NETGEAR Nighthawk Wifi 6 Router (RAX80) | AX6000 Wireless Speed (Up to 6 Gbps) | PS5 Gaming Router Compatible

Bought this to replace my failing Nighthawk R7000 that had served me well but had unfortunately developed an issue with the 5ghz channel.The R7000 was a great router and at the time of buying (some 6yrs= ago) it was probably the best I get for my home networking requirements.Now on to this bad boy, the AX8 is simply outstanding in its performance, build quality and overall appearance, takes up less space than the R7000, and gone are the days of flimsy antennas that could easily be knocked out of alignment.Setting this up was an absolute breeze and it was up and configured in under 15 minutes, the user interface via the web interface is far more user-friendly with a cleaner UI and you can also use the Netgear application on your phone or tablet to get things up and running.Performance is outstanding and with the continued ability to split the 2.5/5ghz channels, there are no issues getting your smart home devices connected and running buttery smooth. lag free and with zero dropouts.The wireless range/coverage on both channels is mind-blowing, no need for Wi-Fi extenders in our house anymore, this frees up sockets around the house and dispenses with unnecessary extension cables etc.I have many wireless and wired products and devices such as Alexa, Google, plugs, sockets, extenders, light bulbs, security devices, smart TV's and computers, laptops and some others all running off the AX8 and everything can be connected/running at the same time with zero disruption in speed (lag) or added congestion or bottlenecks.This is just an amazing Router, incredibly powerful and future proof for the new generation of wireless technology that will enter our new phones and wireless devices over the next year or so.I cannot highly recommend this enough and has just simply made our internet solid and reliable and something that we can now just let run in the background and not worry about it running into connectivity issues.

I am giving this router just one star because of the frustration it caused and time it wasted. The device does have some redeeming features - it is well packaged, has an impressive looking feature set and looks fully Star Wars fighter ship compliant. But I figure you would be more concerned about reliability and wasted time.Routers are complex beasts that we ask to do a lot and do do it reliably. I bought this one on the belief that, although expensive, it would be "future proof" - giving power, stability, and compatibility with new standards such as Wifi-6. I set up the box to work alongside a Netgear DM-200 modem on my VDSL connection. Configuring the router and modem to work in the correct manner is not easy as there are many options on each. However I started out with a fairly generic setup - nothing too clever with DNS servers or anything like that. I updated to the latest firmware release.The router did work. I found that it created frequent problems on my wired (mostly Powerline adaptor) network. It also had frequent drop outs of Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi speed and range appeared to be no different from my old router. The router itself needed frequent reboots to avoid service losses - and it also seemed to reboot itself for some reason - this meant that I was often losing DNS, Wi-Fi or complete connectivity over my network. The router includes a fan - which it seems to use surprisingly frequently when under no apparent load. I wondered whether it has some kind of problems with its thermal management.In the end I decided to return this router and the modem (which also had reliability problems) to Netgear: my old Tp-Link modem/router is considerably more reliable. All of this involved many wasted hours of experimentation. I caution anybody who wishes to avoid the same to be very wary. For my part, I have decided to wait until more reliable devices appear.

This is a top draw piece of kit. From the moment you open the box, you can tell that you have purchased a great item. The design is stylish, like Kylo Rens space ship, so it looks quite cool on display. The setup process is so straightforward. Plug in your modem (this is router so you need to use your ISP provided router as the modem, plug in via Ethernet). Download the netgear Nighthawk app and follow the on screen instructions. The Interface is very intuitive and user friendly. I had some issues with Sky Q on my home Wi-fi, with frequency interference and drop outs previously, hence why I bought this. So I configured my Sky Q boxes to remain on the Sky router, and then every other device was connected to this and I use a Switch for various Ethernet devices although with 5 ports there is plenty on the router itself. The security later adds a great amount of comfort and assurance, and if you use a VPN, you can easily overlay that to the router during or after the initial setup making this a really secure bit of kit. The ability to use a guest Wi-fi option is great, simple as turning it on and off using the App means you don’t need to dish out your Wi-fi password to everyone you know, excellent feature. The traffic monitoring tool is very useful, you can see your internet usage rate and check logs for any obscure behaviour, plus the security check for each device that joins the network is reassuring. It doesn’t give you website details at least from what I can tell so your not able to see who is looking at what but you can block website URLs in the Parental control feature. You can turn on/off devices easily, making it simple to control who is on your network at any point in time, plus the downtime allows you to turn off the Wi-fi at certain times too. I also use an extender to my network, which was easy to add. If you use Sonos then you need to know that they don’t work on extenders anywhere, use a boost or plug one into the router, I found this out after hours of trial and error - that is a Sonos issue and will persist with almost any Wi-fi extender, nothing to do with Netgear. Overall, if you are looking for a top quality router that offers control, see less Wi-fi and looks cool, this does the job. 5 stars