NETGEARAC1200 Wireless WiFi Range Extender (EX6200)

An excellent Network Extender/Bridge. See my review for Asus RT-AC68U, which is the router I pair it with to provide a wireless bridge from my house to an external workshop, so I can plug in a wired PC as well as provide a stronger 2.4GHz network in my shop. Am using it in FastLane mode (5GHz dedicated connection to my router and 2.4GHz extended WiFi network in my workshop or vise versa), which supposedly provides better performance than the default mode (which extends both the 2.4 and 5GHz networks on two new ssid's). Advertised speeds are not very realistic, but performance and signal strength are drastically improved from my previous 802.11b/g/n network. While configuring both devices inches from each other, I got about 867Mbps, and after installing them in each building - with a direct line-of-site between the devices in two windows about 50 feet apart, and fiddling with the antennas a bit - I consistently get 702-867Mbps, which is about 70-80% of 1GB wired Ethernet speed, so I can't complain. You can also plug in a USB flash drive or external drive into it to provide shared network storage and media server, but I do not use this feature since my router does the same job. Initial setup using WPS was simple, but I had to configure it with the UI to get it working the way I wanted (FastLane setup and different network ssid's). It should theoretically work with any 2.4GHz or 5GHz WiFi router running 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, but you probably want to get a dual-band 802.11ac router if you want to get maximum performance like my Asus RT-AC68U or a LinkSys WRT1900AC, which I also considered getting and which reportedly works well with this router.Note that the WiFi network(s) it extends use a different network ssid(s) than the original network ("yournetwork_2GEXT" or "yournetwork_5GEXT" by default unless you rename them), so you will have to configure your devices to use that network as well as your normal one. In other words, I have separate "wifi-home" and "wifi-workshop" networks, both 2.4GHz). There's no obvious way to disable the WiFi Extender part of the device (so you can just use it as a dedicated WiFi bridge without extending the WiFi network(s) using new ssid(s)), but you can disable it by unchecking the "Enable 2.4GHz WiFi" (or 5GHz) checkbox in the "Wireless" configuration section, which will then let you use the device purely as a bridge for wired 10/100/1000 Ethernet devices. Had some problems downloading the automatic firmware update, but eventually got it working, but you can also download them directly from Netgear's web site and install it using the web-based UI if you want. The UI is OK, but one thing that bugs me is that I can configure my extended WiFi network settings (ssid, password, etc), storage, etc in the UI maintenance screens, but I'm required to go through the "Smart Setup" wizard to configure or change any settings for the connection to the router, which seems pretty dumb, but it's not worth losing a star over. It does that for both the old and new firmware. One nice feature they seem to have added in the new firmware is the ability to configure whether you want to extend the new wireless network(s) to use 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% power for your new extended network ssid(s).WARNING: There are numerous reports of some users getting dramatically reduced performance after upgrading the firmware to 1.0.3.68_1.1.104 (from 1.0.1.60_1.1.98) so I recommend configuring the device first for maximum performance, after which you can upgrade the firmware and see if performance is affected, since it will keep all your configuration settings. If the performance does drop after the firmware upgrade, it allows you to install the older firmware version (which you can download from Netgear). For me, it actually seems like I got improved performance and link speed with the firmware upgrade, especially when using the Windows (Samba) file share I setup on my router for shared network storage. The shared network storage was kinda flaky and slow with the older firmware (but regular WiFi worked just fine), but it drastically improved and performs like a regular 1GB wired network file share with the new firmware. The firmware upgrade does include a completely different UI too, so don't be surprised.Pros: Easy setup, (5) 1GB wired Ethernet ports, USB 2.0 shared storage, 2.4/5GHz channels, affordable, Can be used as a WiFi extender/bridge or just a wireless bridge.Cons: Kinda Big, Antennas on side instead of top when in upright mode, UI required for FastLane configuration, Smart Setup required to configure router connection in UI, Wish the USB port was on the back with everything else instead of the front.

I am an electrical contractor that specializes in home automation, home theater, whole house audio, and networking and I do a lot of work on difficult wireless environments. Typically I use mesh networks that are all hardwired and point to point beam. Ubiquity products are some of my favorites and I have been able to solve many many very difficult wireless range issues with ubiquity access points that provide zero loss handoff between access points.With that said, I have to say after repeatedly giving up on previous "extenders" this one really impressed me. In a remote area where my cabin is I was unable to get DSL internet due to lack of lines going to my remote neighborhood. My neighbor allowed us to use his wireless internet but we could only connect in one corner of the house and it was sketchy at best. I brought with me on my last vacation one of the netgear ac1200 range extenders and also two Umbiquity nanostations to create a point to point connection between the two homes which would have required another wireless access point on my side in addition to the point to point access points I had brought. I would also have to run ethernet wires from my neighbors router through the attic and to the outside of his home to mount one of the umbiquity access points and then mount another access point on my home to receive the signal and feed it into another access point for the homes wireless. This process was going to be lengthy, time consuming, and expensive... but worst of all I was going to have to drill holes and run cables at my neighbors house and probably annoy him somewhat in the process. I really wanted to avoid that, so after finding the netgear ac1200 highly rated I decided it would be worth a try.I simply set the netgear AC1200 in the corner of the house where i could get a very weak signal before and went through the very easy setup process and suddenly i had four times the throughput as i did before and of course 5 bars of signal throughout my entire cabin. Could not be more happy. BY FAR the best 'range extender' product i have ever used. Best of all you don't need to have access to the sending router to make it work, you just need the wireless password.With the way repeaters work you lose around half the throughput because it has to use the same radio to send and receive back to the originating wireless router/access point. I discovered that the router has some interesting advanced settings that can enable you to use one radio (2.4ghz or 5ghz)to communicate with the originall wireless router/access point and the other one to connect with local clients in your extended area. I did countless tests using each radio to either send or receive and i saw little difference setting AC1200 to use the 2.4 ghz radio to communicate with the original wireless router/access point. But when i used the 5ghz radio to connect to the original router (must be dual band) i saw a significant increase in throughput speeds.To see these settings... click the 'advanced' tab on the settings page (bottom left hand side of page), then select 'operating mode'. By default it is set to 'internet surfing mode' which uses both radios in the newly created extended zone and creates two wireless SSID's, one for 2.4ghz, and one for 5ghz bands. If you want to try the 'Fastline Technology' mode you will need to select that and then i would recommend selecting "Device-to-extender in 2.4GHz only and extender-to-router in 5GHz only (Router must support 5GHz band)". Again, your router must support the 5ghz band in order to do this. Then the AC1200 creates a new extended network using the 2.4 ghz radio. The original wireless router with a hardwired connection was giving me about 5 mbs down speed, and through the AC1200 in 'internet surfing mode' i was seeing speeds around 2.8 to 3 mbs in the new extended area. With the 'fastline technology' mode and using the 5ghz radio to communicate with the original router wirelessly i was able to get around 4.5 mbps downspeed. And again, i measured very little speed difference when i used the 2.4 ghz radio to communicate with the original router and the 5ghz radio to create the newly extended wireless area. I did spend some time moving the AC1200 around to find the best location. The router i am connecting to is about 140 yards away through a forest and the 5ghz band doesn't penetrate objects well so a direct line of site is needed to set up this way. You can use the signal meter on the router itself in the setup page to help you find the best spot, and i also use the smartphone app called 'wifi analyzer' to help as well.Hope that helps. But overall a fantastic product that far exceeded my expectations.

Overall, I am very happy with this product. However, the path was not smooth. For background, I have wireless router in my den producing 150Mbps. My problem is that in my upstairs bedroom the performance was down to only about 20Mbps. I wanted the extender to improve the upstairs throughput. When I initially set up the AC1200 I could only get about 10Mbps to 15Mbps from it. And that was from only 2 feet away from my router. After crawling thorough the web site and the manual I discovered the FastLane mode. This permanently assigns one of the two bands to be connected to the router, while the other one is available to connect to your wireless devices. It improves the speed at the expense of flexibility. The results were dramatic. I am now getting 85Mbps in the bedroom. A 4X improvement. Very acceptable. So, ultimately, the AC1200 is getting the job done. My disappointment is that I didn't get good performance right out of the box. The device obviously has the capability, I really don't know why I had to resort to FastLane mode for good performance. Secondly, the configuration program has some issues. It died in the middle of the configuration process a few times, and in addition, I received "404 No Page Found" errors multiple times. I ignored the errors and kept on going. No harm done, but this shouldn't be happening. The net is that even with its few glitches, this is a very capable device, significantly improving the performance of my wireless network.

Es un excelente producto llevo usándolo como 3 meses y todo ha ido bien, mejoró mucho la estabilidad en la velocidad de mi internet y al ser de doble banda los aparatos que conecto con Wifi a su antena de 5GHz funcionan notablemente mas rápido (tienen que estar cerca porque esta frecuencia es de menor alcance, aunque mayor velocidad). Su configuración es realmente sencilla solo hay que conectarlo al módem de la compañía por cable ethernet y entrar a la pagina que dice en su instructivo, de ahí solo seguir los pasos y en menos de 5 minutos está listo. Como recomendación, de ser posible les sugiero que lo configuren como hotspot y lo mantengan conectado por cable ethernet, es mucho mejor que solo expandir la señal que da el módem de su servicio contratado.

Easy to install and supports both 2.4G and 5G bandwidth

Works well. Easy to set up and has copped a beating from the environmental perspective . We have set it up in our not so clean workshop shed and it hasn’t missed a beat

Best Router

Amazing product, works very good, easy to setup, if your looking for a good box that goes long range in picking up wifi signals, this is the one. Can pickup from a few houses away with a strong signal, ethernet ports are good providing fast speeds, the wireless 5ghz range is amazing same as 2.4ghz. You can also attach your own wifi antennas if you have on the roof etc, detachable antennas. Good unit, no complaints yet