ASUS ZenWiFi BD4 Dual-Band WiFi 7 Mesh, 3600 Mbps, 2450 sq. ft. (1pk), Dual 2.5G Ports, Security and Parental Controls Included, Smart Home Master SSIDs

I just got this tonight and tried setting it up. What a nightmare! It seemed to work great at first. I plugged it into my modem and a switch, and it went through the setup. It told me that everything was working perfectly, but for some reason it immediately gave me a red light, indicating that there was no connection to the internet. I tried restarting the modem. Still no connection. It turned out that it had decided to make the switch the WAN connection, so I disconnected the switch and plugged the modem into that port, restarted both devices, and I finally got a connection. That lasted all of 20 seconds. So I reset the thing to factory settings and tried to start the process again. This time, it connected to the internet right away and I got a notification that there was a firmware update. I let it download and install, and was them met with a red light and no internet again. I tried everything I could think of to fix this, but ultimately had to reset it to factory defaults again and set it up a third time. This time, everything went smoothly. I started getting my devices connected and even got the switch to work. All seemed fine until I did a speed test and got a mere 100 mbps. I was expecting more than ten times that. So I restarted the thing again, and was met with a red light when it booted up. No more internet. But this time, I couldn't even connect to it through the app, and it would start restarting itself every five or six minutes. I don't even know where to begin to troubleshoot this thing anymore. I'm going to contact support tomorrow and I'll update this review based on what happens next, but this thing has been such a huge pain that I thought I should mention it. ---Edit--- I got a new unit sent to me, and I successfully set it up, but that also wasn't without problems. The short version is, for whatever reason, I have to restart my modem every single time the router restarts, even during setup. If I don't do this, the router can't figure out that it has a WAN connection. This took entirely too long for me to figure out, and I don't like it one bit, but at least it works now. I have confirmed that the previous unit is definitely not working this way, and so I really think it's just a broken unit. Now that the new one is working, it is a fairly decent router. Speeds are high, latency is low, and I thoroughly enjoy having a 2.5G wired connection to my switch and NAS. It does take a very long time to reboot, however, and that's definitely not nice when you have to troubleshoot. I also just really can't shake the feeling that this thing could stop working like the first unit did. Fingers crossed, I guess. If you do buy this, just make sure you give it plenty of time to do it's thing during setup. If you get a red light or it seems like it's not doing what it's supposed to, give it an extra 2-3 minutes longer than you want to and try restarting your modem before you do anything with the router. Same with firmware updates. If you think it's broken, give it a lot of extra time and reset your modem before you try to mess with it.

I bought this in the hope of using it as a simple mesh to my GT AXE 16000 Asus router. I have meshed multiple Zen WiFi XT9 routers into the system without a problem. The AXE 16000 router does find the Zen BD4 in the app and undergoes a Mesh configuration and link. However, when it reboots, the BD4 show no connection to the router. I have gone through multiple attempts to get the router to mesh. These include reboots and complete resets of the BD4. Each time, the app shows a connection and the mesh configuration proceeds. However, after completion of the mesh configuration, the app show no connection. So, back it goes.

The node did not work out of the box. Frankly, it could just be defective or broken through shipping. Of course, I tried to troubleshoot not defaulting to idea that it was defective. After following all the suggestions to bring system online multiple times, I called customer service number. That is a total joke. The hold message does not give a callback option. It also does not tell you how long the queuing is for the wait and keeps repeating a stupid promotional message until interrupted by a "please continue to hold." The online help was worse. With all the technology around AI, Asus' AI CS assistant must be running on a Commodore 64 computer. Even that is a compliment. The AI vomited out articles that were not even close to the answer. More time wasted. I then email CS and got same lame information even when I said I had already been through all the steps in their troubleshooting guide. Ultimately, I am returning the POS and hope Amazon deducts admin fees and all other costs all because Asus' customer service is horribly deficient. The Asus CS department head should be fired along with all the slackers.