Wireless network performance

First, let's take a look at the apartment that was used in our testing and how it is set up. You can see that the main ASUS Lyra Mini hub is placed in the living room. When using wireless routers, the signal strength is not that high in rooms like the Kitchen and the Medium balcony. To improve the coverage of the network, we placed the second hub in the Big Bedroom. As a result, the Medium balcony should benefit from more stable WiFi. Then, the third hub was placed near the entrance to the Kitchen, to improve the coverage there too.

Our testing was done using a fast 1 Gigabit Internet connection that is capable of uploads on the internet of up to 500 Mbps. We used an HP Spectre 13 laptop for our measurements.

We decided to compare the ASUS Lyra Mini with TP-Link Deco M5 (a competing whole-home mesh WiFi system), and ASUS RT-AC1200G+ (an excellent AC1200 wireless router from the same company).

We started by evaluating the 2.4 GHz wireless network and measured the signal strength offered in each room, using a tool named NetSpot Pro. As you can see, in this regard ASUS Lyra Mini was an average performer. We expected fewer variations in signal strength, between rooms.

Then, we used SpeedTest to see how fast the internet connection is when using the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency. ASUS Lyra Mini performed great in all rooms, and incredibly well in the room where the main station was placed.

When measuring the upload speed with SpeedTest, we noticed a similar story.

Next, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network, using the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency. This time too, ASUS Lyra Mini was a great performer, delivering fast downloads everywhere.

When looking at the upload speed, the performance was again, top notch.

When using the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency, ASUS Lyra Mini is a great performer.

Next, we analyzed the performance offered by the 5GHz wireless network. First, we looked at the evolution of the signal strength, from room to room. The signal strength delivered by ASUS Lyra Mini was disappointing, worse than that of a standalone wireless router from the same company.

Next, we ran SpeedTest to see how fast the internet connection is on the 5GHz band. To see the maximum potential of ASUS Lyra Mini, we used the world's only PCI-E network card with support for 4x4 MU-MIMO. When we used this network card, we obtained a maximum speed of 461.20 Mbps for the download, and of 401.43 Mbps for the upload. It is good, but it is not the fastest we have seen on a mesh system. Others can deliver more than 500 Mbps for the download speed.

We also measured the download speed with SpeedTest, in every room of our test apartment, using our test laptop. When looking at the download speed, ASUS Lyra Mini performed great only in the room where we placed the main station. In the other rooms, it was disappointing.

When measuring the upload speed, we noticed the same trend.

For the last measurements on the 5GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. The download speed offered by ASUS Lyra Mini was good only in the room where we placed the main station.

The same was true when measuring the upload speed.

When using the 5 GHz wireless band, ASUS Lyra Mini is disappointing, both concerning signal strength, and speed.

Wired network performance

To test the quality of the wired Ethernet connection, we used a desktop PC equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 processor, running at 3.20GHz, 16GB of RAM, a fast Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD, and a Lenovo IdeaCentre 610s mini PC.

We measured the speed of the internet connection when using a 1 Gbps Ethernet cable, using SpeedTest. ASUS Lyra Mini performed well and was faster than TP-Link Deco M5. We made the measurements on the desktop PC, which was connected to the main hub.

Then, we ran a network transfer between the two computers, each connected with an Ethernet cable to a different ASUS Lyra Mini. Since the hubs were connected to each other wirelessly, the transfer was mediated through WiFi. We used PassMark Performance test for this measurements. As you can see, the transfer speeds we got were rather unimpressive.

You can enjoy 1 Gbps connections just on one Ethernet port, on the central ASUS Lyra Mini station. On all the others you get less unless you connect all hubs using Ethernet cables.

Extra features

ASUS Lyra Mini offers many useful extra features:

• AiProtection - ASUS Lyra Mini can automatically block malicious websites when they are accessed from any device. You also get a Two-Way Intrusion Prevention System that prevents attacks coming from the internet. Unfortunately, there is no vulnerability protection available, like on premium router wireless from ASUS.

• Family Members - allows you to set a schedule for internet access as well as content filters for your children and the devices that they use. Parents will appreciate this feature. What we found strange though is that this feature can be set up only when using the mobile app. There is no mention of it in the web user interface that is available for administering the ASUS Lyra Mini.

• Guest network - you can enable a guest WiFi network for people visiting your home. From the mobile app, you can only set time limits for guests.

• Traffic Manager (Adapting QoS) - a user-friendly service that allows you to set prioritization rules for different kinds of traffic. For example, if you are a gamer, you can prioritize online gaming versus other types of traffic.

• VPN Server - this can be enabled only in the web-based administration user interface. You can set the ASUS Lyra Mini to work as a VPN server, using the PPTP and OpenVPN protocols.

• Network Tools - a set of troubleshooting tools that help you figure out how to solve networking problems. They can be accessed and used only from the web-based administration user interface.

• Amazon Alexa - if you use Alexa, you can control ASUS Lyra Mini through voice commands like: "Alexa, ask ASUS Router to turn on the Guest network."

ASUS Lyra Mini offers everything you need for a safe and secure smart home experience. It is also integrated with Amazon Alexa so that you can control it using voice commands.

What is your opinion of the ASUS Lyra Mini?

Now you know our opinion about the ASUS Lyra Mini whole home mesh WiFi system, and how it performed in our testing. If you already purchased it, share with us your experience with this mesh WiFi system. Do you find it easy to use? How about its performance? Comment below and let's discuss.