![]() ![]() On the second floor, the performance was stable at 168Mbps. Moving to the first floor in my house, the dual-band system started to show its limits and I got an average throughput of 181.6Mbps. My guide, what is Wi-Fi 6?, explains more.Įven so, close-up, testing with a 2×2 (two-stream) Wi-Fi 6 laptop, performance was very good, with an average throughput of 412Mbps. More streams are generally better, as it lets the mesh system share out the bandwidth more efficiently. That’s exactly half what you get on the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 6 (RBK852) system. On the 5GHz band, there’s a two-stream network running at a maximum speed of 1.2Gbps (600Mbps per stream), and there’s a two-stream 2.4GHz network (600Mbps in total or 300Mbps per stream). This means that all available bandwidth has to be shared between your devices and communication between satellites. To keep the price down, the Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 System is a dual-band system, which means that there’s no dedicated wireless channel for communication between satellites and the router (known as the backhaul). Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 System – Very fast in the right circumstances That really is it for this system, and you get a lot more features if you buy a different mesh system. You can set the wireless channel manually for both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, you can turn on port forwarding, and you can turn on BT IGMP support, which you need if you want to watch streamed BT TV YouView channels. Open up the web interface, and you can also turn on QoS, which uses your internet speed to automatically ensure that no one client can leach your entire bandwidth.įrom the web interface, you get a few more advanced features too. You can view connected devices and pause the ones that you don’t want to have access to the internet, but that’s about it.įrom the app, you can speed-test your internet connection, but this will merely tell you how fast your broadband is. ![]() The Nighthawk system, unlike the Netgear Orbi, doesn’t have any security system built in, nor does it have any parental controls. Once the system is up and running, you’ll notice that it’s very basic. Annoyingly, these lights don’t turn off automatically and there’s no way to turn them off in the app, either. Each satellite has a status light on the front that shows you the signal strength: you want a strong blue light, which shows you the connection between satellites and router is good. Satellites come pre-paired, so you just need to turn them on at the right time and they’ll connect automatically. The wizard also helps you configure your own network details, so you don’t have to stick with the defaults. ![]() As there’s a default, secure wireless network out of the box, it doesn’t take long to run through the wizard and connect the system to your internet connection. You need the Nighthawk app to set up the system. Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 System Features – Extremely basic but simple to setup Related: Should you buy a Wi-Fi 6 router? Every device is the same size (121 x 121 x 64mm), making this mesh system very easy to find space for. In either case, the satellites are in identical boxes to the router, only they have only a single Ethernet port.Īgain, if you want to connect more wired devices, you’ll have to upgrade and add some external switches. The choice of the pack either gets you one or two satellites (MK62 and MK63, respectively). If you want to plug in more wired devices, you’ll have to upgrade and buy an external switch. Around the back, there’s a single Gigabit Ethernet port for connecting to the internet (rather than a more modern 2.5Gbit port), and a single Gigabit Ethernet port for wired devices. The downside is that you don’t get much in the way of ports. With the funky patterned top, the routers look great and don’t take up much room. Both ship with a cuboid router, that’s packed into a small black box. The Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 System is sold as two systems. ![]() Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 System Design – Very compact cubes Recent months have seen prices drop, and now the Netgear Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 System is the cheapest that we’ve seen, approaching levels of Wi-Fi 5 models.ĭecent performance with the right setup can make this a bargain, although it’s a very basic mesh system lacking many of the more advanced features that other mesh systems have. When they first started to appear, Wi-Fi 6 routers were exceptionally expensive, and mesh systems even more so. ![]()
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