For the rest, the new router is as good as can be. And its support for the last 5.9GHz portion of the 5GHz spectrum is the icing on the cake. The Deco system is becoming too slow and it’s too limited in other ways, so I’m looking for something more robust. I was just surprised to find so many features missing that I was used to having.

The RT6600ax is the first router that supports the entire 5GHz spectrum -- where that's possible for Wi-Fi. It can broadcast signals using the last UNII4 portion. They all generally have the same range, John, which depends on the band (2.4GHz, 5GHz, or 6GHz) and the broadcasting power. More on the ranges of different bands in this post and more on broadcasting power, which varies from one region to another, in this post. There’s no way anyone can look into every aspect of every single piece of hardware or every single app. I don’t write for you, but the mass. If you want something so specific, do it yourself.

More than just VPN for secure remote network access

Eventually, through all my troubleshooting, I happened on a workaround which got the gigabit fiber working on the RT2600ac at least. Short version is to hook up my Spectrum cable internet to the port I want to use for my fiber gigabit, wait for the Spectrum cable to work, then unplug it and plug in the fiber Gigabit immediately. This method is repeatable on the RT2600ac, even after a factory reset. One time I had to reboot the router after, but the other 2-3 times I tested the process a reboot wasn’t needed. You generally can’t do SmartConnect with only bands of the same frequency, Olaf. So either 2.4GHz + a 5GHz band or all three (in a Tri-band.) Reply

Considering everything on offer in terms of features and performance, the WRX560 is generally fantastic value that's better than any competitor at this price. However, price fluctuations in some markets prevent us giving it full marks here. I can speak to using the RT2600ac (and 2xMR2200ac) in mesh with the RT6600ax while on the latest Beta firmware 1.3.1 Update 1 on all devices – it worked perfectly fine. Great, in fact. I can’t reply directly to your comment below but just wanted to say that you’re such a disrespectful troll! Get a life! Reply

Frequently Asked Questions

So, that would mean I shouldn’t use the Synology MR2200ac’s? I’m not sure that I want to spend the money on buying multiple RT6600ax’s or buying multiple (& cheaper) Synology WRX560’s. No, Vincent. I have more things to do than just this router. All routers and other hardware have beta versions, etc. I can’t keep tabs on them all.

The DS Router app worked well on my Pixel 6 for the most part. It did crash a few times, likely due to first-release bugs but not to the point that caused concerns. I have no doubt Synology will work out the kinks via future updates. On top of that, I'm a fan of the web user interface, anyway. Again being 100 % free of bullshit I would have assumed, you understand where my question comes from: It appears that the ASUS ZenWiFi AX6600 Tri-Band Mesh WiFi 6 System (XT8 3PK) might be a tad cheaper for a 3-unit setup. Some more details on UNII-4. It adds a total of four 20 MHz WiFi channels, but the key is that it allows for a third 160 MHz wide channel, which may be handy in congested locations. You can read more about UNII-4 in our news post of the RT6600ax here.

When coupled with the router's network-attached storage feature -- more below -- and the Media Server app, the RT6600ax can function as one of the best router-based mini NAS servers. It's the closest experience to a real Synology NAS server. The Synology RT6600ax's Threat Prevention app has a world map showing where threats come from. Unfortunately confirmed: the RT6600ax has only 1x 2.5 Gbps port, WAN or LAN: the other 4x are bog-standard 1 Gbps.

Safe Access​: Built-in online protection and Parental Controls for the entire network based on Internet access rules. I added in an Asus RT-AX89X mainly to take advantage of the 1200Mbps Internet and have a few of my newer devices connect with the faster wi-fi 6. I have the Synology devices on a separate SSID but it was for the kids when they were younger. I would like to have all the access points on the same SSID so there’s 1 SSID across the house. All points would be hardwired at gigabit or faster. I am wondering if I may have caused this hidden network by playing around with the router settings, and if there is a way to disable it. Have you ran into this whilst testing your unit?Also, “USB 3 port speed will be downgraded to USB 2.0 to not interfere with the 2.4 GHz signal in case you will be using it!’ Hopefully this does better then RT2600ac. My eMMC card in there went bust and Synology gave zero support, not even offering a discount on a replacement. I’m not the only person this happened to. Looks like they last about 3 years then tend to die. Synology included various features with the RT6600ax. You'll find the usual Wi-Fi 6 features such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), 160MHz channel bandwidth, MU-MIMO simultaneous data streaming, WPA3 encryption, and beamforming for enhanced performance. There's also support for 5.9GHz channels. Hello. I was wondering if it’s possible on this router to have the Smart Connect only for the two 5GHz bands, similar to what Asus is offering, or is it always with the 3 bands ? Reply During extra testing for the post on Synology Mesh, I used a second RT6600ax solely as a wireless client and connect a Multi-Gig computer to its 2.5Gbps port, effectively turning it into a Multi-Gig media bridge.