- This is not what I expected.
- [Brandon] Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Let me go a little closer to you.
Okay, when you talk, you gotta face me Linus.
- Oh, sorry Brandon. Sorry Brandon.
The uploads finally suffering a little bit.
We've got three walls between us now.
Like what?
Do you wanna see my Wi-Fi?
Obsolete.
At least that's the goal.
ASUS sponsored this video
and we're gonna be taking our first look
at the ZenWiFi Pro ET12.
The first empirical proof that I've seen
that Wi-Fi has completely jumped the shark.
That's right my friends.
This is a 900 US dollar wireless router.
Well actually there's two units,
wireless solution for handling anything
from a bungalow
all the way to a 6,000 square foot residence,
with just these two admittedly very attractive
base stations.
(plastic crinkles)
$900.
- [Jono] Yeah.
- How could you justify that?
- [Jono] It looks so cool.
- Oh my God. Are those the antennas?
- [Jono] Yep!
- Wow.
Okay, that's kind of cool.
Also there's a lot of tech inside them.
This is insane.
I mean part of the reason that it costs so much
has gotta be that they effectively
just ship you two of them.
Here do you see these antennas Andy?
Antennae.
I can tell you part of the reason for the high price
is that they literally ship you two of them.
Can you buy it at one? Oh, it's a two pack.
That's the ET12, is the two pack.
Two pack is alive. You saw it here first.
(Jono laughing)
- [Jono] Oh my God.
- It's an older meme, it's an older meme.
Taken from us too young.
I think we can all agree on that.
All right, before we explain
why you might need two of these,
let's talk about why one of these base units
might be worth about 450 U.S. dollars,
starting at the back.
For wired technology, right out of the gate,
it's better than your average wireless router
having two 2.5 gig ethernet ports.
This is gonna be great
if you've got a greater than gigabit internet connection,
which I just got installed at my house,
two and a half gig internet inbound.
Or if you have a couple of key clients
that might need to run at greater than gigabit speed.
Say for example if you had your main computer
that you use as an editing station in your home office,
and a high speed NAS that you use
to store high resolution pictures or high bit rate video.
It's got a couple more gigabit ports,
all the usual, power in, WPS.
On and off?
Does that just enable and disable like the whole unit?
Other than that, it's got a nice aesthetic,
which I guess is cool.
And of course it is jam packed full
of the latest wireless technologies.
So this isn't just Wi-Fi 6.
This is Wi-Fi 6E and that's a really big deal
because while it's more of an evolutionary step forward,
it's built on the same fundamentals as Wi-Fi 6,
for you the end user,
it could actually be a bigger upgrade
compared to going from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6.
When we went from 5 to 6, the biggest benefits were
in households with many connected devices,
whether that's a lot of users,
or whether that's a lot of IoT devices, smart locks,
smart blinds, all of that kind of stuff.
Because it allowed much more efficient use
of the available spectrum.
It also adds new security features
and all that kind of good stuff,
but where Wi-Fi 6E changes the game
is it's actually adding more spectrum.
That's right.
Six gigahertz is finally here.
So we've had tri-band routers before.
2.4 and then in most cases, dual five gigahertz bands,
but this tri-band router is 2.4, five, and six gigahertz.
And what's cool about six gigahertz
is not only will it never be cluttered up by legacy devices.
So this is entirely fresh spectrum
for those new devices to communicate on.
But it's also way wider than what we had before
in the first place, which isn't to say
that it doesn't come with some disadvantages.
Because the frequency is even higher
than what we had before,
yes, you might see a really nice speed benefit
on a supported client,
though admittedly there aren't many yet,
you could easily see throughput in excess
of one gigabit per second, and even to multiple clients.
This features a four by four design
on both the five gigahertz and six gigahertz bands,
but it does come with a drawback.
So remember how five gigahertz didn't have
the same kind of range in penetration power
of 2.4 gigahertz 'cause the frequency is higher?
Well, six gigahertz is higher again.
So you're gonna get that lightning fast speed
and lower latency,
but it will come at some cost in terms of range.
And I think really that
(routers thudding)
is where a lot of the value add
of a package like this comes in.
ASUS is acknowledging that the kind of person
buying a premium wireless access point like this one
may want that kind of speed across their entire domicile
or I mean realistically you could use a product like this
in a small business if you really wanted to.
And that's what makes this product really cool.
So because both of them have dual
two and a half gigabit ports,
what you can do is you can actually configure it
a number of ways.
You could say okay, hey, I want my modem
to plug into this one and I'm gonna put this over
at the other side of my house and I'm going to have
a bunch of devices connected to this one,
a bunch connected to this one,
and I'm gonna use a dedicated wireless back haul
between them.
That's cool. That's great.
But it means more hops,
which means more latency for any devices
that are connected through the second access point.
What you can also do is create a dedicated wired back haul
between them, which is a lot closer to what you would do
in a commercial environment.
So you can actually get full speed
on every wireless device
(Linus tapping devices)
that is connected to either of them.
Pretty sick.
Speaking of hardware, each of these units
has a two gigahertz quad-core ARM V8 processor inside.
Like that's the thing is really the main benefit
of a product like this is gonna be connecting many devices.
ASUS sent over internal shots of it.
That is so cool.
There's some other software features to talk about.
Obviously it uses ASUS' extremely robust web UI
and they've got a cool VPN feature that allows you
to VPN through your own home internet connection,
no matter where you are,
which means you don't have to even trust
a VPN company with your data
and ASUS would have no access to it, which is pretty cool.
And my laptop just booted up. Let's see.
Do I have a Wi-Fi 6E chipset in here?
(Linus grunting)
Hello? Yeah, I'm just Wi-Fi six, not Wi-Fi 6E.
And that's something to note, if you wanna take advantage
of Wi-Fi 6E, so the actual six gigahertz band
you're gonna need a device that was built
from the ground up for it.
It's not just a firmware that you can flash
onto your old Wi-Fi six devices,
but that's a feature not a bug.
'Cause like I said before,
it means that your Wi-Fi 6E devices
will not be sharing any of that airtime
with older legacy devices.
Man, 6E is gonna be just such a godsend
for people living that apartment life.
- [Jono] Oh yeah.
- Like you don't probably realize
how much your neighbors just
having a bunch of wireless gear kicking around
is affecting not just the throughput, but most importantly
the latency of your wireless gear and the consistency
of your connection.
So if you're trying to do something like stream video
I would expect to be able to do it at least
until 6E gets super crowded.
Though that should take a really long time.
I mean we get seven more, 160 megahertz channels.
Like, that's fricking insane.
Well, hey, in the meantime,
why don't we get this powered up?
What's their setup process like? Oh cute.
It's got like RGB lights in the top.
Check that out. Oh wow.
Okay. It does not look like it's flickering like that
in person.
Okay. WAN goes here.
(cable clicking)
I don't know Andy do you wanna come with me?
Our internet box is over here.
Hey boys.
- [Logistics] Hello!
- Uh is this the longest cable we got?
Yeah. I just have to hit that Telus box.
(man laughing)
Yeah, right there.
Gosh. Darn it.
Okay. Where's our longest cable then?
Oh, that?
- [Jamie] Yeah, it's the best one we got.
- Oh that does not look longer than what I have.
- [Jamie] All the other ones are at your house.
- Yes.
(men laughing)
Okay. Well let's make the trek again.
And I ran out. This one is even shorter.
Okay. It's coupler time.
- [Jake] Can I help you?
- Oh good, yes.
Um, I need a coupler for ethernet.
- [Jake] Oh boy.
- Yes. I know that's not best practice.
- [Jake] I might have given them all to Dan. I don't know.
I would never.
- Yes!
(bag crinkling)
- [Jake] Always gotta keep some goodies for myself.
- I haven't hounded him about his shelf in a while.
- [Jake] Back, back!
- Clearly some hounding is.
- [Jake] Back I say!
Do you want your data back or what?
- Jake's working on the vault recovery still,
actually it's going really well.
Massive shout out Wendell, by the way.
From level one techs.
(cable clicking)
What are the odds this is gonna work?
- [Andy] Hundred percent.
- One hundred percent? Yeah I don't think so Andy.
- [Andy] Coin flip.
- Come on. Come on, come on, come on, come on!
Oh perfect. It works.
Never use admin and password please, guys.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Login password is too weak.
Oh wait. It still let me do it.
(Linus chuckling)
That'd be great.
If a guy just like popped outta the bottom and was like
"weak"! Apparently out of the box it's configured
for six gigahertz back haul, which makes a ton of sense.
Most people go wireless
because they don't wanna run wires through their home.
But if it was me, man, I would find a way to run that wire
because your Wi-Fi experience is gonna be fricking amazing.
Although you wouldn't have to do it immediately, right?
Like you could run six gigahertz back haul
for now while you don't have any devices
that can connect to it anyway.
And then you can run your wire later,
once you actually feel like you need the extra speed.
Oh there it is.
Extra-slow showed up first. How ironic.
Well, why don't we start with 2.4?
This is a gigabit internet connection.
So, make of that what you will.
Obviously this is not the most scientific way to
do a wireless speed test, but,
in fact I'm probably even too close to it.
Hi YouTube.
It should be noted we have a ton of RF junk in here.
So if there's anywhere
that I would expect this new six gigahertz band to
make a difference, it would be in this office.
Yeah. Linus Fast is not showing up here.
Linus Slow is pretty fast. So that's cool.
Dang. All right then.
Just shy of 800 megabit down. Looking at around.
Wow. Just wow. Okay.
So Linus Slow, pretty fast.
I'm confused though.
I don't know why I can't see Linus Fast here.
I'm gonna see if there's any firmware updates or anything.
That's as good a time as any to poke around
ASUS' dashboard here.
So they've got their A.I. mesh, which allows you to
use multiple ASUS routers as a mesh Wi-Fi system.
It's really cool.
It's a really neat way to bring forward your older devices
and still get use out of them.
Especially if you have a larger home.
Their AI protection,
blocking malicious sites, and cool stuff like that.
Their parental controls were not amazing
last time we tried them.
Really good analysis tools though.
You can see traffic and clients and what apps are being used
and stuff like that on your home network.
Especially if you have a family that can be very useful.
Firmware update, here we go.
Okay. Let's check. It's the latest version.
Hold on a second.
I'm gonna double check
and make sure this is actually a 6E client then.
Wi-Fi 6E AX211.
Linus Fast, not here.
Well I'm not gonna lie.
I am at a total loss here guys.
Okay. Yeah. I can't, I can't connect.
It's been a month during which time we figured out
there are some issues around Wi-Fi 6E, 6 gigahertz
and Canada.
So, um, magic!
We are now connected at six gigahertz
and I am ready to do my speed test. By the way,
while this is running, shout out, Rosstine.
It's a bit of a belated happy birthday,
but in my defense, this video was delayed
by factors that were outside of my control.
Fortunately, nothing about this internet is delayed.
That is gigabit freaking speeds
over wireless ladies and gentlemen.
Look, I'll prove it. I'm gonna unplug this wire.
Oh my God, it's dead.
Oh my God, this page has so many ads on it.
The point is, look ma no wires!
I want Wi-Fi 6E all to myself.
I mean, I guess that's the point isn't it?
You don't have to share.
This is crazy.
Like full line gigabit speeds, just about.
Wirelessly.
Man, I wanna change the server.
There's, man what's that really good one locally?
Yeah, no, Urbanfibre's not better today.
I mean, I can go a little further away
'cause I'm imagining six gigahertz isn't narrow.
I'm not gonna do that great.
Oh crap.
I mean it's not super scientific.
We're gonna have a lab for that soon.
Here do you wanna show how far away we are?
- [Jono] How many bananas is it?
- Boy! Oh bananas.
They're not a measure of distance.
They're a measure of size, Jono,
and you can check them out on LTTstore.com.
Anyway, the point is we're gonna kinda, I don't know.
Let's go on the other side of a wall, you know?
Let's see.
Is it gonna just completely get annihilated by one wall?
Nope. Okay. Well let's go find another wall then.
Oh, okay. This is not what I expected.
Uh, we are now have a good, solid couple of walls between us
and we are still doing nearly 900 megabit per second.
Uh, Brandon, can you navigate this?
We're going on a little voyage of discovery here.
- [Brandon] Okay. When you talk, you gotta face me Linus.
- Oh, sorry Brandon. Sorry, Brandon.
I'm going behind the set.
Okay. All right.
We got three walls and we finally dropped.
Oh, okay, it's still.
- [Brandon] Linus, face me.
- Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
Okay. This is also better than I was,
I was hoping to show that it would like suck
after a bit 'cause like six gigahertz or whatever.
Yeah. That's the uploads finally suffering a little bit.
We've got three walls between us now.
But that download though. Like, what?
You good Brandon? Do you need help?
Do you need help, Brandon?
- [Brandon] I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
- Hi Andy.
- [Andy] Hello.
- Do you wanna see my Wi-Fi?
- [Andy] Your Wi-Fi?
- It's Wi-Fi 6E and it's really fast.
It's like way over on the short circuit set.
- [Andy] Who needs cable?
- Well, okay.
No, there's still a value to wire. Stop.
(man laughing)
He knows better.
- [Brandon] Face me, Linus.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm going all the way to the thing.
Oh, Hey 'sup Dan.
- [Dan] Hey.
- Look at this guy he's like, oh, I'm working.
Okay. Did we finally lose it?
We finally lost it.
That's pretty darn good.
Just like we lost this sponsorship with ASUS
now that we're showing it failing at the end of the video.
Haha. Just kidding.
Thanks ASUS for sponsoring this video.
You can check out the ET12 at the link down below,
and subscribe to Short Circuit.