ASUS - ASUS ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro

The ASUS BQ16 is fantastic, I've found, and yes, if you need an extra node in a remote location, you can use one of your current ones. Obviously it won't have bands it doesn't have now, but there are probably places where that's perfectly fine. I reused one of my XT12 nodes in the bedroom - I have no need for 6 ghz there, 5 is perfectly fast and fine.

Yep just not gonna happen 1000ft you will be lucky to get 2.4ghz left alone a anything in the fast 6ghz bands wifi7 is know for. If you want the best one get an Asus BQ16 Pro 3 unit quadband wifi7 mesh system or an ubiquiti E7 Audience wifi7 AP.

Two floor large layout Asus BQ16Pro

Ubiquiti is good.. But wouldn't call them the best mesh...the Asus BQ16 would likely outperform any ubiquiti system that has a wireless backhaul. I'd even bet that cheaper Asus mesh would also do better

I have WiFi 7 mesh (Asus bq16 pro) and it was quite messy getting it to work perfectly. My pc is WiFi (MLO of 6ghz and 2 5ghz bands) and client is 5ghz and works very well. If you have something that works, stick with it. The key thing is 5ghz gives you the best blend between latency, WiFi bandwidth and range. Ensuring you have a 5ghz band with as much bandwidth as possible will probably be the best approach.

I’m really impressed with the EE WiFi 7 router. I’m someone who always buys the latest and greatest 3rd party router and after having tested the Orbi 970, TP Link deco BE85 and ASUS BQ16 there is no difference in speed between the EE router and the others. Infact the Qualacomm chipset used in the EE hub is the same used in the third party routers with the exception of the BQ16. Mind blowing performance considering this is an ISP router

Asus BQ16 Pro is a beastly mesh system. The BT10 is a close second.

Went Asus BQ16 Pricey as fuck But absolutely getting the best Plex performance I could ask for across 2500 square feet on 80mbp/s+ files

I did same and I was torn between Asus BQ16 and Unifi UDR7 but ended up buying an Asus BQ16 2-pack and it’s been great so far. I chose these cause I don’t have the option to wire them and I have them on wireless backhaul and still get my close to my 1 gig bandwidth on my iPhone 15 pro max and all my WiFi 6E or 7 devices. https://www.speedtest.net/result/i/6735896909 There are lots of great mesh or routers and each seems to have their pros and cons. So I’ll say you pick based on your use case.

I still use an Asus. Upgraded to An Asus Mesh (Zenwifi BQ16) with wireless backhaul and the gaming consoles in my house are receiving the full 1gb bandwidth connected directly to the node with no issues having all on and playing online. Gaming routers are just a scam name to charge higher for the same device.

First went with an Asus Zenwifi BQ16 (2 packs) which provided excellent performance and coverage but later replaced it with ubiquiti UDR7 + UX7 as AP because my home lab required more network features such as local DNS which I didn't want to run on a docker server or use DNS services such as cloudflare. Both would be an overkill for your bandwidth so you can look at WiFi 6 mesh unless you're going to upgrade your bandwidth in the future which you currently don't need. You can look at Asus Pro ET12 or BT8 unless you need more then welcome to the Unifi ecosystem

Might have to do with your architecture. How do you have your router set up? I completely replaced my EE router with an Asus BQ16 Mesh and I get better latency and performance compared to keeping the EE router and connecting my mesh on bridge mode. https://preview.redd.it/dvaelh7ppjnf1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15282143c587881f48b0e8a77ee315d344d57411 This is a simple test from my phone to my router over wireless and I’m sure my devices connected via lan would be better. I’m on EE Full Fibre 900mb plan which sometimes gives me 1gb+

All the CPU and ram specs seems really cool but only play more roles when you're building your router and also dependent on what you want the router to do for you. I moved from an Asus Zenwifi BQ16 to a Unifi UDR7 + UX7 just for the features I needed in my home lab. Asus are personally the best commercial routers out there but the Unifi system has more features. So pick based on what features are important to you noting you can add features to your network using a different machine set as your DNS server.

I’m currently using Asus Zenwifi BQ16 but your requirement would mainly depend on your broadband package. Below 1gb and you’ll be fine with a WiFi 6E mesh but above that you’ll really require WiFi 7. If you plan to stick with Ubiquity then you can consider getting the UCG Fibre and possibly any U7 or UX7 for mesh nodes which can be wired to extend your range. UX7 can also act as a wireless mesh if you’re using the UDR7 as your main.

The BQ16 have been flawless. Though I wish most of the LAN were 2.5gb instead of 1gb. I still get my full fibre speed from any of my nodes over wireless using 6ghz band but the speed drops by 10-15% over 5ghz. My cameras over 2.4ghz get decent speed and I’m able to stream 2k live.

I have an Asus BQ16 Pro setup with two nodes in addition to the router (3 total), and it covers my 2100 square foot house extremely well, even without a wired backhaul.

20 devices is nothing; I have 80+ devices running effortlessly on my Asus wifi 7 mesh