Nighthawk AC2600 Smart WiFi Router (R7450)

I suggest a Flint 2, or some other openwrt compatible unit. I have a Netgear R7450, that is my older gateway router, flashed with gargoyle (openwrt), that does access restrictions with no problems. Apparently, nowadays to get that kind of granular control, Netgear wants you to pay for their services application.

In terms of hardware, if that's the Walmart model aka Netgear R7450 (probably), then IMO it's probably still adequate in terms of hardware today. The main problem is the manufacturer's unfortunate decision to stop supplying firmware updates. You might consider flashing OpenWRT or DD-WRT on it and just continuing to use it (but now with more features). If you're in the US it's not an ideal time to buy an off the shelf router TBH. The looming foreign router ban is shaking things up. OTOH if you are buying one, Netgear is the first company AFAIK to get their exemption for the new law. As for RS200 vs RS300, the latter adds a third 6 GHz WiFi band. It's probably only worth it if you have devices with 6 GHz WiFi support (WiFi 6E / WiFi 7) and also you are concerned about congestion in the 5 GHz band.

Not an expert but sharing my very recent experience. I had an old nighthawk Netgear router from 2018 that started to act up, so I got a newer WiFi 7 router from Netgear (RS90) and it was even worse than the old one. After hours on the phone with tech support they couldn’t do much, so I returned it and went with a TP-Link WiFi 6 mesh (Deco X55 AX3000) and it has been working great.

yeah I stopped buying gaming routers 4 years ago. I was on my 3rd nighthawk - they would no joke die consistently 2-3 months after their warranty expired. 3 of them in a row, like clockwork. I went with a mesh system and I am very pleased with it. it allows me to have solid fast wifi in my detached garage, which wasn't possible with the gaming router. and I have overall way better signal on the other stories of my house. I get close to 1 gig on wifi now. the mesh system, which includes 4 routers, was also cheaper than my nighthawk. never going back tbh

You can totally get away with 1 router. How I have it set up, is I have a 5HGz router (nighthawk) controlling all my home WiFi needs. Off the back of that router, I have a Ethernet cable going to another router (my BE9300 TP link) and that’s in my room. My BE9300 broadcast its own WiFi 6GHz network, aka my dedicated VR network that nothing else is on it. A common misconception is that streaming VR to your headset uses your internet connection. This is completely false. It just used the WiFi band AS its connection to your headset uses set. This is how you can play WiFi with no internet on standalone games completed disconnected from the web. What can cause issues is when multiple devices are fighting for the connection and it can intermittently interrupt the VR connection from time to time making to jarring. When I used my 5GHz network on my nighthawk there was noticeable hitches and high latency issues at times. Ever since I swapped to my 6GHz BE9300 it’s been flawless. So your set up would be like this: Modem > Router (for home WiFi) > ethernet to VR router > VR router Ethernet to PC If you want to try without a dedicated VR router it’s this: Modem > Router > Ethernet to PC It’s pretty simple and isn’t complicated as people make it out to be. I’d recommend watching this if you’re interested in the VR router setup. But if it’s in the same room that you’ll be gaming on, you can probably get away with a router that just does triband (2.4,5,6GHz) networks https://youtu.be/9Ugy8ZC26tE?si=YojtyVEOvNc--3GB