Netgear rant

nightmarevoid · August 24, 2020

I've always preferred netegear routers, but after my old router finally died (a WNDR3800) I decided to upgrade to something newer. I went with the R6220 because I thought it had all of the features I wanted (QoS, gigabit LAN) without being overpowered for my apartment, but I was sadly mistaken.

Whereas my old router easily supported QoS, 2.4/5G coexistence, and was easy to set up and log into, the new R6220 left me disappointed.

Its QoS support is a joke. Where the old router let me select a connection to prioritize, this router forces me to create a separate profile per an app. I wanted to be able to tell it to prioritize my little linux machine which runs a plex server and minecraft server as well as my gaming desktop, but I can't so I'll have to just hope it doesn't hurt either of these with poor prioritization. This router also doesn't support 2.4/5G coexistence. This is one of the most basic features of all but it won't allow me to do it! I genuinely don't understand why, and it isn't listed under Netgear's features or specifications so I can't check which router I need to upgrade to to get it. Even old apple routers support it.

The worst part of the router though was the setup. My old netgear was easy, letting me just plug it in and go to the infamous routerlogin.net. Even the Orbi I set up for my parents let me use router login.net/orbilogin.net and was incredibly easy. This thing though had me try to use the nighthawk app which is absolute garbage. The app never managed to find my router, meaning I had to hardwire my computer and login using the IP address, which thankfully still works. The router itself couldn't manage to find an internet connection until I factory reset it about 3 times, power cycling it and my modem multiple times. During one of these attempts the router gave me a warning that It would have to log someone else out so that I could log in from this device. I couldn't tell you what that meant as it was a new device and only my desktop was connected to it. Another time it actually did let me log in, but it required me to make a login password and security questions. The router absolutely could not remember this password though, and when it asked me to log back in it kept reporting my password was wrong. When I recovered it using the serial number it told me that the password had been the one I was typing the whole time! copy-pasting the password into the login field also didn't work. What's worse is that if you bone-headedly kept entering the wrong password, it would just let you navigate the admin menu all the same! So one more factory reset. this time I entered the basic login info for the router (you know the one) and it actually worked, was able to get through setup, connect to the modem, and set up the rest of my settings. I was disappointed by what I found, as I said earlier, but at least I was able to get internet before the work week starts, and since my apartment isn't too big I was able to get away with disabling 2.4G and just using 5G. At this point I don't know if I should just keep the router because it was a good price, or get something a little better by spending a lot more.

AndreiArgeanu · August 24, 2020

Well, it's to be expected, you're previous Netgear Router was much more expensive compared to the R6220. Looking at older websites and reviews prices for this router varied between 160$ and 270$ while the r6220 was under 100$ for most of it's life up to this day. This could mean to an extent that network equipment hasn't a evolved a lot in the past 5 years or so. So I'd imagine if you had spent more you would have probably got an equally good if not better experience than your previous router.

nightmarevoid · August 24, 2020

1 hour ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

Well, it's to be expected, you're previous Netgear Router was much more expensive compared to the R6220. Looking at older websites and reviews prices for this router varied between 160$ and 270$ while the r6220 was under 100$ for most of it's life up to this day. This could mean to an extent that network equipment hasn't a evolved a lot in the past 5 years or so. So I'd imagine if you had spent more you would have probably got an equally good if not better experience than your previous router.

I realized that after I bought the router, but It just seemed so strange. In almost any other industry "premium features" from older generations become standard in newer ones, but that hasn't been the case here. I'm certain that there are equally priced routers that have the features I mentioned. It's also strange that Netgear would add a feature like QoS but then make it a less flushed out version. I can't imagine what they've gained by doing that considering it's all programming.

edit: I should also mention that I didn't look at more powerful routers because they would have been too maybe too powerful(and frankly unsightly). I live at an apartment and I figured that the longer the range of the router the more networks it would have to coexist with, and I had a suspicion that this would negatively impact everyone's performance. A bit paranoid, I know, but the solution was just buying a cheaper router so I figured why not. Perhaps this whole story is the answer to why not.