NETGEAR Smart WiFi Router with Dual Band Gigabit for Amazon Echo/Alexa - AC1750 (R6400-100NAS)

Aug 3, 2017: I ordered an "R6400" Monday. Today I got it, but... the box's "Package Contents" says "(R6400v2)". See pic.

The V2 is still probably an okay model. V2 still uses Broadcom a chipset and there is supposedly one DD-WRT release for R6400v2 (myopenrouter[dot]com), but it seems to require a different DD-WRT firmware, so it's not as well supported (yet) as the many DD-WRT releases for the original R6400v1. There ARE minor differences ... different enough for Netgear to call it V2!

This is the second time in a month that I ordered a Nergear Wifi router and unexpectedly got a "v2" model. (I also ordered a R6700 but got a R6700v2 which switched to MediaTek chips -- totally unsupported by DD-WRT at this time. I returned that one.)

Frustrating. There's no mention of V2 on Amazon's product page. I'm a geek, and it would be nice know what I'm actually ordering and getting. Minus one star for the un-labeled switcheroo.
I'm not sure if I'll keep this one.

I'm a tech guy. Love all things tech. I had leased a combo router / modem from Time Warner Cable for $10 monthly thinking their products had to be the best for their network. While speed met claims - the range of their ARRIS modem/router was awful. I have a 1000 square foot home .... And there were dead spots.

I have a SONOS wireless system that was having hiccups as well.

I would be less than 20 feet from the router - and have dropouts.

In desperation - I picked this unit up along with a Surfboard modem here on Amazon.

Called Time Warner and actuvated my new modem .... Hooked up this Beauty ....and BOOM.

Coverage all over my house!!! No more dropouts with SONOS! Speed tests confirmed that speeds were 50 MBPS or above!

I cannot endorse this product more heartedly. I hope the engineer that designed this is on an island and retired with insane wealth. He deserves it.

Seriously - I don't often have this level of praise for tech - but BUY THIS if you are reading my review. It is worth every penny!

Thank you Netgear!!!!

I have been using this router for over a month and so far it has been working great. Like others, I did a before and after assessment of the internet. We have Comcast and we pay for the Blast (150) which promotes 150 mbps download and 10 mbps upload. I previously had a TP-Link router, and we were getting 9 ping, 64.18 Mbps download, and 12.15 upload.

After we installed this new router, the regular connect got 15 ping, 105.44 mbps Download, and 12.22 mbps Upload. Quite an improvement from before.

Then I connected the 5.8GHz and ran the speed test. The stats were 15 ping, 165.92 Mbps Download, and 12.19 Mbps Upload. The upload is still better than the original router, but is slightly less than the normal mode.

Overall, I have noticed such a difference in internet speeds. I also have had less "dropping" of my internet when in use. I haven't had to worry about resetting the router, which was very common with my old one. The range is great as well. It reaches across my whole house with cement brick walls. I have zero issues anywhere in the home, which is also better than the old device.

This was a bit pricey, but it really is worth the money. I am really happy I invested into it. If you are renting a router, this pays for itself after a year. I will update if I run into any issues in the future.

I live in a duplex, near several others, and am in a pretty wifi-saturated environment. My previous dual band router, about four years old, just didn't cut it, despite tweaking of channels to avoid what others were using. I consider myself a fairly well-informed consumer of this sort of equipment and knew what I wanted; I looked for a budget option that would provide enough signal strength to fit the bill.

The best device is one I do not have to think about, and the hardware is adequate to give me what I need anywhere in a mid sized home within range of 20+ other routers. The firmware for channel switching is 'smarter' than that of my old Linksys, and the extra antenna gave me about a 15-20% improvement in signal strength. Setup is easy if you don't feel comfortable with this stuff--set everything to auto.

If your router is 5+ years old, this thing may improve your life. If you do not have a dual band router yet, and have more than ten wifi enabled gadgets in the house, this thing will improve your life. Strongly recommended for 2500+ square foot homes, or apartments where you compete for spectrum with your neighbors.

Fantastic router with all the capabilities and the multi-node support. We can connect three tablets, two cell phones, an XBox, a desktop computer, a printer, three laptops, and two Kindles without so much as a bottleneck in the network. I am completely satisfied with this purchase!
The web controls are amazing and the ability to filter internet traffic and block things based on themes is great with a little one in the house. Being able to MAC filter allows the network to be even more secure, and being able to manually choose the channel means that we don't have to share bandwidth with neighbors.
I have recommended this to everyone who asks!

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Feature Product

• Compatible with Amazon Echo/Alexa - Control your home network using voice commands.
• AC1750 WiFi-450+1300 Mbps speeds and high-power external antennas
• Dual band-Reduces interference for better connections to more WiFi devices.
• Advanced QoS-Optimized for smooth HD streaming and gaming.System Requirements:Microsoft Windows 7, 8, 10, Vista, XP, 2000, Mac OS, UNIX, or Linux
• Beamforming+ improves range & performance plus High powered amplifiers & antennas to extend your WiFi coverage
• Parental Controls - Web filtering for all your connected devices
• One (1) USB 2.0 port. Five (5) 10/100/1000 Mbps-(1 WAN & 4 LAN) Gigabit Ethernet ports
• Nighthawk App - Easily setup your router. Manage Internet access by pausing and resuming internet instantly. Run a speed test. All from your mobile device!

Description

The NETGEAR AC1750 Smart Wi-Fi Router with external antennas delivers extremely fast Wi-Fi. With AC1750 Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet speeds, and high-powered external antennas, this router offers ultimate performance in wireless coverage for large homes with 12 or more wireless devices. It gets 3x faster access than similar 802.11n.

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I ordered this router to piggyback off of the Verizon router that comes with the TV package. I live in an apartment building, and everyone has FIOS, so the Wifi channels are always like a crowded rush hour trying to move the bits and bytes back and forth. I would lose connection on some of my remote devices due to all of the congestion. Time to find a solution. I read on Wirecutter that this Netgear r6400 was a very good value AC generation router that offered some great options for WiFi networking, adding a network drive thru the router, and an easy interface for controlling the features. Getting this installed was pretty straight forward. A single Ethernet cable and follow the instructions provided. I was speeding along just fine shortly after. The one complaint is accessing the router login page. I kept getting an error saying that I was not connected to the router, and therefore I could not access the router controls. The link they suggested kept throwing an error at me from my PC. Oddly, I was able to connect via my Ipad and had complete control. But, I wanted access from any device. I was able to set up a chat with Netgear support, and they quickly assessed that I had to enter the IP address that my Ipad was accessing with a slight change to the last number so that it ended in 1. Bingo! I go a pop up window asking for login in info, and I was on my router. I wish they would BOLD this information to emphasize that if you don't enter the correct IP address, you will not succeed. They give the address to enter as totally different from the one I used. I do recall that when setting up the router that the new IP address was stated in a pop up **BE SURE TO WRITE THAT ONE DOWN** That is your way into your router control page. I now have access via a PC and an Ipad.....should be good enough for any situation. Still have more features to explore on this model. It is a fun piece of technology to play with, and provides a good solid signal for all my needs.

Faster than my Apple Time Capsule, it also has a crazy number of features and settings including free Dynamic IP addressing and the ability to share printers or an attached hard drive just like a NAS would! The only downside is the size. It is significantly bigger than my Time Capsule and also weirdly shaped. I would also have chosen to put the main USB port either on the top (a good place for a USB stick) or the back (where the other USB port is and a better place to connect a hard drive cable.

I bought this router in July 2017, and as of late October, it's still working perfectly. Setup was easy and straightforward, much easier than the old days of choosing between a setup program on disk (which never worked right on a Mac) or the raw control panel interface of the router itself (which required a certain amount of techie knowledge.) The setup now takes place on a web-page interface that is installed on the router itself and runs fine on any computer or tablet.
Most importantly, this router delivered the WiFi speeds - - on both 5 and 2.4 gHz - - that I've been paying Comcast for. (My 5 or 6 year old Linksys router never came close) Also, the signal strength in the far corners of a large apartment and beyond is much stronger than my old router. I think I've had to re-boot this router once in those 5 months and that was after an outage of Comcast's signal.
In other words, I'm a happy camper. (One note; the indicator lights on this router are much brighter than on any other router I've had. Terrific if you want to look like the bridge of the Enterprise, but there's a control panel setting to turn them off if they bother you.)

The first one I received had difficulty connecting to the Internet. After a couple tries it did and seemed to be OK for a day. Then when I tried to setup QOS it failed to reconnect. I spent about an hour on the phone, first with my ISP (Cox Communications) to determine that the cable modem was not at fault, then with Netgear where I learned that if the power light stays amber, there is a hardware problem. I returned it to Amazon which promptly sent a new unit. That one connected right away as expected. I got all my devices connected on the 2.4 gHZ band as on my old router, then attempted to switch them over to the 5 gHZ band, which has only one other access point operating in my neighborhood. They all failed authentication even though the credentials were the same! It was too late at night to pursue it further at that point.

The next day it was still behaving the same. More troubling was that the signal would periodically just disappear. So I rebooted the router. After that my phones and tablets connected on the 5gHZ band right away. But after an hour or so, both radios started dropping out again. I rebooted again and it has worked flawlessly ever since (almost 2 weeks).

I can now use my tablet in the farthest corner of the backyard without an extender on the 2.4gHZ band. Best of all, it is once again possible to watch NBC News via Roku without relentless buffering and my outdoor Nest cams don't go offline daily.

Now that it is working, the one dissatisfaction remaining is with the router's logging. It contains much less information that my old Linksys. Furthermore it seems nearly impossible to use it's supposed email capability with most current email services due to no support of TLS/SSL. I have read in the Netgear forums that some people have gotten it to work with gMail by essentially killing it's security. I am not able to send to my cox.net account even with the correct credentials.

I purchased this after reading a review of it over at the Wire Cutter. They liked it, I love it.

I was in need of a new router. My old Apple router was starting to act a little odd, and as it was about four years old, I figured it was time for an upgrade. Am I glad I bought this? Hell yes.

Getting it up and running was simple. I plugged it in and it ran the configuration program when I opened Chrome. It walked me through the process, which took about five minutes (mostly because I was double checking everything to make sure I was configuring it correctly.) It also ran a firmware upgrade, which took about 10 minutes. Just like that, I was online.

My desktop computer is gigabit wired and it pegs out the data speed that I get from the local cable company (150 down/25 up). No big deal there.

The WiFi, however, is incredible. Where I had dead spots in the house before, I get full strength signals from the Netgear router now. The signal strength (5 ghz) is very strong.

Speed over Wifi is awesome. With the 2.4 ghz Apple router, I was getting 40-60 gbps on average. With the Netgear, I now peg out the speeds - same as a wired connection. 150+ down and 25+ up. Ping speeds are all under 15 ms.

There is an app you can download that allows you to set up parental controls with OpenDNS, etc. It gives you a visual representation of everything attached to the network, allows you to set up a guest access point, etc.

Overall, this is a great router and would be a good choice at twice the price.