Routers for home networks

Steelsnow

Gold Member
Saw @Matt was looking at the Netgear Nighthawk router yesterday, and picked one up later on. Figured with as many folks on here are interested in internet access, transactions and security, this could be an interesting topic. Happen to pick up a Nighthawk myself 5 months ago, stacked coupons @ Staples for $130 + the AMEX cash back. It's been rock solid with the stock firmware updated (not running tomato or any anything else), no restarts necessary, and has handled 30+ devices (gulp!) without a hick-up. It is overkill for most home networks at this point unless you have a lot of AC devices and a home server. The range has been very good, as we run several internet radio streamers in different places in the house and they do not buffer out like prior routers did.

Had a Netgear R6300 before this, and it went back. Lots of lockups. Guessing it was firmware issues.

One thing I wanted to add that I learned from my ISP (which is very security conscious) - based on what they told me, with some router brands your ISP can see your devices thru the router itself. This is good for support if you are having an issue, say, with a certain laptop, but potentially bad for other things. I was told that they cannot see anything thru the Netgear routers, just the router itself. I am sure there are people that know more about reasons for this and configurations, but I did find this interesting....

Anyways, feel free to share your gear and experiences. Old tech works too, was using a 2005 Linksys WRT54g until the beginning of this year, which was still working pretty well....
 

Barb

Level 2 Member
I have had the Netgear Nighthawk since February 2014 and it's been more reliable than its predecessor, a $25 Trendnet TEW-711BR I got from Newegg in 2012. When all of us are home , (which is not the majority of the time), we have numerous tablets, phones, laptops, tv, etc. etc. all going at the same time. The Nighthawk handles multiple devices well, particularly considering the streaming that goes on around here. With the Trendnet, we had to be careful with how many devices were "on" but with a small number of devices, it performed admirably. We have had to occasionally restart the Nighthawk and I suppose I should investigate updating the firmware. I basically took it out of the box, fired it up and that was that. I think for a small household with few devices and limited streaming, the cheaper units do just fine.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
I have had the Netgear Nighthawk since February 2014 and it's been more reliable than its predecessor, a $25 Trendnet TEW-711BR I got from Newegg in 2012. When all of us are home , (which is not the majority of the time), we have numerous tablets, phones, laptops, tv, etc. etc. all going at the same time. The Nighthawk handles multiple devices well, particularly considering the streaming that goes on around here. With the Trendnet, we had to be careful with how many devices were "on" but with a small number of devices, it performed admirably. We have had to occasionally restart the Nighthawk and I suppose I should investigate updating the firmware. I basically took it out of the box, fired it up and that was that. I think for a small household with few devices and limited streaming, the cheaper units do just fine.
Very easy to update firmware:

http://www.routerlogin.net/

user: admin
pw: password
 

PWMTrav

Moderator
Staff member
I use a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 as well. I was using a time capsule, but I was getting some dropouts and the 5GHz range wasn't spectacular. I still have an Airport Express extending the 5GHz network upstairs, connected to the router with powerline ethernet (which honestly bottlenecks the backhaul at full load, but we don't have a lot of network activity upstairs).

I'm not overly impressed with the AC1900's 5 GHz range, but I'm guessing there are power limits and I could probably increase the output with aftermarket firmware. Not a big deal with the access point upstairs.

It's overkill, but we don't have cable - we stream everything, so it's important to not have things dropping out, even with a dozen devices (not all streaming, but cell phones, printers, laptops, rokus, fire tv, etc).
 

JakeFromStateFarm

Points Junkie
I've been using my T-Mobile CellSpot router (https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-15754), aka Asus RT-AC68U, for a little over 6 months and I'm thrilled with its performance so far. We don't have a huge home, but it is spread over 3 levels, and this is one of the only ones I have used that reaches from the 3rd floor, where it's plugged in, down to the first floor with ease. Most routers I've used have great range side-to-side, but struggle to penetrate ceilings and floors.
 

CWAL

Level 2 Member
I've been using a TP-Link WR1043ND with openWRT as the firmware for the last couple years and have been really happy with it. I think I paid $60 or so for it, it's obviously less now. It's got USB and a pretty decently beefy CPU.
I will not buy a router that doesn't support openWRT. The flexibility it allows for is far above and beyond any stock firmware I've ever seen on a consumer router. I even prefer it to DDWRT by far.
The main features I use are using it as an openVPN and ssh server, but knowing it has the ability to do nearly anything I ask of it is a massive benefit to me.
 

volker

Level 2 Member
I've been using a TP-Link WR1043ND with openWRT as the firmware for the last couple years and have been really happy with it. I think I paid $60 or so for it, it's obviously less now. It's got USB and a pretty decently beefy CPU.
I will not buy a router that doesn't support openWRT. The flexibility it allows for is far above and beyond any stock firmware I've ever seen on a consumer router. I even prefer it to DDWRT by far.
The main features I use are using it as an openVPN and ssh server, but knowing it has the ability to do nearly anything I ask of it is a massive benefit to me.
I fully agree on the *WRT part, but it's most times not end user friendly and comes with risks -- especially between the different hardware version of the same router.
 

CWAL

Level 2 Member
I fully agree on the *WRT part, but it's most times not end user friendly and comes with risks -- especially between the different hardware version of the same router.
For non technically minded end users, true. It's sometimes hard for me to imagine the viewpoint of someone who really knows next to nothing about what/how a router does what it does.

I find the web ui to be only slightly more complicated than a stock firmware, and in many cases, quite better.

Most end users just set the ssid/encryption, which isn't any more difficult, but most end users aren't going to even bother installing in the first place.

If someone can make it through the install process I'd imagine they can probably operate it well enough.
 
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