When I moved into this current home thereabout five years ago, mesh routers were expensive. And I opted to set up my home network with two routers. One was set up as a router and another one as an access point. With dual-band, I ended up with 4 SSID, which was a nightmare to connect. It also made my Sono connectivity kind of wonky as I had to connect all my Sono devices – Playbar, Sub, two SL One, and Roam – onto the same network and kind of defeated the purpose of a router/access point setup. I should have opted for a mesh router network solution when all SSID collapsed into one!

Paired, from the factory.

After much research, I have decided to pick up a pair of Asus ZenWiFi AX (XT8) as my network solution. The Lazada 6.6 discount was generous. It is a midrange product and it suits my need.

Looking back, setup was still easier than in the early days when I had to go through the menu and figure things out. Now, I just need to connect the routers, download an app, and configure the network from there.

Except, the QR code scan didn’t work for this model. I had to go through a manual setup by manually connecting to a temporary network (and I had to guess which one of the two, which wasn’t that difficult judging by the network strength). I had to guess an alternate option to set up through the app (not ZenWiFi but a generic Asus router because the app doesn’t support the QR code setup of this model!). The node did not work immediately. I had to try to extend it manually. It seemed to have failed and then magically, the app recognize the node.

Cool thing. My mesh network is up! Took me a while to figure out how to upgrade the firmware (the app is really not that user-friendly). But I got that sorted.

Switching my Sono app to the new network was a pain. First, each device would try to connect to my new wifi and it would fail. Next, the Sono app would prompt me to manually reset each Sono device and connect to a temporary wifi (Sono). It would fail once but the next time it would work. Then it would take 3 mins or more to update the network.

Each and every Sonos device! I have 5.

Of course, I couldn’t guess which of the Sonos SL One – left and right – the Sonos app referred to. It was kind of a guesswork.

Next, resetting the wifi of the Mi Robot Vacuum was much easier than Sonos.

The rest were standard procedures. Like my gaming laptop, Nintendo Switch …

What a hassle. But I enjoy one single SSID for sure!

And WiFi 6.