Moving from the latest WiFi 7 Toob mesh to an ASUS mesh setup.
This is a bit of a long post, but I just thought I'd make it in case anyone else was debating moving from their Toob supplied router to something they own outright. To help build the picture, I live in a Victorian terraced house (think chunky walls).
I recently joined Toob via their latest 2.3GB offer, as it would work out cheaper than what I was paying at Zen, and I would be getting more than double the bandwidth, so it was a win win!
I received the latest Toob Linksys WiFi 7 router, and instead of signing up for the whole home WiFi package, I thought i'd purchase individual Velop 7 Micro's from Amazon instead.
So I now had a setup consisting of the main Toob router, and two Velop 7 Micro's dotted around the house in strategic locations in a mesh format. And the end result was... meh.
It wasn't bad by any means, I would get c.900Mbps standing directly next to the main router via my Pixel 8, and a decent 4-500Mbps at my computer (connected to a micro node via ethernet), which was located upstairs, blocked by a wall and a floor.
The latency was good and the initial bloatware test showed decent results. However, I did begin to notice random dropouts, where I believe devices were trying to jump between nodes, and the download speed was 'shaky' in the respect that when running a speed test it struggled to maintain a set speed and would rebound up and down 100Mbps give or take. And finally the Linksys router settings page and app were kind of crap to be honest, not helped by Toobs limitations they've placed on it.
I recently made a post about MLO (Multi-Link Operation), and one of the commentators mentioned they had an ASUS BQ16 Pro setup, which was allowing them to get incredible speeds even upstairs and through some walls.
So I bit the bullet and for the first ever I purchased my own router pack, the ASUS BQ16 dual pack (non-Pro). It was £750 on Amazon, which admittedly is bloody expensive, but in my mind I'm going to own it outright and I imagine it will serve me faithfully for many years to come.
The router and node arrived and first impressions are that they mean serious business... the packaging is intricate with it almost folding out like a flower when you open it, and the devices themselves are sturdy, have real weight to them, and are visually very sleek.
Setting them up via the ASUS app was stupidly simple, and within 10 minutes I had the router and node connected via the AiMesh and ready to go. I had the main router in the front living room, and the node upstairs in the middle room, connected to my PC via ethernet.
The moment of truth had arrived and it was time to see if they were capable of beating the those thick Victorian walls and floors... and holy shit did they pull through. The attached photo is from the first speed test at my PC, smashed straight past anything the Toob setup could have dreamed of, peaking at over 2.25GB, which is around 5x faster than what I had before AND it's a completely stable speed with no fluctuations!! The bloatware test was stupidly good with it only increasing latency by 11ms on average when under load.
Coverage around the house is impeccable, and even sat outside, which is around 4 walls, furniture and electronics away, it's still peaking at c.300Mbps on my phone.
Using my PC as the benchmark, the setup lineup is looking like this.
FRITZ!Box Mesh (Zen) - 300-400Mbps
Linksys Mesh (Toob) - 400-500Mbps
ASUS BQ16 Mesh (Toob) - Consistent 2,200Mbps
So, yes it's a very expensive setup, but damn you don't half get your money's worth, and I own it outright! I won't touch on the ASUS app and router settings, but as you would expect, they are very very good.
Overall, if you want the absolute most from the broadband that you are paying for, it's probably time to look into a non-ISP supplied router and setup.
(This is only relevant to my own experience and your mileage in your own home might vary greatly!)