ZenWiFi AX6600 Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System (XT8)

I have the ASUS ZenWiFi AX6600 and the software allows you to give 2 and 5 GHZ different passwords. This router is highly rated.

Asus XT8s and XT9s are fantastic.

I loved my asus xt8. Super easy to use and the ddns came in handy when I was first hosting my own services. At ~60 WiFi devices it became pretty unreliable so we moved to a tplink Omada system

I suspect there was a non-wifi router or also a switch in the cabinet which connected to WiFi nodes/routers around the house. If you decide to put a wifi router in the cabinet, use an older WiFi 5 or 6, not 6E or 7 because you're not going to get any 6 GHz signal out of that cabinet and most of the router's worth is going to be in ethernet gateway routing. You can connect an unmanaged switch to each wall outlet around the house to expand the number of available ethernet ports at waist or knee level and connect simpler, cheaper asus wifi nodes whose primary worth is broadcasting wifi on top of a bookcase or shelf at or above eye level instead of the more expensive combo wifi-ethernet gaming routers which end up looking like a spider hairball of antennas & ethernet cables. Either of the wifi nodes you've suggested above would be good but the BE58U would give you 6 GHz band for end devices with 6E or 7 capability whereas the Zen AX6600 model lacks 6 GHz band

I have the xt8 mesh system (2 nodes hardwired) . Haven't had to reset it besides updates in over 2 years after I set it up. Prior to that I had their ac one that was good.. I do admit their wifi 7 device reviews leave a lot to be desired. But they seem better with firmware updates. I've read similar bad reviews about the dream 7. Many comments and posts about people returning them unhappy with it. I'd look up the 3rd party Asus merlin firmware. The devices that have merlin firmware typically are updated more frequently and more stable. Plus the merlin firmware itself is usually fantastic

I love the Asus Xt8. The issue is when I want to upgrade to take advantage of the new hardware for wifi 7. But I feel like most newer ones aren't as stable as the xt8

My Asus XT8 does have separate bands. A number of their other systems do as well.

I had the ASUS XT8S, 2 of them did better than 4 Decos I had in the same spots in the house. I also had issues with the firmware, I ended up using WRT Merlin on them which helped but I still had to set them to reboot nightly to forego issues, but again the wifi signal definitely was stronger and more reliable than the Decos. The 2 Max 7s I have are miles better as mentioned already. So far im surprised by them, disappoined in the lack of control I have over them, they have very few options, I can't even sort by IP address in the eero app, so I'll probably set up an external DHCP server and run them on bridge mode but we shall see.

In that case, you may want a more powerful mesh model then. You'd want to look for something with dedicated backhaul channels in the marketing. The asus zenwifi xt8 is an example, or the eero pro 6 if you're fine with them.

Asus xt8 units in my house. They work flawlessly. All 3 of my kids game with zero issues. They are hardwired into the nodes on the 2nd and 3rd floors.

Hi there! I have a similar setup at home where I have mesh nodes wired together via coax. I swap out the mesh nodes once in a while between our picks for long term testing. I had noticed that behavior when long term testing the Asus XT8, certain versions of the firmware had issues with roaming clients. Since you’re experiencing issues after installing the third node, I’d take it offline while you try to figure out the issue. The third node seems to be complicating things. For placing the nodes, try to use two-three walls as a gauge: if your devices are more than three walls from a node, then you could use another node. Installing too many nodes creates cross traffic that could confuse the device. A quick fix might be to turn WiFi off then on for the troubled devices, so it reestablishes contact with the nearest node. One other suggestion is to move the nodes closer or further apart to find the sweet spots in your home. I use phone apps like wifiman or wifisweetspots to help. Worst case scenario is to segment the network by using the guest network or use a different SSID name for devices that seem to connect to the “wrong” node. Have a problematic device connect to that SSID exclusively