Adding to the ranks is the new router /mesh Wi-Fi system from ASUS, the ZenWiFi Pro XT12, or XT12, because it’s 2022 and brands still feel the need to label their products in memory friendly ways. Wi-Fi standards: Wi-Fi 7 | Wi-Fi 6E| UNII-4 (5.9GHz) | Wi-Fi 6 | What is Wi-Fi? | Wi-Fi antennas (dBi) | Wi-Fi broadcasting/signal power (dBm) You can buy either or none no matter your situation and the world will keep spinning for the foreseeable future. It’s in a relatively new market segment for prosumers and SMBs that was recently brought to the fore by Synology’s RT6600ax. The problem is that while the Synology is much uglier, it offers even more features, similarly impressive performance and costs (gulp) around one-third the price of the XT12, depending on where you are in the world.

Ultimately, the features on offer make the XT12 feel like a souped-up consumer router with SMB-friendly features, which is no bad thing. In some ways it’s like a consumer-friendly Draytek router – a brand that is all about no-nonsense SMB Wi-Fi without the bells, whistles or performance boosts found here. But we’ll have to wait and see whether that’s enough for SMBs to actually use it as the foundation of their core network though – that level of adoption tends to take years of trust to develop. You shouldn’t have to choose between fast WiFi and eye-catching aesthetics. With their sophisticated design, the ZenWiFi Pro ET12 and XT12 will complement the style of your home. Their professional finish, parallel lines, and vertical orientation calls to mind the practical elegance of modern skyscrapers. Transparent material on the top gives an inside look at the omnidirectional antennas beneath. These routers don’t hide what they are. Their unique design uses the right balance of engineering and elegance to announce that these are no ordinary mesh WiFi routers. And there are even more similarities, as you’ll note in the hardware specifications below. Hardware specifications: ZenWiFi Pro XT12 vs ZenWiFi Pro ET12The Asus ZenWiFi Pro XT12 is a tri-band Wi-Fi 6 router with two 5GHz channels and a 2.4GHz channel that offer a combined, theoretical throughput of 11,000Mbps. The ZenWiFi Pro XT12 is traditional Tri-band hardware. As such, it works great in a fully wireless mesh setup. You should get it if you live in a large home and are too lazy to run network cables. SYDNEY , Australia, February 17, 2022 —Today marked the launch of ASUS ZenWiFi ® Pro XT12, a high-performance tri-band WiFi 6 (802.11ax) mesh networking system designed to provide fast whole-home WiFi coverage. The ZenWiFi Pro XT12 is a traditional Tri-band with an additional 5GHz band (the 5GHz-2). So it has 2.4GHz and two 5GHz bands (5GHz-1 and 5GHz-2). In terms of speed, the 11,000 Mbps on the marketing material was nothing more than wishful thinking but also because in Singapore, the common standard offered is 1 GBPS (1,000 Mbps), which is decent but a far cry from the 4,804Mbps ASUS mentions for its 5Ghz band.

The main XT12 unit is located next to the Router and the node XT12 unit is located between Locations 1 and 2.Long gone are the days when upgrading your home router involved a crash course in networking. The ZenWiFi Pro ET12 and XT12 streamline the entire setup process down to roughly three minutes. After you find the right spots in your home for each mesh networking node, plug them in, and set up the main router, they’ll automatically sync up to create the wide coverage area afforded by mesh networking tech. This is one of the top routers from Asus, promising speeds of up to 11,000 Mbps, and 6,000 sq ft of coverage with just two nodes. Impressive? Only if you read the fine print. The unit offers Tri-Band connectivity, including 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz-1 and 5Ghz-2, and 2.5G multi-gig ports for high speed direct connection from either node, optimal for NAS systems, gaming or just about any workflow demanding the fastest connection possible. And all three combined offer the magical 11,000 Mbps, of 4,804 Mbps each for 5Ghz, and 1,148 Mbps for 2Ghz. Business and prosumers will like the idea of being able to use up to 12 SSIDs to group users and devices onto separate network segments – each with different levels of access. However, the access controls for these segments are very broad and nothing like (again) the Synology, which offers numerous, IoT-optimised, firewall and sharing configurations for each network. Nine of the SSID networks are essentially forms of guest networks. Getting connected: Dual-WAN vs Link Aggregation | Dual-band vs Tri-band vs Quad-band | Fiber-optic vs Cable | Getting your home wired | Multi-Gig explained | Cable modem activation | Routers explained | Mesh explained

Technically, we’re supposed to be able to use the XT12 and ET12 hardware together in a single mesh system, per the way AiMesh works. And eventually, that likely will be the case. The message I got when adding the ZenWiFi Pro XT12 to my GT-AXE16000 Wi-Fi 6E (or the ZenWiFi Pro ET12). While this might change, it’s not a good idea to mix Wi-Fi standards in a mesh system, anyway.On the other hand, as a Wi-Fi 6E device, the Zen Wi-Fi Pro ET12 has a 2.4GHz band, a 5GHz band, and a 6GHz band. The WiFi 6E-enabled ET12 uses a dual-band 4×4 antenna array to provide top-end speeds across the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands and a dedicated 4×4 antenna array to 6GHz spectrum. In select markets, it can also access the recently opened 5.9GHz band for premier speeds in this coveted slice of the spectrum. All told, it can provide an aggregate data rate up to 11000Mbps. The XT12 offers a double dose of 5GHz throughput with a 4×4 antenna array devoted to that band and a dual-band antenna to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Dual 2.5G Ethernet ports on both models let you take full advantage of the bandwidth potential of WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E. That said, fibre speeds are not fixed, and dependent on a lot of other factors, including service provider and its network set-up, and other physical factors that end-users are not always able to control. Still, for many, the XT12 will be cheaper than a full, business-class Cisco Meraki deployment but, if you’re weighing up that as an option, don’t forget to factor-in on-going support costs as part of the total cost of ownership (aka TCO).

What this means though is that every month, a new line of Wi-Fi 6 routers hit the market, all touting speeds that mere mortals and few devices will never experience, but also all future-proofed, until a refreshed model lands in four months time that is. Each node has four Ethernet ports: 2.5GbE WAN, 2.5GbE LAN and dual 1GbE LAN. The later can be aggregated for a 2GbE connection which is great for attaching things like NAS boxes. Each node also has WPS and reset buttons, plus a power switch. Note that there are no USB ports. Optimized memory utilization and fixed an occasional server error when registering DDNS with an app.

Asus’ pro-spec mesh kit offers great features and performance

Hardware specifications: ZenWiFi Pro ET12 vs ZenWi-Fi ET8 ZenWiFi Pro XT12 vs ET12: The third Wi-Fi band changes everything