NETGEAR - Nighthawk RS500 (BE12000)

In that case I would reccomend a tp link archer be 6500 for half the price. Its wifi7 with no 6ghz just mlo on 2.4ghz and 5ghz. I used one to replace a nighthawk be12000 that was $400 and absolute dogshit.

I bought both a TP-Link BE9300 and Netgear RS500. I ended up keeping both. I agree the WiFi7 for this number of devices. I would go to the top level of each vendor for 100+

I actually needed to replace my ROG AX6000 router and I bought two routers to try them out. I bought the UDR7 and a Netgear RS500. I can say that the UDR7 has very poor coverage and worse long range performance compared to both the ROG and Netgear. The Netgear is the best of the three and the ROG on second place. I live in a 600 Sqft apartment and both the Netgear and ROG maxed out my 1000/1000 Mbps connection on WiFi in every corner, while the UDM7 gave me around 400/400 Mbps in some corners and only maxed out right by the router. I believe Ubiquiti products are meant to be built out with more APs rather than using one standalone powerful router. The UDR7 is only using 2x2 radios vs the other routers and that is very noticeable. The UDR7 UI is nice but I think I will return it since I’m replying on only one router and have no plans to add any APs.

Not everyone wants to shell out $500 for a wifi-7 nighthawk though. Seems redundant when the one provided for free runs the same frequencies and allows full wifi control with 250 simultaneous devices compared to nighthawks 50 devices.

I got a $110 wifi 7 Netgear router from Walmart. It works fine with my Spectrum cable modem.

Take their free modem, put a surge protector on the incoming coax, buy a router of your own. I got a wifi 7 Netgear at Walmart for $110. Get whatever bandwidth you can afford, as it sounds like you'll be using it. When/ if Spectrum brings fiber, it's their equipment they'll replace, not yours.

I had one of their WiFi 7 routers and the gig plan. It was absolutely garbage even for a 2 bedroom apartment. I couldn't even get speeds close to 500 and at times it would just restart on its own. No 2.4G band steering as well. I returned it and got my own wifi 7 router from Netgear and damn that did a much more wonderful job than that garbage spectrum. 

Depends on your situation. If you have DSL or Coaxial Cable. You are likely going to have lag spikes due to the medium of connection. "Shared" mediums and DSL is just old teetering on ancient technology this point. That aside, I had luck with my Netgear Nighthawk back in 2015. I used it all the way up to 2020 when I got a legitimate Firewall. (Fortigate 70F) If you wanna go full blown firewall Route, I don't mind helping. Otherwise maybe look at the Netgear. (P.S. I hated the Netgear Nighthawk Smart App. Just in case you end up going that route. It should also have a built in web interface to be able to go around the app. Not sure about the Netgear Mesh boxes that they have out there now.).

I switched to NETGEAR nighthawk years ago after so many Belkin and Lynksis failures. I’ve had great luck. Although I don’t run much and I switched to EVE plugs so they run on thread with my AppleTV. And my Eufy cameras have a base station.

I have an asus AXE7800 that works well. In the like 16 months I've had it, I've rebooted it once, but i suspect it wasn't even the thing that needed rebooting, it was more of a "might as well, I'm rebooting everything else". It replaced a netgear nighthawk that was nearly ten years old and still in GWO, but i wanted that 6G. I am generally a fan of Netgear as well. Both companies are capable of shanking an individual product tho, so just do a little due diligence looking at reviews and googling before you pull the trigger. You'll be working on substantially better odds. So long as it's the typical nitpicking of configuration interface, it's performance attaching a drive to it for NAS, etc? You'll be good, that's a sign that they're looking at normal things and got past basic operations. For VR we don't need much in the way of features, we just need it to be stable, reliable, and fast. If it's a product that's been out for a year, give or take, and googling it doesn't give you a bunch of hits about it being garbage, having actual systemic problems etc, you're good. Just know that you can get the most flawless amazing and user friendly router and someone's gonna have a hell of a time setting it up, configuring something, or just not understanding that maybe they got a defective unit and need to use their warranty lol But yeah in general I find Netgear and Asus networking products to be worth their extra cost

use their modem, go get urself a nighthawk router, thats what ive got, and have no issues

I’ve tried a few 5g routers but have not found any that are great, I’m using a Netgear NightHawk connected to my existing home network witch is as good as I’ve found but they’re not cheap. Have not come across any 5g routers with wifi 7 at all. The TP-Link 5g routers aren’t great, Teltonika are solid but not cheap because you need to get antennas and power supplies seperate for them. Not sure on the Nokia units that some carriers use for their 5g home plans but might be worth a try but they’re not wifi 7

Wifi 7 is too... Expensive and quest isn't supported... Get a Netgear nighthawk in Amazon por 130usd

I got one and saw the same thing. After following the instructions to upgrade my firmware, it was peaking at 80% of Ram usage with cpu at 20%. I also could not get my 5ghz channel to connect to any device other than my iPhone. It was a nightmare to troubleshoot and it’s going back tomorrow. I brought back out my Nighthawk and it’s business as usual. 

I would say look at another nighthawk, you got 5 years roi out of it, and they’re relatively inexpensive compared to other brands. Do you need a new modem too? They’re different pieces of hardware. You can also consider getting something called a gateway that combines a router and a modem together into one piece of hardware.

Yeah, I gave up on consumer grade crap too, after I had a Netgear Nighthawk system that would randomly start spazzing out and start dropping packets on the wireless network and need a full power cycle every once in a while. Ended up going with Ubiquiti a few months ago and I've been pretty happy with it so far.

Either nighthawk or Asus routers. Asus i like because they last much longer through custom firmware support for long term updates. Dual band is a must, tri band is better and Quad band I suggest if you have tons of devices. Make sure to get at Least Wifi 6E. However I suggest future proofing and going for wifi 7. Avoid wifi 6 and below like the plague. Also avoid TP-Link. Wifi 6e and wifi 7 have major technological advantages. TP-Link is very buggy in terms of their software and may be banned from USA because of mediocre security.

I don't know about that particular one, I've got the ax92u, but I can tell you it's been a lot more reliable than the nighthawk I had before it. That thing would constantly drop wifi connections randomly for 2 seconds.

With a descent router wireless is nearly as good as wired these days. I speak as someone who was once a 'wired network' purist for the same reasons as you, and also someone who works from home. A good router, set in a centralized place will probably be a cheaper and simpler solution than wiring everything together. I use one of those nighthawk routers with four antenna. Alternatively, doing data cabling runs throughout your house can be in DIY territory. It would be much cheaper than hiring a contractor and you could be done with it in about a day depending on how many rooms you want patched in and how much you care about wire enclosures being visible. Lots of people just put cable mounts in the corner near the ceiling and run them outside the wall.

This. Omg this. I found this out the hard way. I got U6 and it has an awful signal transmission that feels like can't even penetrate paper. Too late to return it for me. I had to plug my old Netgear nighthawk router to use as AP for the unifi router which has 4x4 and has probably x3 performance of the U6. I ended up using the U6 for the IoT devices and my nighthawk as AP for everything else. Now I am looking into wifi 7 access point/mesh network to compliment my unifi router.

This. Omg this. I found this out the hard way. I got U6 and it has an awful signal transmission that feels like can't even penetrate paper. Too late to return it for me. I had to plug my old Netgear nighthawk router to use as AP for the unifi router which has 4x4 and has probably x3 performance of the U6. I ended up using the U6 for the IoT devices and my nighthawk as AP for everything else. Now I am looking into wifi 7 access point/mesh network to compliment my unifi router.

I had an older version, and it was terrible performing and died in less than a year. Got a Nighthawk instead and couldn't be happier.

You can use any, but I'd suggest at least Wifi 6 or 6e, if not 7 - depends on your devices too. The Nighthawk routers are really nice.

I used different versions of Netgear Nighthawk over the years and always subpar performance. I recently bought and setup a TP Link ER605 with a TP Link ax1500 setup as a wireless AP. it's awesome. I was able to setup a VPN in less than 10 minutes. I have over 25 wireless devices in the house and this router never breaks above 25% CPU usage. it's fantastic.

ASUS any day of the weak, had nothing but TPLink and it sucked, immediately switched out for the Nighthawk routers and loved it

Nighthawk But let’s be very clear about something. When thinking about buying Wi-Fi six or seven you should understand that the higher speeds are only going to be beneficial when you are transferring data between devices on your own home network. So these higher and routers really only are advantageous to businesses. The only way you might ever need such a thing in your home is if you live in some kind of mansion full of people. The reason why they are available to you and me as average, ordinary, every day people is because that helps keep the price lower for the routers across the board.