I've used this device for roughly a year and I'm very pleased. I have the main node installed in the lower level of my home where the Internet cable enters and a second node installed on the upper level. It is WiFi 6 compatible and supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi. A third 5 GHz band is used to interconnect the two nodes, but they can also be connected via wired Ethernet cables, if you home wiring setup allows. The device is compatible with the 802.11n through 802.11ax wireless specs and each node has four Ethernet ports for wired device connections.
The main reason I bought this system was its price to performance ratio. The Netgear Orbi system with similar capabilities was almost $300 more. While the Orbi systems does test faster in some scenarios, I decided I'd be unable to detect that speed difference and opted to save $300.
Also, this unit allows separate names for the 2.4 GHz and 5Ghz bands. This was very attractive to me because I have many home automation devices that operate on the 2.4 GHz band. I simply named the router's 2.4 and 5 GHz bands with the same name and WiFi password as on the previous router, and all devices automatically connected once the router was installed.
Since installation, the upper level unit has disconnected from the downstairs main node three times. Flipping the power switch off for a few seconds and then on again reestablished the connection. I do not know what caused the disconnection, but all routers occasionally need to be restarted to clear connection issues. This is not a big deal for me.
When performing a firmware update, I suggest doing so from a computer. I recently tried the update from the device's Apple app and ran into problems. A reboot of the main node fixed the issue, but I was quite nervous while trying to determine the best action to remedy the situation.
I've noticed, when logging in to the router from my laptop, I get an Invalid Certificate warning from the FireFox browser. I log in anyway, but that warning was a bit scary when I first saw it. I do not get a similar error when logging on while using the Apple app for the router.
Comments