Netgear Nighthawk X6S EX8000

amazon Netgear Nighthawk X6S EX8000 reviews

Range extenders are great for bringing WiFi connectivity to areas of your home that your router can’t reach, but to do so, they often create a separate network that you have to connect to when moving from room to room manually. Not so with the Netgear Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Mesh Extender (EX8000) ($228). Like Netgear’s Orbi mesh WiFi system, this tri-band range extender uses a dedicated 5GHz radio band to communicate with your Router. It also uses the same SSID as your Router, which means you don’t have to connect to different networks when you’re roaming around your home. It’s a good performer, if a bit pricey, but it can’t match the speed and range of our choice, Athena-EX Wireless WiFi Range Extender High Power AC2600 (RE2600M).

Family-friendly design

The EX8000 ($199.99 at Amazon) is a sizable extender measuring 8.9 x 6.6 x 3.6 inches (HWD). The black housing stands upright on a fixed semicircle base and cannot be wall-mounted. No external antenna like you get on the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 WiFi Range Extender (EX7000) ($139.99 at Amazon); instead, all six antennas are inside, giving the extender a more living room-friendly look.

There are eight small LED indicators on the front of the extender. The Link Status LED tells you the signal strength between the extender and the Router and is useful when deciding where to place it. A solid white light indicates the best connection, solid amber means you have a good connection, and solid red means a poor connection. The maximum transmission rate LED glows uniformly white when the extender uses the 5GHz band to repair and turns off when using the 2.4GHz band. There are activity indicators for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, WPS, and USB ports, and there’s a Client Link LED that glows white when a WiFi client is connected to the extender, and an LED Ethernet indicates that the device is connected to one of the LAN ports. Around the back are four gigabit LAN ports, a USB 2.0 port, WPS button, power button.

The EX8000 is an AC3000 tri-band extender that offers speeds up to 400Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, 866Mbps on the 5GHz bands, and 1,733Mbps the 5GHz band. It is equipped with a quad-core CPU and supports the latest 802.11ac technology, including MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple Input, Multiple Output) data transmission and beamforming. What sets this extender apart from others is that it uses Netgear’s FastLane3 technology (the same technology used by the Orbi WiFi system) to connect to your Router via a dedicated 5GHz radio. Other range extenders typically use the same radio bands as wireless clients and compete with clients for bandwidth.

You don’t get as many settings with the EX8000 as you do with the Amped Wireless RE2600M. The web-based management console opens to a Status screen that displays each band’s signal strength, connection status, SSID name, and security type.

There’s a Smart Setup wizard at the top of the page and a menu on the left with Install, Firmware Update, and Overtime options. In Settings, you can configure wireless settings like SSID, Password, WiFi Channel, and WiFi Speed. Still, you don’t get advanced settings like Fragmentation Threshold and RTS, Alarm Range The signal and guest networking capabilities you get with the Amped Wireless RE2600M range extender.

The Connected Devices screen shows IP and MAC Address information for the extender and all connected clients, and the Password screen is where you go to change passwords and security questions of the extender.

You can use the Other section to back up the extension’s settings and restore it to its original default settings. The Firmware Update page allows you to search for and install the latest firmware. The Overtime screen has options to create access schedules, enable/disable USB ports, configure Media Server settings, and more. Convenience and configure WPS settings. Netgear offers a free WiFi Analytics mobile app that allows you to monitor WiFi signal strength and identify the best channels for optimal performance.

Easy to install

You can install the EX8000 using the WPS push button method; press the WPS button on the extender and then press the WPS button on your router within two minutes. If your Router does not support WPS, use Netgear Setup Assistant, which is also quick and easy and is the method I have used. To start, I placed the extender close to my Router, plugged it in, and connected my desktop to one of the extender’s LAN ports (you can also do this wirelessly with how to connect to the extender’s SSID). I typed www.mywifiext.net into my browser’s address bar, which launches the extension installation wizard. I clicked on Set up a new extension, created an account with my email address, password, and two security questions.

Then I choose my home network from the list of scanned networks that I want to extend (you can extend both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands or just one) and make sure that the Enable one WiFi box is chosen. That allows the extender to use the same name and password as the main network. You can choose to create a separate extension network with different SSIDs and passwords if you wish. After a 90 second delay, while the setting is applied, the installation is complete. At this point, you can unplug the extender and place it between the Router and the dead zone, but make sure the Link Status LED is white to ensure the best possible connection.

Excellent close range

The EX8000 delivered respectable close-range scores in our transfer rate test, but long-range performance is mixed. In our 2.4GHz (same room) proximity test, the EX8000’s 78Mbps score beats the Netgear EX7300 (plug-in extender) and falls right behind the Amped Wireless RE2600M and TP-Link RE580D. At 50 feet, the EX8000 overcome the Amped RE2600M by a few points; at 75 feet, its 20Mbps score beats the EX7300 but falls behind the TP-Link RE580D and Amped RE2600M.

Despite operating on the 5GHz band, the EX8000’s 367Mbps score is very close to the TP-Link RE580D and faster than the Netgear EX7300, but the Amped RE2600M takes the top score. At 50 feet, the EX8000 passed the pack with 80Mbps, but its 75Mbps score on the 75-foot test passed the Netgear EX7300 and TP-Link RE580D. The Amped RE2600M takes the top honors with a score of 128Mbps in this test.

To test the EX8000’s MU-MIMO performance, I used three identical Acer Aspire E15 laptops equipped with the Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 wireless 802.11ac network adapter as my client. It achieved 78Mbps in the proximity test, behind the Netgear EX7300, Linksys RE7000, and Amped RE2600M. Similar results at 30 feet: The EX8000’s 73Mbps score isn’t too far off the rest of the pack, but it’s the lowest score of the bunch.

An extender with Mesh system privileges

With the Netgear Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Mesh Extender (EX8000), you can get the same kind of seamless WiFi coverage you get from a mesh WiFi system without having to replace your current Router. It uses a dedicated 5GHz radio band to communicate with your Router, which frees up two other bands (2.4GHz and 5GHz) for client traffic, and it supports data stream and beamforming MU-MIMO. Wireless transfer rate performance was good in our testing but not excellent.

where can you get a Netgear Nighthawk X6S EX8000 online

NETGEAR WiFi Mesh Range Extender EX8000 – Coverage up to 2500 sq.ft. and 50 Devices with AC3000 Tri-Band Wireless Signal Booster & Repeater (Up to 3000 Mbps Speed), Plus Mesh Smart Roaming: Buy it now

NETGEAR Wi-Fi Mesh Range Extender EX8000 – Coverage up to 2500 sq.ft. and 50 devices with AC3000 Tri-Band Wireless Signal Booster & Repeater (up to 3000Mbps speed), plus Mesh Smart Roaming (Renewed): Buy it now