Netgear Nighthawk X6 (R8000) in the test router

The focus in the WLAN area is currently on “Wave 2” routers, which support multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO). However, such a Wave-2 router can split its bandwidth at the same time to several clients, as long as this MU-MIMO “speak”. Current devices are at best equipped with first-generation AC-WLAN (Wave 1), the majority share is still wireless with 802.11n. With the Nighthawk X6 (R8000), Netgear offers an interesting alternative to MU-MIMO. The router advertised with 3,200 MBit / s works in the 5 GHz band with two separate WLAN modules.


Distribution in the 5 GHz band


The advantage of the two 5 GHz modules is that all dual-band capable WLAN clients can benefit by dividing them to the two different frequency bands. For this, most WLAN clients should be dual-banded and DFS-certified. The Netgear Nighthawk X6 (R8000) reached good transmission rates in the same room at 2.4 and at 5 GHz, the values ​​were rather mediocre through two load-bearing walls. In order to test the throughput on both 5 GHz bands in the same room, we connected an external memory to the USB 3.0 host of the Netgear Nighthawk X6 (R8000) and connected it with a large file over the 5 GHz 1- Band


Conclusion


A short time later, we started a throughput test over the second 5 GHz band. The transfer rate to the USB NAS decreased only slightly. However, the additional power module requires energy: the power consumption of the router is 12 watts when all three WLANs are sparking. Very good: A separate sleep timer can be set for each band. The Smartphone App Genie is also a good way to determine the signal strength of WLAN transmission at different points in the home network.


Netgear Nighthawk X6 (R8000): details


Lesetipp: How to increase the WLAN range


Lesetipp


The app also provides access to the media stored on the USB host of the Netgear Nighthawk X6 (R8000) distributed through the DLNA server on the home network. Also the child protection via the provider OpenDNS can be conveniently configured via smartphone. At the latest, the router's default password should be changed, which is not indicated during Setup.


The expensive, best-equipped Netgear Nighthawk X6 (R8000) creates a "Funklastausgleich" in the 5 GHz band, as current Wave-2 routers currently can not afford because of MU-MIMO clients Br>