CES 2022: Netgear Launches Nighthawk RAXE300 WiFi 6E Router

[EugW]

I get people all the time trying to extend a wifi signal out to a shed or an out building and try to use a WIFI extender which do not work. Have them run ethernet, or maybe try ethernet over power line if the out building is on the same electrical panel.

I ran Ethernet to a shed and put an AirPort Extreme in there. Works great even all through our Canadian winter.

I had previously run Ethernet further out in the yard too, and recently I stuck an 802.11n AirPort Extreme there.

However, last year I noticed it had started working only intermittently, and when it did, only connected at 100 Mbps Ethernet. Turns out somebody had chewed through the wires.

Powerline networking never worked reliably for me.

 

[svish]

Could have been a better design

 

[Viale Montanane]

It's designed that way so it will harmonize with kewl modern desk chairs like the one in the background in the article's lead image. Actually, if you take two of those chairs and put them together facing each other, I think they turn into a router. Probably.

 

[jz0309]

Which ship is that in Star Wars?

I seem to recall Luke as a Jedi taking one of those.

EDIT:

Here we go. Not quite the same as it has that top fin, but nonetheless it definitely reminded me of this:

View attachment 1938523View attachment 1938522

yep, you beat me posting that

 

[BobSc]

Granted, most routers are hidden away but this one is one ugly looking router.

I like it's looks. I'd be happy to display it.

 

[OliOliOliOli]

Already useless in my home I have 10gb/s

 

[teeoh717]

Everyone talking about how ugly it is... but is anyone else growing increasingly frustrated that practically none of these remarkably expensive routers feature 10GbE? Not even just one single high-speed port to accommodate a switch? I have been waiting nearly a decade to replace my hard-wired gigabit ethernet home network, but year after year it just hasn't been brought widespread to affordable consumer products. In terms of upgrading, the marginally faster 2.5 Gb ports just aren't worth the hassle and cost of CAT6A+ cables. Seems asinine to still be using 1 Gb ports on a device that supports 7+ Gb Mbit Wi-Fi...

I realize 6GHz 802.11ax is an incredible leap forward in wireless technology, but nothing beats hard-wired ethernet.

 

[djphat2000]

Linksys...lol...same crap, tip, get some semi professional gear like Ubiquiti, that is, if you're a bit into networking, but even without you should be able to manage.

Everyone around me tells me the same. I just don't have patience for it.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Which ship is that in Star Wars?

I seem to recall Luke as a Jedi taking one of those.

EDIT:

Here we go. Not quite the same as it has that top fin, but nonetheless it definitely reminded me of this:

View attachment 1938523View attachment 1938522

I was just about too...

Or something Star Trek-ish, or 70's mod furniture-ish...

Or aquatic!

 

[Bustycat]

It’s very beautiful comparing to those ‘gaming routers’.

 

[PC_tech]

Assuming this is similar to the RAXE500, the frustrating thing about the design is that it cannot be vertically wall mounted.
I replaced an R7800 which was wall mounted with a RAX500, but I had to build a shelf for it to sit on. There's nothing online that mentions this limitation. It now sticks out from the wall in a hallway and is much more of an eyesore than the old router.
I'm not sure if this limitation is because of ventilation (the RAX500 has a fan) or the way the antennas are fixed inside the wings and can't be repositioned.

The manual says you can wall mount the raxe500, what makes you assume it’s not wall mountable?

 

[justperry]

Everyone around me tells me the same. I just don't have patience for it.

Maybe the ubiquiti amplifi is an option for you, haven't looked into them lately, maybe they are a bit outdated, as in no wifi 6/ax. Actually, they do have.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I sent our Linksys Velop set to the local Goodwill. It was a POS. Kept failing, nodes kept dropping. Someone might score, if it ends up on their shelves. Residential wifi is so hit and miss, or miss and miss...

 

[EugW]

I sent our Linksys Velop set to the local Goodwill. It was a POS. Kept failing, nodes kept dropping. Someone might score, if it ends up on their shelves. Residential wifi is so hit and miss, or miss and miss...

That's why I've stuck with the Apple AirPort Extremes for now.

The Ubiquiti hardware at the time was gonna cost me something like $1000 CAD when I investigated this (a couple of years ago) to cover my large home, for similar speeds, and the other brands were hit and miss and miss and miss, as you say and were still going to cost many hundreds of dollars.

Sticking with Apple hardware foregoes some features and my type of pseudo-mesh setup only works properly with Apple devices*, but considering I already had an Apple setup that was dead simple to administer, and adding additional units to the system was cheap with eBay/Kijiji, it was an easy decision to stick with Apple.

*With Apple devices I get decent handoff as I roam around the house. If I am in the same room as an AirPort Extreme unit I can get 500+ Mbps but if I walk to another room, the speeds can sometimes drop below 100 Mbps, and stay there for a time (minutes). However, it will never drop the connection, and eventually it will switch to the fastest connection in its vicinity. It's just not immediate like it is supposed to be with say, Ubiquiti. This doesn't bother me though, since it's not as if I'm transferring large files over the network while I'm walking around the house. If I'm roaming like that I'm going to be in a Zoom meeting or watching YouTube or whatever so dropping to even 50 Mbps isn't a problem.

In contrast, if I use an Android or Windows client, the client will hang onto to the last connection until the bitter end. It will drop down to say 2 Mbps and then 0 and then disconnect, and then finally reconnect. Or in the case of Linux it will disconnect and sometimes never reconnect until I manually do so. This would obviously suck but luckily none of my non-Apple clients are actually mobile devices. They're all stationary, like TVs and media streamers (Amazon FireTV, Chromecast) and what not.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

That's why I've stuck with the Apple AirPort Extremes for now.

The Ubiquiti hardware at the time was gonna cost me something like $1000 CAD when I investigated this (a couple of years ago) to cover my large home, for similar speeds, and the other brands were hit and miss and miss and miss, as you say and were still going to cost many hundreds of dollars.

Sticking with Apple hardware foregoes some features and my type of pseudo-mesh setup only works properly with Apple devices*, but considering I already had an Apple setup that was dead simple to administer, and adding additional units to the system was cheap with eBay/Kijiji, it was an easy decision to stick with Apple.

*With Apple devices I get decent handoff as I roam around the house. If I am in the same room as an AirPort Extreme unit I can get 500+ Mbps but if I walk to another room, the speeds can sometimes drop below 100 Mbps, and stay there for a time (minutes). However, it will never drop the connection, and eventually it will switch to the fastest connection in its vicinity. It's just not immediate like it is supposed to be with say, Ubiquiti. This doesn't bother me though, since it's not as if I'm transferring large files over the network while I'm walking around the house. If I'm roaming like that I'm going to be in a Zoom meeting or watching YouTube or whatever so dropping to even 50 Mbps isn't a problem.

In contrast, if I use an Android or Windows client, the client will hang onto to the last connection until the bitter end. It will drop down to say 2 Mbps and then 0 and then disconnect, and then finally reconnect. Or in the case of Linux it will disconnect and sometimes never reconnect until I manually do so. This would obviously suck but luckily none of my non-Apple clients are actually mobile devices. They're all stationary, like TVs and media streamers (Amazon FireTV, Chromecast) and what not.

I have them all on the same SSID, and roam at will with no problems. The velop junk was just junk. If the 'wifi gods' were smiling on me, the main node was up, and I still had a tenuous connection to it. When they took a crap on me, the main node would be off contemplating its navel, and the child nodes would be as useful for wifi as a cement brick. And that stuff wasn't cheap.

I spent over 5 hours on the phone with their support early on. Got it all working, and just before the call ended, the main node dropped. 'That's not supposed to happen'. No kidding. They replaced the main node only, and I got it all back up, and it kept crashing. The next call to their support resulted in the agent hanging up on me. They kept saying that I must 'not be setting it up right'. Kept insisting that the nodes were 'too far apart'. *Groan* Finally dusted them off a month ago, updated the firmware (one took a higher version than the others) and tried again. Still had nodes dropping at random. *TOSS*

 

[dysamoria]

I find it horrible too. When I used to pc game a while back I just wanted to build with a simple elegant case that was quiet. Most causes out there looked like they were out of transformers, all Klingon angles, led lit fans, clear plastic sides, lol.

It’s like “pimp my ride” for PC gamers. It’s bizarre as hell. But I assume it’s the same nonsense: toxic masculinity guys whose identity and self worth is interwoven with their car = the nerd version of toxic masculinity guys whose identity and self worth is interwoven with their gaming PC.

 

[dysamoria]

Does it actually sodding WORK in a 2400 sq ft 2 story home with dozens of WiFi devices?
I've dumped enough into a 6-node Linksys Velop mesh network, only to keep having network access stall randomly on random devices. Spent months adding & rearranging nodes to little result.

Welcome to the stupid future the tech industry has “given” us.

 

[dysamoria]

I bought an Orbi mesh system a few years ago to replace my Airport Extremes. It was £400 for a pack of three. Seemed a little expensive but ok considering the cost of three Airport Extremes. Unfortunately, After a year I decided that the coverage just wasn't good enough as we had a dead spot in our kitchen. So I looked to buy another satellite as they'd always said you could buy extra. It was discontinued. So unless you buy exactly the sized mesh system you're going to need then you're out of luck. I bought a 6000 square foot system for a 2000 square foot house and it wasn't good enough so I'd now be *very* wary of spending any more on another Orbi mesh system that supposedly can cover x thousands of square feet.

FFS. More of the “modern” tech industry nightmare for which I have zero tolerance...

 

[dysamoria]

In my experience, the key to the Orbi routers is to NOT change the unique admin password that comes with the main router. That makes using their app and updating the firmware with it run much more smoothly. I thought I had bought a total lemon of a system until I did a factory reset and stuck with the original admin password that it came with.

Isn’t changing the factory admin password step ONE of making sure your router is “secure”???

 

[dysamoria]

What most people forget there is only so many channels on WIFI, and you are sharing those channels with the homes around you and the more routers and devices around your home the more it effects your bandwidth on the channels you share with people around you. I just built a beautiful AMD gaming tower and the motherboard had WIFI6e and Thunderbolt 4 right on it, So I will be upgrading to WIFI 6e later this year.

Looks like my gaming PC is going to be a lot more expandable than the up and coming Mac Pro Tower. I loved my 2009, Mac Pro tower, but with a 3080 Ti card, and upgradable RAM and 5 m.2 SSD slots on the motherboard, I have left pretty much left the Apple world because of the lock down of the Apple systems and none expandablity.

Right, limited bandwidth is a physical limit. The “wireless everything” push is a pathological pursuit. So of course the tech industry is full speed ahead on pushing wireless everything...

 

[dysamoria]

I still have two Airport Extremes and an old Verizon-branded DSL router I use for backup coverage. The Airports work fine for my needs. One in basement, one on third floor. House was wired with Ethernet (by a girlfriend and myself when the walls were open in a county rehab project, years ago). iMac is on Ethernet. Whatever is plugged into the Vizio TV is on Ethernet (but I’ve since removed the Tv from networking at all because screw those bastards and their lousy TVs; it’s a dumb monitor now).

Cable internet. Only me, most of the time, but occasionally a visiting friend or girlfriend uses it concurrently with whatever I’m doing online. No problems, usually.

 

[EugW]

What most people forget there is only so many channels on WIFI, and you are sharing those channels with the homes around you and the more routers and devices around your home the more it effects your bandwidth on the channels you share with people around you. I just built a beautiful AMD gaming tower and the motherboard had WIFI6e and Thunderbolt 4 right on it, So I will be upgrading to WIFI 6e later this year.

I guess it depends on the neighbourhood but it hasn't been an issue at all for me. Note though, I live in a neighbourhood with moderately big lots with detached homes. We still have about a dozen visible WiFi networks from my house, but a lot of them are weak enough not to matter. In contrast, my friends in condos might see 2-3X as many networks, with several of them fairly strong.

The other factor in my case is that with multiple AirPort Extremes in the setup, even people in different spots of the same house usually aren't actually sharing WiFi bandwidth when at their desks. The main thing that is shared is the internet connection, but I've spec'd my cable bandwidth at 500 Mbps down, so that is not an issue either. Actually I had 1000 Mbps service before, but that was overkill so I downgraded to 500 Mbps service to save a few bucks, and notice no difference at all with 4 people in the house simultaneously online. My main worry was downgrading the upload from 30 to 20 Mbps, but it turns out that hasn't been an issue either, even with myself on VPN, my son on Zoom, and my daughter on Google Meet simultaneously.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I find it horrible too. When I used to pc game a while back I just wanted to build with a simple elegant case that was quiet. Most causes out there looked like they were out of transformers, all Klingon angles, led lit fans, clear plastic sides, lol.

Preach!!!

I was looking at building a system, and so many of the chassis are HIDEOUS!!! That probably started shortly after I closed my company down, because we did get an ASUS 'Lanboy'? case, with a plexi side panel. It was also the only chassis I could find in the warehouse to get it next day. It's typical ASUS, thin aluminum foil sides, and thin wire, but it worked. Came with a web strap 'carry harness'. And they have only gotten worse. Yuck...

 

[djphat2000]

Maybe the ubiquiti amplifi is an option for you, haven't looked into them lately, maybe they are a bit outdated, as in no wifi 6/ax. Actually, they do have.

That's a good looking router. Not outrageously priced either.
Thank you for that.

 

[Cicnod]

That's a good looking router. Not outrageously priced either.
Thank you for that.

Not 6E. You want to wait for 6E.