Question Need help picking up a router that is the latest

[WrongRookie]

I finally got my LAN setup(almost, got to get that clipping done), and being that I'm working from home, they will most likely tell me at some point that I should get a router that not only supports WPA3 but also that my router should be in the latest firmware and my router RT-AC53U is out of date(last version is 2019...)

So I intend to get a new router now that is the latest and probably will come with Wifi-6. Since Toms Hardware doesn't do reviews for routers for some reason, I'd like your advice on which one to pick.

This is the available list for ASUS routers from my area that are available(ones with no where to buy option are probably out of stock?..idk)

https://www.asus.com/in/Networking-IoT-Servers/WiFi-6/All-series/filter?Category=WiFi-Routers

I personally would prefer Asus because their interface and quality is generally good to me(this AC53U itself is impressive for its price!) but if for some reason, none of those routers are good, then this is TP link list that is available on my area as an alternative.

Wi-Fi Routers | TP-Link India

TP-Link WiFi Routers make it easy to build a fast, reliable network for your home. Enjoy wireless gaming and streaming on your devices in the best quality.

www.tp-link.com

My plan is 225 Mbps and this router I'm buying is right now being used as an access point. My main router is TP-Link Archer AC1750 which I think is fine...i guess. I'm looking for something that can do security and gaming. That TUF gaming one looks intriguing for what it offers while that AX53U is at a very competitive price.

 

[bill001g]

Not real sure about wpa3 it was not too long after it came out there was already a discussion of how to exploit a security issue. This type of stuff seems to be mostly theory, maybe a government could do this stuff. WPA2 is technically not as secure but it is not one of those things that are going to matter to most people. If you worry about the government then nothing matters, thieves don't care about home users, that leaves mostly script kiddies who talk about hacking but actually have no real ability to hack anything.

As long as you use some kind of encryption you likely are safe.

I am not sure it matters so many devices now days use WPS which is a massive security exposure. A lot of devices say like some light bulb there is no other way to set them up other than WPS. WPS from the last I read does not run on wpa3 so you can't set your router to not support wpa2 if you need to use WPS.

Wifi6 it seems buys very little for most people. First you have to be sure to buy high end stuff that actually support 160mhz channels. This is both the router and your end devices. Most end devices only support 80. Not sure in india what the rules are but 160mhz is complex to make work becuase of things like radar avoidance rules. Lower end device do not want to support this so they only run 80mhz.

The problem is going form 80 to 160mhz is the key factor that makes wifi6 faster. They do have some more dense data encodings but most those work only very close to the router.

What you find because of these issues many people do not see wifi6 being any faster than wifi5 (802.11ac).

So if you shop carefully and buy better wifi6 equipment it should be faster....unless the weather radar comes on in some areas.

Wifi6e might be the solution to this. It runs on 6ghz and there is a huge amount of bandwidth so it is easy to get 160mhz and not overlap all your neighbors. BUT I do not know if this has been approved for use in india.

If you can I would by wifi6e. The nic cards for wifi6 and wifi6e are about the same price. The cost of routers depends. If you compare the higher end wifi6 the are similar to wifi6e. The lower end ones are much cheaper but again they only support 80mhz and are likely not much different than 802.11ac in performance.

I really like asus but the price is quite high. Normally I recommend the models you can run the merlin firmware on but if you just going to use it as a AP then it doesn't matter a lot. All that matters is the specs on the radio chips. The router cpu and software is mostly not used.