ASUS - Lyra Voice AC2200 Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi Router - Black

This is for the 2019 version of the Asus Lyra Voice AC2200 Tri Band Mesh Router. I have this setup in a small engineering office and I feel as though I am not giving the Lyra Voice the justice it deserves. At times there can be 3 – 5 people in the office and typically just myself. Anything can take place, streaming, gaming, downloading, office traffic for wireless printing, file sharing, etc. The main thing is it has to be robust and functionally reliable with no issues for the traffic and devices, which it is. The router comes with the typical bandwidth limiting, parental “controls”, guest access and suite of settings and plugins. Asus brand name, controls software and hardware – can’t lose. Solid performer and settings are a snap. I’ve used all app base setup on this router and do not need any of the advanced features or plugins. And I think that is where this router is a step ahead – simplicity. This is not going to be your VPN and heavy traffic business router. I feel it was meant to be a super simple router with some cool features, Alexa and Bluetooth. And with that being said, the AC2200 gives my office plenty of Wi-Fi bandwidth to do every day business, downloading and streaming. Setup – Super simple and a seamless transition from the older router. This was really a breath of fresh air compared to what I went through with another new home mesh router recently. Alexa? She’s there and honestly, I’m one of the paranoid people who’ve unplugged her at home. But she is there and slowly getting used to asking her simple tasks and I don’t mind having her on in the office. Bluetooth / Speaker: Amazing. The Surround sound function and overall clarity is just about unbeatable at this packaged size. Out of several Bluetooth speakers, receivers/speakers that I own and have used over the years, this is by far the best sounding for the size. The full range and clear highs are very pleasant on the ears. I’m pretty impressed with the capability of the bass and in a smaller room it would be more noticeable. With something like this, you could pair it to a BT compatible TV or Fire TV and I feel that would be the sweet spot. It is not going to fully rock out high DBs and it doesn’t come with a subwoofer, optic in or anything crazy. It is not meant for all that. Pair it, plug it in and forget about it in a simple, clean setup. For what it is it is one of those small speakers that you would never think could produce the quality of sound it does. I feel Asus put a lot of time and engineering into the sound of this unit. Again, It’s as good as sound can get from today's technology and the size of the unit. I digress to the comment about this being an injustice to have in the office. I can imagine if you had a small living area, apartment, etc. this would be a perfect fit. I can see this unit as a centerpiece below a TV in a small home or living area; all in one, attractive and solid performer for a full functional router and quality sound. Pros – does it all, Wi-Fi/mesh, Alexa and audio. Solid brand name and solid hardware. Cons – Sounds so good that you’ll want to move it around, but you can’t; it’s plugged into the power adapter and cable modem. It would be nice to have a volume remote or at least in the app or any kind of play/pause, next remote with the device since you will be streaming a lot of music.

Asus Lyra Voice Tri-Band Mesh Router. My college kid used to wear his “subvert the dominant paradigm” T-shirt around the house. I’m betting there’s an ASUS engineer wearing that same shirt and he’s on a team that's re-imagined home networking. This new All-In-One router—BT-speaker—Alexa Smart Home controller breaks away from the prevailing approach to bringing network technology into our homes. This Lyra Voice has removed the clutter in our living space while offering a number of desirable features in a really small, cute package. Of course, my first few days with the ASUS shows everything works well, because I’m not handing out “stars” for simply making an effort. SETUP: Super easy using the ASUS Lyra app (Android download) and plugging the ASUS in. Took less than 5 minutes to have the router function working. Using my Amazon Alexa account login I had music and NPR running at my command. We wasted no time putting away our black “spaceship” router and the white Echo which are no longer needed. PERFORMANCE: Be sure to go into your settings and enable the DTS. (That switch in the back is for power, not the DTS. The DTS logo is placed in a confusing location.) The sound is great, loud and nicer sounding than the Echo it replaced. Network speeds are the same as my bigger, unattractive, but featureless previous router. That single LAN port is easily connected to a (separate purchase) ethernet switch, but in this location, I only handed off to a Roku. SUMMARY: This Lyra Voice just looks great, sounds better, and performs all the functions I need in a small package. It’s a winner.

I will sum up my review of ASUS - Lyra Voice AC2200 Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi Router. I like the idea of being able to use it as a smart speaker taking benefits of Amazon Alexa voice assistant, In addition to that it can be used as standalone router or repeater. after 2 weeks of using it seems stable in terms of connectivity but bluetooth disconnects several times and failed to reconnect until I unpaired and re-paired again. quality of sound is decent. with that being said. all in one at this range of price is a good deal.

You can't ask for much more with this device, and especially for the price. Getting Mesh router, Alexa connectivity, and a powerful speaker all in one. The setup was pretty simple, and I really appreciated not having to have multiple devices laying around my house. It is basically already sitting out for the mesh coverage of my network, and then if I want to stream music I can just connect my phone via Bluetooth and be playing music at the touch of a button. This is a great device if you're looking to expand your wifi network, and are also in the market for a Bluetooth speaker that supports Alexa. The speaker is loud, has great sound, and Alexa picks up my voice from far away. It also has a sleek design and the ability to hardwire in via LAN port is a great feature for gaming consoles or laptops that may not have the best wireless cards. All in all I highly recommend this device as it is a very sound one stop shop for my music and LAN needs.

The ASUS - Lyra Voice AC2200 Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi Router delivers. When used as an online MESH repeater, hardwired to a streaming device the speed on SPECTRUM is phenomenal. The sound quality is above average and the whole thing took less than 10 minutes including setting up the router Alexa and Bluetooth. Worth every penny.

I purchased the Lyra Voice based on the answer I received from Asus tech support regarding adding a new node for my garage. I had asked if it was necessary to have an access point with exactly the same AI protection as my high end Asus XT8 installed a few weeks earlier. More on that later. I first tried the setup as an AiMesh node hoping that I would get even better speeds, took it into the garage 75 feet away from either the node or main router, and it would not connect even with a wired backhaul. So I then attempted to set it up as a wired access point. Except there was no option to do that once you set it up as an AIMesh mode using the cell phone app. So I had to reset it, start over again, and directly wire the router into my computer, figure out the router web page IP address, but that required downloading their utility which enabled me after getting the IP address to set the router up as an access point manually. I did succeed even though directions to do that were very sparse being limited to FAQs on other models. I then discovered that the advice given to me by tech support appeared to be flawed as there was no option to enable AI Protection for that access point in its specific menu. Apparently all of that was controlled by the main router. I decided to abandon it for use as an access point as I set up another brand router. Regarding follow-up, I got extremely low speeds with the main AI Mesh router with a laptop only feet away from the main router, and after repeated phone calls to Asus to troubleshoot the problem, they sent me a request form to fill out documenting the problem and said that somebody would be back with me within 48 hours. Nearly two weeks have passed and I have not heard from anyone and I did not want to go through the same pain technical support wise with the Lyra Voice as having done with the XT8 in order to optimize its setup. Tech support had previously told me that my depressed slow speeds with the XT8 were due due to the one sheetrock closet wall of the router that was only feet away. That generally has not been my experience with other routers having the ability to go through multiple walls.

This router is easy to set up. It does need an app downloaded on to a cell phone but the app gives me more visibility of my network. I haven't use Alexa much, though. This more of a personal preference than a reflection on Alexa.

Overall it's a great wifi router and Bluetooth speaker . Alexa lags a bit compare to echo devices and also wakes up without wake word "ALEXA"