NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 Smart Wi-Fi Router (R8000) - AC3200 Tri-band Wireless Speed (Up to 3200 Mbps) | Up to 3500 Sq Ft Coverage & 50 Devices | 4 x 1G Ethernet and 2 USB ports | Armor Security

****UPDATE******* Feb 20, 2015I am now updating my review of the Netgear R8000 to 5 Stars.I returned the original unit to Amazon. I was sent an replacement unit. Amazon goofed and then made it good. The 1st replacement was a very well used unit, NOT refurbished, just very well used and dinged up in an open package. I never even hooked it up, but contacted Amazon. They apologized and immediately sent a "New" replacement unit. Kudos to Amazon! The 2nd replacement unit arrived and I experienced none of the problems I had with the original unit. I have been running it for a month now without any problems and great performance. This unit lives up to expectations. I was also contacted by a high level and knowledgeable Tech/Customer support individual. He was very good, very responsive and I appreciated his follow-up. It was the opposite of the original experiences I had that were detailed below. Kudos to Netgear for the followup on this!**** Original Review below on January 7, 2015 with the title "Netgear Nighthawk X6 is a disaster and Netgear Customer service wasn't much better!" *******I had previously have had very mixed results with Netgear routers. When they work, they are great. When they don't they are a disaster. I made the mistake of giving Netgear one more chance with this router. It arrived from Amazon even faster than I anticipated. Kudos to Amazon on that! Upon installation of the router I immediately updated the router to the latest firmware. The Nighthawk X6 was easy to set up as I anticipated working with Netgear Genie which I happen to like. I have multiple desktops, several laptops, some tablets, and numerous wireless devices in my home. Most older ones use 2.4 GHz and the newer items use 5GHz connections. So I had great need for both. I also have two AC adapters I bought to use but have not yet hooked them up. The router worked great for three days on wired and wireless 2.4 and 5.0. It gave me the best range and signal strength I've had with any router on both 2.4 and 5.0 at all distances within my home. On both wired and wireless I was getting 25-30 Mbps when within 20-30 feet of the router which is what my ISP provides. I was finally a happy camper.Then after three days the wired connections all started to fail. Download speeds were now down to 1-3 Mbps on all four LAN ports. I tried a soft reset by removing power and that seemed to restore full wired speed temporarily. I played with this for several day and a few other tricks that have worked in the past. Nothing worked. Thank goodness I was still getting good speeds and connections on wireless.Then tonight I called Netgear Tech Support because this was a newly purchased router. Bad decision! The telephone tree you need to navigate to get to them is interesting and frustrating at best. When I finally got someone, their English accent was very difficult to understand, but even worse I could hear everyone else in the background at the call center so trying to hear and understand them over the background noise was almost impossible. I had this same problem with three different people. Why three? Because the first one put me on hold and then disconnected me before he had even asked me for a call back number. The second one I got when I called back said that she would call back if we got disconnected within 60 seconds. She had my cell number. I don't think either of the first two could even understand what the problem was. They couldn't grasp that the wired connection to the LAN ports was the issue. Finally, after many missteps she seemed to grasp it. But she had no idea what to do. She put me on hold to talk to a supervisor. When she came back, she had me make a change in in one setting and then we disconnected again. She never called back! I waited about 10 minutes or more. Then made my third and final call to support. This one finally seemed to understand what the problem was, but didn't seem to know a lot more. Again, very difficult to understand and hear over the background noise from their call center. I used other devices to verify the problems for her, laptop, tablet, etc. She had we do a soft reset, but very different from any I have ever done before After she had me do this, the wired connection was worse, with download of 1-1.5 Mbps. Even worse, the 2.4 Ghz wireless no longer worked at all and 5 Ghz was dramatically slower. She had me download and re-install the firmware. Guess what, things were even worse. Final words from her, return it to Amazon as it must be defective! When you get a new one feel free to call us back to help you troubleshoot it! Just a very frustrating experience and a frustrating router for the top of the line router! So far it's a bunch of junk! I hope that Amazon Netgear Tech Support sees this Case # 19264928. Very disappointed in the router and support thus far!I will be returning it to Amazon.

I have a ton of smart products on my existing network (about 75) and I have about a 3100 sqf house, 2 stories. My idea was to extend my coverage by adding this router and putting it upstairs closer to the back of the house while putting my ISP provided Modem/Router combo closer to the front so I could cover all of my outdoor cameras with a stronger, more consistent signal. As it turned out, the one the ISP provided did not get any stronger even though it was moved closer to the products. I tried changing those items over to the new router, as well and it made a significant difference. The Nighthawk goes from stem to stern of my house and covers everything with a nice strong signal. I was surprised. Now, all of my exterior perimeter cameras seem to work all the time, front and back. I also had some front of the house light switches and a printer that experienced frequent disconnects with the ISP combo, but now they seem to work fine. Adjusting the directable antennas really seemed to make a difference, as well, even a slight adjustment. Again, I was very surprised. I really like that it has separate bands for 5ghz and 2.4ghz. My ISP gear has one signal for both and that really doesn't work well in my opinion. It always covered my computer with the 2.4ghz signal, even though the computer was close. There was no way I could figure out to change it. Videos would just spin at certain times during the day and there were problems with freezes during video conferencing. Those no longer occur with the Nighthawk. The 5ghz even has 2 separate bands for newer vs older products, if I understand that correctly, so I tried to connect each item to the appropriate signal. I have all my newer tv's streaming on the 5ghz 2 and older ones on the 5ghz1. Works perfectly so I guess I got that right. My old Mac loads almost like new on the 5ghz1. Difficult to reach cams, switches etc on the 2.4ghz. It also has a guest signal that you can customize for those that don't live with you, so I like that as well. Set up was very easy. I had to go through the router set up twice because it didn't complete the first time for some reason, but it only took a few minutes so no biggie. So far, so good. I like it and I would recommend it to others. I have probably said too much, but I, like most probably, did not realize how much optimizing your current router by changing the channel from the ones your neighbors are on, for example, can help your signal. I always just thought that they install your internet and router and that's it. I just assumed that they know what they are doing and give you the best possible signal. Not so. The guys that install these things know almost nothing about optimizing the network after installation and the equipment that you receive from your ISP may not even be adequate to handle the signal strength you think you have purchased. I have learned a lot about it over the last year, probably just enough to be dangerous, but even after DIY optimizing my ISP provided combo, I still had problems. This new router seems to have helped me take what I hope will be the last step in optimizing my home network.