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phi303's avatar
phi303
Aspirant
Nov 06, 2020
Solved

I have both R8500 and Nighthawk Mesh - How do I get to the UI of the Mesh router via browser???

So I've moved into a house much larger than my old apartment and started adding a bunch of ip cams, smart switches, and smart plugs and my Nighthawk R8500 just wasn't cutting it anymore, dropping connections and needed hard resets all the time. To solve this, I bought a Nighthawk Mesh WiFi 6 system.

 

The Nighthawk Mesh router connects through a switch to the main router (the R8500) which has the default ip 192.168.1.1 for configuration. I completely turned off the Wifi on the R8500 letting it handle all the hard-lines and am now letting the Mesh do all the wireless lifting.

 

I want to be able to configure the Mesh via browser because I'm not too fond of the app.

 

192.168.1.1 only takes me to the R8500. In the app, in the router settings>Router Information my ip is 10.0.0.1 but when I throw that in a browser, there's nothing. Under router settings>Internet Port my external ip is 192.168.1.79 but that also leads me to nowhere, am I missing a port that needs to be tacked onto that address? My gateway ip is 192.168.1.1 and so is my DNS Server.

5 Replies

  • plemans's avatar
    plemans
    Guru - Experienced User

    You have a double nat. Turning off the wifi on the R8500 doesn't disable its routing functions. 

    https://kb.netgear.com/30186/What-is-Double-NAT

    unhook the mesh system (which model?) from the R8500. Then connect to the mesh system at whatever ip address it currently has. Put it in AP (access point) mode. That'll disable its routing functions and leave the r8500 in control of that. 

     

    • phi303's avatar
      phi303
      Aspirant

      Thanks for your reply! 

       

      How do I do this? I need my R8500 to continue routing ethernet and let the Mesh handle WiFi, I have sooooo many ethernet machines. I bought the Nighthawk Mesh Wifi 6 AX1800.

       

      The AX1800 is not close to my R8500, it's in a different room using ethernet drop that ultimately ends up connecting to the R8500.

       

      Thank you for helping me!

      • plemans's avatar
        plemans
        Guru - Experienced User

        Page 67 of the router goes through setting the mk63 in access point mode

        https://www.netgear.com/support/product/mk63.aspx

         

        I'd also make sure that if you leave the wireless enabled on the R8500 to have them on different channels from the mk63 to prevent interference