Home wifi router / networking

[trifona]

Home had a wifi 5 Netgear Nighthawk X6S AC4000 Tri-Band router that was purchased in 2020. I just purchased a new wifi 6 Asus RT-AX88U Pro AX6000 to replace the Netgear. I liked that the Asus has built in firmware support for Apple Time Machine over USB;the Netgear used a 'Readyshare' protocol that I could never get to work. I also found the Netgear ios app to be buggy and unreliable in connecting to the router.

Was it a mistake not buying a wifi 6e router now that wifi 6e clients are starting to be more available? Is there something comparable to the AX88U Pro that has 6e to allow for some future proofing?

 

[Reverend Benny]

Home had a wifi 5 Netgear Nighthawk X6S AC4000 Tri-Band router that was purchased in 2020. I just purchased a new wifi 6 Asus RT-AX88U Pro AX6000 to replace the Netgear. I liked that the Asus has built in firmware support for Apple Time Machine over USB;the Netgear used a 'Readyshare' protocol that I could never get to work. I also found the Netgear ios app to be buggy and unrelaiable in connecting to the router.

Was it a mistake not buying a wifi 6e router now that wifi 6e clients are starting to be more available? Is there something comparable to the AX88U Pro that has 6e to allow for some future proofing?

It depends, if you have loads of devices where many support 6E, you live in a big city where there is many WiFi networks and/or you also need to ship lots of data, then yes.

I'd say keep the AX88 and upgrade to WiFi 7 in 3-4 years time if you feel you need to. By that time they have dropped in price.

 

[Bigwaff]

Was it a mistake not buying a wifi 6e router now that wifi 6e clients are starting to be more available?

I don't think so, but then again, I'm not upgrading from WiFi 5 until WiFi 7 routers are available. By then WiFi 6/6E routers will have worked out the kinks in their implementations. WiFi 5 routers have been rock solid for years now.

Regarding WiFi 6/6E, @Reverend Benny hit the highlights. If any of those use cases apply to you, WiFi 6/6E will help, otherwise, I'm not convinced you are gaining much, especially if your ISP bandwidth is lower than 800Gbps. But, as with anything networking related, YMMV.