Netgear Nighthawk Mesh Wi-Fi 6 System review: Mesh? More like meh

Netgear’s Nighthawk manufacturer is a mainstay of the router aisle. This year, the business added a new Nighthawk-branded mesh system into the mix, finish with aid for Wi-Fi 6 — the most recent, quickest variation of Wi-Fi. Most intriguing of all: The two-piece Nighthawk mesh system only expenses $230. That is fewer than you may devote for Nest Wifi, a well-reviewed two-piece mesh system that won’t aid Wi-Fi 6 at all.

Like

  • Amazing prime speeds
  • Captivating, understated style
  • Terrific benefit among Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers

Will not Like

  • Weak mesh effectiveness in our real-environment pace assessments
  • No multi-gig WAN port
  • Several attributes of notes in the Nighthawk application

Equipment that do aid Wi-Fi 6 are able of sending and receiving information a lot quicker and far more efficiently than previous-gen Wi-Fi equipment. That is likely a really major offer for mesh routers, for the reason that the selection-extending satellites that pair with the router require to move a good deal of information back again and forth as you connect. That suggests that Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers can offer noticeably greater effectiveness for your household even if you never use any other Wi-Fi 6 gizmos just however. Positive adequate, the Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers we have examined so significantly have been among the quickest mesh routers we have at any time examined — and at $230, the Netgear Nighthawk is the most inexpensive a person however.

I was thrilled to take a look at the system out for myself — but in the stop, I arrived absent dissatisfied.

Indeed, the Nighthawk mesh router was loads quickly in our lab-primarily based prime pace assessments — it essentially notched the quickest near-selection transfer pace that we have viewed from any of the mesh routers we have examined therefore significantly, including a few products that price two times as significantly. But when I took it household to carry out my real-environment pace assessments, items were a good deal different. At several details all through my assessments, in which I go from home to home jogging pace assessments from various places around my home, my speeds would plummet, forcing me to disconnect and then reconnect in buy to get my speeds back again up in which they ought to be. It wasn’t an issue with my network — it was the Nighthawk router having baffled by a non-stationary consumer device.

Fundamentally, the Nighthawk mesh router is brawny adequate to hit outstanding prime speeds, but not brainy adequate to sustain a continuous relationship as you go in the course of your household. Other mesh routers I’ve examined have all finished a significantly greater occupation of optimizing my speeds — and other incredibly inexpensive Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers are coming before long, so you’ve got received possibilities worth waiting for. All of that will make Netgear’s mesh entry to the Nighthawk manufacturer a tough system for me to advise.

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Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The energy of the dark side

If the Nighthawk mesh router appears a very little familiar, that’s for the reason that it’s the exact same simple style as the new dual-band, funds-priced variation of the Netgear Orbi mesh system, which I reviewed a few months back. The Nighthawk will take that exact same boxy develop with cheese grater-like warmth vents on prime, then paints it black, slaps a Nighthawk label on the front, and adds in aid for Wi-Fi 6.

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Equally the router and the satellite include a person spare gigabit Ethernet jack, which allows you wire the two together for a lot quicker system effectiveness.


Tyler Lizenby/CNET

I liked the small, unassuming style rather a little bit back again when I reviewed the Orbi, and I feel it operates well listed here, as well. It can be good-looking devoid of drawing as well significantly consideration to itself, and does a fantastic adequate occupation of mixing in that you is not going to come to feel humiliated about maintaining both equipment out in the open, in which they’re going to accomplish their best.

One particular other style improve of take note: the Nighthawk mesh system adds a spare Ethernet jack to the back again of the satellite, a little something that the dual-band Orbi mesh system lacks. That is good to have in scenario you want a wired relationship between the router and the satellite for a lot quicker system effectiveness, or if you want to wire a little something like a media streamer instantly to the satellite.

The Nighthawk won’t have all the things, although — which just isn’t astonishing given that this is a Wi-Fi 6 system on a funds. You never get a multi-gig WAN port on the router like you do with Netgear Orbi 6, for occasion, so your incoming world-wide-web pace will be capped at 1Gbps. You is not going to locate quite a few further bells or whistles in the application, possibly. And never even feel of having a 3rd band to use as a devoted backhaul for transmissions between the router and the satellites at this price tag.

As for specs, the Nighthawk is a dual-band AX1800 router, with the “AX” indicating that it supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and the “1800” indicating the blended prime speeds of the two bands. As usually, blended pace rankings like those are a little bit deceptive because you can only connect to a person band at a time. Netgear statements that the two.4 GHz band can hit speeds of up to 600 Mbps, and that the 5 GHz band is able of hitting speeds as higher as 1,200 Mbps.

Highly-priced, tri-band Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers like Netgear Orbi 6, the AmpliFi Alien and the Arris Surfboard Max Professional all averaged a lot quicker prime speeds throughout all distances — but at a length of 5 ft (blue), the Netgear Nighthawk was essentially the quickest mesh router we have examined however.


Ry Crist/CNET

In the vicinity of-gigabit speeds

That 1,200 Mbps pace declare would in fact be really outstanding, but keep in intellect those rankings come from the manufacturer’s have lab, in which ailments are designed to be as ideal as probable (and once more, the WAN port caps your incoming wired pace at a solitary gig, or 1,000 Mbps). In a real-environment setting, with selection to get worried about, walls in the way and interference from close by networks, your speeds will be usually be decreased.

However, the Nighthawk router did a good deal greater than I envisioned when we ran our have lab-primarily based prime pace assessments. With the router wired to a MacBook performing as a neighborhood server, we linked to the Nighthawk’s network employing a second laptop computer that supports Wi-Fi 6. Then, we downloaded documents from the MacBook at various distances and measured the transfer speeds. At a length of just 5 ft, our ordinary pace rang in at 901 Mbps. That is a fantastic result, and greater than any other mesh router I’ve examined, including extravagant tri-band mesh routers like the AmpliFi Alien, the Arris Surfboarf Max Professional, and Netgear’s have Wi-Fi 6 variation of the Orbi mesh system. Every of those expenses far more than two times as significantly as the Nighthawk.

That explained, the Nighthawk saw even bigger pace drops than those devices as we greater the length. At 75 ft, its speeds had fallen by about 40{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} to 520 Mbps. Most mesh devices I take a look at are capable to maintain that drop-off to thirty{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} or fewer.

Amongst Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers, the Netgear Nighthawk averaged the slowest download speeds in the course of my household — but the real issue was the unreliable relationship as I moved from home to home.


Ry Crist/CNET

Authentic-environment pace assessments were a real agony

With our lab assessments completed, it was time to take the Nighthawk household and take a look at it out in a real-environment ecosystem — particularly, my 1,three hundred sq. ft. shotgun home in Louisville, KY. It can be a rather small room for a mesh system, but it provides me a fantastic probability to see how these devices essentially accomplish in a household ecosystem.

In this scenario, it’s in which items sort of fell apart.

Speeds under 100 Mbps on a three hundred Mbps relationship? That is the router in the track record, a few ft absent…


Ry Crist/CNET

At 1st, all the things seemed fantastic. Netgear’s Nighthawk application walked me by means of the set up method and my network was up and jogging inside a few minutes. My 1st few pace assessments, carried out from the comfort and ease of my living home sofa with the router sitting just a few ft absent, were just as quickly as you’d hope, effectively maxing out my home’s three hundred Mbps fiber world-wide-web program.

But then I picked up my laptop computer and moved to a new place — the kitchen area. It can be a little bit further from the router, but it’s an open idea floorplan that connects with the living home, so there usually are not any walls in the way. All the exact same, my speeds plummeted to well under 100 Mbps.

Useless to say, this was unusual. And, when I see a weirdly slow result like that in my assessments, I am going to make a take note of it in my spreadsheet, then reset the relationship. That did the trick — right after disconnecting from the network and then reconnecting to it, my speeds were back again up were they ought to be, just shy of three hundred Mbps.

But then it took place once more. And once more. And once more. I’d go to a new place all through my assessments, and my speeds would nosedive. I alternate rounds of pace assessments from the front of the home to the back again, and then from the back again of the home to the front — on a person of the latter rounds, in which that near-selection living home take a look at is the past take a look at in the sequence, my pace arrived in at ninety three Mbps. That was with the router only a couple of ft absent.

In the stop, the Nighthawk returned an overall ordinary pace of 219 Mbps in the course of my complete home, which is worse than all but two of the dozen or so devices I’ve examined in my household, Wi-Fi 6 or usually. And that was with me routinely re-connecting in buy to give the system its best probability to thrive.

Slow speeds in my kitchen area a person moment, then back again to standard as before long as I disconnect and reconnect.


Ry Crist/CNET

So what was occurring listed here? It wasn’t my network — I designed positive to operate some manage assessments with my existing router, and didn’t see something like I was enduring with the Nighthawk. Similar goes for the on-line pace take a look at software and the server I was connecting to, neither of which registered any problems when screening with my have router. In reality, I’ve operate countless numbers of pace assessments in my household over the previous several months less than the exact same managed options, and the Nighthawk is the only router that’s given me this significantly of a headache.

It seriously seems like the Nighthawk, for regardless of what reason, just isn’t all that fantastic at optimizing the signal for a consumer device that just isn’t in a set place. If that device moves from a person place to an additional, the relationship receives baffled and items slow down. That might be thanks to poor beamforming or a wonky mesh algorithm that just isn’t fantastic at deciding when to route your relationship by means of the satellite and when to go straight to the router, but regardless of what is occurring, it’s an annoyance that I would not want to offer with in my household.

I am going to also take note that it just isn’t the 1st time that I’ve had problems with Netgear’s mesh effectiveness. Equally the dual-band Orbi and the tri-band Orbi Voice Wi-Fi 5 devices dropped my relationship on various occasions all through my at-household assessments. Only the higher-stop, Wi-Fi 6 variation of Netgear Orbi managed to impress me with the security of its signal.

The Nighthawk’s signal strength was a very little stronger than a comparably priced Wi-Fi 5 system like Nest Wifi, but not almost as solid as a higher-stop Wi-Fi 6 system like Netgear Orbi.


Steve Conaway/CNET

Speaking of signal strength, we take a look at for that, as well. To do so, we go over to the 5,800 sq. ft. CNET Good Household, in which we set each individual mesh system up with the router and a person satellite on reverse finishes of the home’s main flooring. Then, we use NetSpot’s on-line software to monitor how solid the relationship is throughout dozens of destinations. It can be a little bit of a tension take a look at — the two-piece Nighthawk system is designed for properties of up to 3,000 sq. ft.

The effects were really near to what you might hope for an entry-level Wi-Fi 6 system like the Nighthawk. The signal strength on both the main flooring in which the router and satellite were found and the basement level under was suitable and somewhat stronger than a comparably priced Wi-Fi 5 system like Nest Wifi, but not almost as solid as a higher-stop, tri-band Wi-Fi 6 system like Orbi 6 that sells for $seven-hundred. Credit rating the Nighthawk for hitting the center ground between those two, especially given that it expenses fewer than Nest.

However, at the farthest distances we take a look at, the Nighthawk’s speeds dropped by about 40{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} in our lab and by a very little fewer than thirty{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca} in my at-household assessments. Those are both very low-stop effects among the Wi-Fi 6 mesh devices I’ve examined.

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Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The verdict

Wi-Fi 6 ought to prove to be a especially good improve for mesh routers, and it’s encouraging that we are by now viewing solutions that price fewer than most Wi-Fi 5 mesh routers were providing for not even a year back. 

At $230, the Netgear Nighthawk suits that invoice, which will make it really tempting — but the shaky mesh effectiveness leaves as well significantly to be preferred. Pace is critical, but security issues, as well. The Nighthawk has loads of the former, but it lacks the latter. With lots of other attention-grabbing new mesh routers building their way to current market in 2020, that’s as well significantly of a compromise.