into a constant reboot loop and you would have maybe a few seconds when it was up to try and disable what was causing it. It turned out what was causing it for me was having the aggregate WAN enabled. It worked fine the first day I set it up, but when I woke up the next morning I found myself without internet and a constantly rebooting router. Until I disabled the aggregate WAN (which wasn't giving me the desired above 1gbps speeds anyway) I was stuck in that frustrating loop. Available Wifi Channels This is a question I posted that I never got an answer to so I just want to put it here. On the 2.4 Ghz Band *the standard 1-11 channels are available. On the 5 Ghz #1 Band * the standard lower 5 Ghz channels of 36-48 are available No Dfs channels are available on this band (there is a range of 52-64, which fun fact is the only one that doesn't interfere with the weather radar station at a nearby airport for me, so I couldn't ever get a long term stable 160 Mhz wifi from this router). On The 5 Ghz # 2 Band * The Dfs Channel Range of 100-112 * The Dfs Channel Range of 114-128 * The non-dfs but non-standard and less crowded range of 132-144 * The standard Channel Range of 149-161 * The non-dfs but also non-standard (but restricted to 20 MHz band) channel 165 is also available So almost every channel band is available, except of course for the one range I need to be able to obtain full ax speeds in my area. The fact that so many channels are available really made me want to keep this router, as I hope to not live by an airport forever and would be able to use the dfs channels elsewhere, but sadly there were other issues. Mesh/AP Setup/Wifi Link speeds (gigabit wifi speeds?!) As another reviewer pointed out, even if you used a wired backhaul for the ai mesh, the 2nd 5Ghz band disappears. You can actually bring it back by unhiding the ssid in the advanced settings. But I discovered that although you can set it to a dfs channel range, it won't broadcast in 160 Mhz or it will change the channel on you after you hit save. It also does change the channel automatically if you're near a radar station like I am, but it would allow it for a short time before that happened. So, if you enable the Mesh system in any way, at least on the most recent firmware, you cannot get the full ax speeds. On 80 Mhz channels with an ax 2x2 device, I believe you'd still be able to get up to a 1.2 Gbps link speed, but you wouldn't be able to get 2.4 Gbps without the 160 Mhz dfs channels. (the 4.8 Gbps link would require a 4x4 160 Mhz wifi 6/ax adapter, which doesn't exist outside of ax routers at the moment, though you could technically use one of these nodes as a bridged adapter with an ethernet cable, but that's quite the expensive adapter). Also, a few notes on what the Mesh actually means. So in a typical enterprise wifi system, you have many access points (AP's) on various channels to create a roaming network. You're device automatically disconnects and reconnects typically without you noticing, with some exceptions of apps/services that don't support roaming connections. You can also set this kind of system up with routers in your home by switching them to AP mode and adjusting the wifi channels. What the mesh system does different is that it broadcasts everything on the same wifi channel so that roaming isn't required and or attempts to occur in a manner that doesn't interrupt connected apps/services. This mesh network can also be created with a wireless backhaul (Asus routers have actually supported wireless bridging for longer than mesh systems have been around), or with a wired backhaul. Wired is better if it's a possibility for you. If you don't have ethernet throughout your house you can create a wired network using your home coaxial ports by getting moca adapters (ethernet over coax adapters, which is what I am using, moca 2.5 specifically) or by getting powerline adapters. The issue I ran into with this setup (other than losing the 160 Mhz band capability) is that my house isn't actually that big. I am in a townhouse that's maybe ~1700 sqft, so if both the nodes are on the same channel, they interfere with each other cause they're too close. I wanted to do a multi ap or mesh system to be able to have full signal in every spot of a small house, because hey why not? Sadly when I tried to use the mesh system the signal was never low enough for my devices to switch routers without manually resetting my wifi. I messed with the roaming assistant rssi settings and found that it's possible to make a device bounce back and forth constantly or never even connect if you set that to above -65. I was hoping that particular feature would allow me to force clients to roam as I travel up and down the stairs, but they were just too close together and I ended up getting slower speeds and more difficulty. If I had a bigger house and these were further apart, I don't think that would have been an issue. Also another note, enabling the mesh with a wireless backhaul doesn't make it impossible to use the 2nd 5 Ghz band. It just makes it hidden by default. There is a asus support article that states you can go into the advanced wireless settings and unhide the 2nd 5 Ghz band to allow its use by devices. This is probably related to it locking out the ability to use the 160 Mhz channels when mesh is enabled as I'm sure that would still apply in wireless backhaul mode since it's probably trying to reserve that link speed for connecting nodes. So because of this, I decided to go with an AP setup with 3 separate wifi channels (see smart connect section below for more on that). So I set up one router upstairs and connected the second using my moca 2.5 ethernet over coax adapter downstairs. I setup the wifi names the same on each band with channels that wouldn't overlap (i.e. 2.4 upstairs on channel 8 and downstairs on channel 1, only enabling 5-1 on the downstairs level because the 80 Mhz on 36-48 will overlap regardless of control channel, and then having one of the 5-2 bands on the 100-112 range and the other on the 112-128 range. This is the setup I used when I achieved the fastest speeds in speed tests, I tried virtually every possible combination). Another little note on wifi link speeds and your internet bandwidth; there are those that say you shouldn't expect your full internet speed on wifi, even the people that install your internet tell you this. I'm here to tell you that this is false (but also an understandable thing as you're not always going to be at a full wifi signal, and you might have interference, and it's not technically the ISP's job to get you the best possible wifi speed because the router is often, though not always, your property not theirs, they just need to get you the promised level of speed into the modem). It is 100% possible to get your full speed (other than multi-gig speeds) with ax wifi, just not 100% of the time. You shouldn't expect to be able to get 4.8 gpbs on this router, even if you had that link speed and somehow had that from your isp. You should expect to get 30-60% of your wifi link speed. In the best conditions with a full strength ac signal I can get around 500-550 Mbps in a speed test against my isp's speed test server, which is about 60% of the 866.67 Mbps link speed. On average, with more traffic and such, I'll see 250-400 with a 866.67 Mbps link speed, which is 30-40% of the link speed. So in theory it is possible to achieve around 1.02 Gbps on my fastest 1.7 Gbps link and between 720 Mbps-1.44 Gbps on a 2.4 gbps link (hence why I wanted the aggregate wan link to work, because a single cat5e uplink will limit my internet speeds to ~940 Mbps). So if you only have a internet speed in the range of 5-500 Mbps down or up, then you can get the full connection speed (and perhaps even less ping) with a more powerful router if you have everything configured correctly and have devices that support such. So with them setup I started doing some speed tests on the 5 Ghz bands (I only connect iot devices to the 2.4 network, and they don't need much speed to work, so I didn't bother doing testing there). On the 5-1 band, I got the expected 866.7 mbps link speed and my speed tests were in the 300-500 mbps range. This is what I got from my previous ac router, so all was good here. I was able to use the internet smoothly and all was well, but this was the same as what I was upgrading from. On the 5-2 Band, I got the expected 1.7 Gbps link speed(fun fact, while testing this with aggregate wan enabled, every time I connected a 160 Mhz device the routers rebooted themselves, once aggregate wan was disabled this stopped happenning). So I did a speed test near a router and got really excited! I got the speed you see in the attached screenshot, a spped of over 940 Mbps down over wifi. I was like, eureka! I did it! Gigabit wifi baby! So I went out to the internet to experience this speed.... This is where all hope was crushed. Nothing was loading smoothly. So I went to go download something, I find that things like steam game downloads and nvidia graphics drivers typically are capable of pretty fast downloads, so I went and downloaded a driver from nvidia. Typically I might see speeds of 30 MB/s or faster on a wired gigabit connection, which is what I thought I would see. Instead, I got a blast from the past as I watched the download crawl along at 1-5 Kb/s and even slow down to a few 100 b/s. I thought, oh maybe it's just the internet, so I try resetting the modem, no good. I try the same test on the 5-1 Ghz band, I get faster speed 10+ MB/s download speeds. So it's only happening on the 5-2 band, so I think well maybe it's the radar interference, maybe I just have to give up on dfs channels. So I switch it to a standard channel in the 149-161 range. Same problem, the 5-2 Ghz band will not go through the internet. So I systematically try every setting available (which is not a small number by the by) and nothing works. Even did resets and tried using just 1 router instead of 2, same result. Maybe I just got a bad device, but after all that trouble and knowing that I would never be able to keep a dfs channel stabling broadcasted in my current house, I decided to return it and am now using something that supports the 52-64 dfs channel range from a different brand. Smart Connect Another goofy thing about this system is the smart connect configuration availability. There are actually 3 smart connect modes, but there availability is contingent on whether or not you use the mesh system. * All 3 bands (available only with mesh disabled) * 5Ghz 1 + 5Ghz 2 Bands (mesh disabled) * 2.4 + 5 Ghz 1 (mesh enabled) It would be nice to be able to have the separate 5 Ghz-2 band to have a dedicated ax device network without enabling mesh. Especially since enabling the mesh takes away the 160 Mhz channels as mentioned above. While asus does give some good control over smart connect, you can create all sorts of custom rules for when a device connects to which band, I like being able to know which one I'm connecting to if my device supports the fastest speed. So to me it makes sense to combine the 2 lower bands and use that for iot devices (thermostats, nest/echo hubs, smart lights, tvs, etc) and then have user devices use their own dedicated band capable of the fastest speeds. But since I could only do that in the mesh, I ended up trying to keep 3 separate networks as mentioned above. Other Notes Now all this being said, there are more reasons why I really really wanted this thing to work for me. There is a feature for basically everything imaginable. You can create a vpn, but not just the openVPN configuration that comes with most routers. You can make a ipSec vpn or pptp vpn. It provides a dynamic dns service for free because you own the router, same with the extra security features that you can add on top of the firewall. The qos features are extensive (not that I use qos on a gigabit connection) but I like looking at the choices, there's even a (somewhat creepy) feature to enable logging all web surfing history (creepy if used with roommates, smart if used with your children). Basically Asus by far has the best gui and feature sets on their routers. I like being able to control every aspect of my network and asus gives me consumer friendly versions of a lot of the tools I am used to using in network engineering in the enterprise. From firewall traffic logs, to vlans, to vpns, this little router has some punch. However, there is of course a caveat to this too. The router only has 512 MB of ram, if you start enabling features, you'll see the ram load get really high, which is bound to affect your network performance. So it has a boat load of features, but not enough power to use them all at once. Not that I wanted to use them all at once, but if someone did, you'd run into trouble. I also contacted support about my issues back on 6/18, I didn't receive a reply till 6/28 after I had already returned it. The reply I got was a basic scripted reply of things I had already tried, which is expected for a first reply but the timing was too long. Their response time is likely affected by the current global pandemic, but I still would have liked to have gotten something before a week had passed and I had gotten to the point where I had to give up on it. If you're wondering why I'm not giving this 1 star, it's because well it doesn't completely not work. It has lots of potential and its feature set is too good to really say it's a 1 star product. Perhaps after a few more firmware updates it might get to a less problematic level of stability with the wifi 6 features it so abundantly markets itself as having. But until then, it's just a great wifi 5/ac mesh router. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2020 by DarkSideMilk
    • A completely customizable router pair -- what I'd expect from ASUS!
Style: AX6100 Router 2-Pack
There are many reviews regarding the RT-AX92U routers that have a lot of either dis- or mis-information, so I'd like to clarify things with this review. First of all, I've been dealing with networking of all sorts for several years -- even have a degree in this stuff (though, presently, I'm in the world of quality assurance, so I really do understand what it means to not only break things but also why something is breaking). This doesn't mean I know it all, but it does mean I'm pretty familiar with the intent behind much of the tech being dealt with here. Next, the hardware itself is at least to the caliber of pro-sumer with this product -- it appears to fit somewhere on the high end of consumer and very low end of professional. Admittedly, I had been skeptical that something the size of one of these routers could really pull off any sort of practical, whole-home WiFi, but that's exactly what it does. In fact, the only downside to these routers that I've found is they do get pretty warm as they work, but that's why they're designed the way they are -- with enough venting to keep the devices from locking up (and after having ran them for several weeks, they're still doing quite well). Out of the box, you're going to have to update the firmware on these devices. It's as simple as that if you want the latest in bug fixes and security to be applied. Fortunately, ASUS makes this a pretty simple process if you know how to navigate their UI (which, by the way, is a pretty nice UI, though it won't win any grammar awards, hence my four star rating on that aspect). Further, on the UI part, since this really is more of a pro-sumer product, if you don't already understand the differences between 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks and which standards of the IEEE 802.11 apply to which band, you'll likely want someone you trust to go through and really help you set this thing up. Granted, the "intro wizard" (as I call it) will get you through the very basics of setup when first turning on or resetting the router, you'll really want to know what you're doing if you want to expand/customize the system to your own liking. I prefer to follow along with folks over at snbforums.com (where they even have forums that ASUS employees frequent) to really get into the nitty-gritty of settings. However, in the interest of those of you who are trying to decide which is the best router for the money, I'll let you know in the following paragraphs, because you likely are wanting a setup similar to how I've set my own pair up. Our setting? A 4k-square-foot house across two floors. Plenty of walls that really attenuated (broke down) the signal of the previous mesh system we used that I tested from at least 5 years ago (Linksys Velop). They were good for a while, but after we moved into our present house, even with gigabit fiber Internet to the house, they couldn't keep up with internal demands. So, it was time for me to look. I set up the first router pretty much straight out of the box with little customizing (as much as I just went on about it, it's nice to know they're highly configurable). We're choosing to keep one SSID for all three bands. However, on attempting to set up the second router as an AIMesh system, that's where personal preferences had me back off. It isn't that the mesh topology doesn't work; it's because I would have had to use the second 5Ghz band (the band used for 802.11ax, the latest wireless standard) as both backhaul (direct communications between both routers) as well as a separate SSID for devices like our iPhone 11 devices that take advantage of the AX standard. Further, while it is true that you can set up a wired Ethernet connection between the two, there's currently no way to "make" the routers use this as main backhaul and completely "let go" of the 5Ghz band. Some folks might not care about that, but single SSID convenience was better for us. Also, even with a singular router, we were able to get twice as much coverage as we had with our previous mesh system, so even if we had to stick with one router, that would have been more than sufficient for multiple Apple devices, such as phones, TVs, watches, a few IoT (Internet of Things) devices, computers, etc., and not a blip of buffering anywhere. After performing some searches on the aforementioned snbforums.com, there was another alternative whereby the second router could be set up for AP (Access Point) mode. Since I wanted to use Ethernet backhaul exclusively for router-to-router communications, I thought I'd give this a shot. This setup allows your primary router to handle all administrative functions (more on that shortly) while the second AP node essentially handles device (or "clients," as they're called in networking) WiFi needs from a "roaming" perspective. Regarding Ethernet backhaul, I chose to use our unused coaxial cable outlets to make this happen. I used two Ethernet over Coax (MoCA 2.0) adapters from Actiontec (they work flawlessly) in order to then connect CAT5e cabling between the adapters and the LAN port on the main router to the WAN port on the AP router (important to plug into the right ports). After setting all of this up, we are now more than fully blanketed with WiFi throughout our house, and even have excellent 2.4Ghz range outside on our driveway for when we watch movies outside under the stars :) An important note to customize the AP setup between both of these routers. If you click on the Professional tab in the UI, make sure that you disable roaming (there's a specific setting for this) under each of the radios that you're using (all three bands in our case). While this might sound unintuitive, the truth is that ASUS has integrated the standards 802.11k/v/r (roaming standards) into the router, and I have to say -- roaming is flawless with our "clients!" The included AiProtection Pro is great for us -- has already protected from a potential attack or two. This is an anti-virus/intrusion service provided by Trend Micro for free for the life of the product. Also, baked in is parental controls, which we absolutely love and work well. Also, the QoS (Quality of Service) functionality is great. If you ever have "that" much traffic on your network, ASUS allows you to set either categories of traffic type (such as for work from home, learning, gaming, etc.) that it can prioritize, and/or you can also assign specific devices on a scale of who would get the available bandwidth first. Again, after monitoring our own network traffic when we go full-tilt (even at gigabit Internet speeds), we've never come close to really maxing this out. This also includes a security system with cameras and that barely puts a dent into our usage. Speaking of which, how's the Internet coming into the router? Typically we're reaching speeds of ~800Mbps which, for a gigabit WAN port, is what you'd expect (we use the router as a PPPoE modem as well, so there are no intervening devices to our service provider). There's a lot more functionality that's available with this device, but the above can get you more than going for whatever your needs are. For those who have had major issues with the device, I'd suggest that (1) they might be "astro-turfing" for competing products; (2) didn't plug the right cables in the right ports; (3) haven't properly customized their own settings; (4) haven't properly updated to the latest firmware; and/or (5) could have a legitimate hardware issue (as good as ASUS is, they're not perfect). I would not hesitate to recommend this set to anyone looking for a router that should cover your needs for the next five years. And the great thing is that if you're willing to learn, ASUS has a fantastic array of features that you can learn about as you're using the router. Just make sure you back up your settings before making changes (which can be done over PC, Mac or mobile device). ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2020 by Philip Clapper
    • Mostly good, but some challenges with guest networks staying live.
Style: AX6100 Router 2-Pack
For some reason these units have a setting to set the guest network to only allow access for 3 hours. Well, I disabled this when I got in, but then it toggles back to 3 hours. I run my smart devices and cameras on a guest network and so I have lost tons of data/time from this bug. VERY frustrating. Otherwise I do like this. The ethernet backhaul has worked well. You can also reduce the DB threshold on a network to lead to a disconnect and reconnect to a network that is more powerful. One other challenge I have experienced is the setting a device to a specific mesh device often will cause the device from working at all. So I have not been able to use that feature. Most other features work pretty well. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2022 by Joshua Awesome

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