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Forum Discussion
Nighthawk AX12 rudimentary firmware with no increased speed
Got my Nighthawk AX12 Beta unit the other day. I'll be returning it in a few days.
Some of the most common features of a $25 router are missing. At $20 a month lease I would expect this to have cutting edge configuration options withing the firmware. I was not expecting a locked down interface that is no more (or even less) responsive than any other standard router. Any save takes 10's os seconds up to minutes. The hardware is fully capable of instant updates to any configuration changes. The software is an obvious problem.
Want to configure a VPN?... hope you only use the 1 VPN provider you can configure which is also advertised within the admin interface. That alone should make the router free.
This is definitely not worth the lease price and will definitely not be worth the retail price as a purchased device.
I don't understand why Netgear has created and delivered a premium hardware device that is crippled by the and locked down formware with minimal configuration options.
As far as greater bandwitdh, speed, or reception on wireless devices. No difference than my AC1900 which took a lightening strike and is using the open source Merlin firmware to compensate for a dead WAN port.
10 Replies
intermelt wrote:
Some of the most common features of a $25 router are missing...
Such as what? Provide a list, otherwise Netgear will never understand and hopefully ... learn!
intermelt wrote:
The hardware is fully capable of instant updates to any configuration changes. The software is an obvious problem.
As I said - router specs from the late 1990ties when Netgear pushed their first router to the market (at that time, that was a leading edge OEM model from ZyXEL ... now IPsec is gone, OpenVPN was added) beyond almost nothing changed - leaving alone of many issues and problems on almost the complete line of Netgear consumer routers where the communty is full with it.
intermelt wrote:
Want to configure a VPN?... hope you only use the 1 VPN provider you can configure which is also advertised within the admin interface.
One more ... depending on the VPN provider who made the most noise (or promotion for Netgear) ... that's the "referred" one for the time of a router release. One big mess.
No way to upload a custom OpenVPN config?
For providing multiple VPN providers (and probably one day simply at least two WAN/Internet interfaces) there is no way around the ability to configure policy routing - so you can have all configs up, and put devices to the destinations desired. this is a key feature I'd expect from a leading edge consumer router today.
intermelt wrote:
I don't understand why Netgear has created and delivered a premium hardware device that is crippled by the and locked down formware with minimal configuration options.
As above - leaving the changed colour scheme alone, it looks like yet another outdated incarnation of Netgear consumer standard code. Changing seems ot be very difficult - or they still don't understand why one would pay several hundred Dollars for a leading edge router.
intermelt wrote:
As far as greater bandwitdh, speed, or reception on wireless devices. No difference than my AC1900
Of curse ... not sure where you are coming from - for 802.11ac clients it's still a 802.11ac wireless AP and router. There is no magic, beyond of the fat that you might have slightly gained for multiple concurrent clients thanks to the MU-MIMO - the future is with Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) clients - top of the line clients will provide much higher bandwidth.
schumaku wrote:
intermelt wrote:
Some of the most common features of a $25 router are missing...
Such as what? Provide a list, otherwise Netgear will never understand and hopefully ... learn!
intermelt wrote:
The hardware is fully capable of instant updates to any configuration changes. The software is an obvious problem.
As I said - router specs from the late 1990ties when Netgear pushed their first router to the market (at that time, that was a leading edge OEM model from ZyXEL ... now IPsec is gone, OpenVPN was added) beyond almost nothing changed - leaving alone of many issues and problems on almost the complete line of Netgear consumer routers where the communty is full with it.
intermelt wrote:
Want to configure a VPN?... hope you only use the 1 VPN provider you can configure which is also advertised within the admin interface.
One more ... depending on the VPN provider who made the most noise (or promotion for Netgear) ... that's the "referred" one for the time of a router release. One big mess.
No way to upload a custom OpenVPN config?
For providing multiple VPN providers (and probably one day simply at least two WAN/Internet interfaces) there is no way around the ability to configure policy routing - so you can have all configs up, and put devices to the destinations desired. this is a key feature I'd expect from a leading edge consumer router today.
intermelt wrote:
I don't understand why Netgear has created and delivered a premium hardware device that is crippled by the and locked down formware with minimal configuration options.
As above - leaving the changed colour scheme alone, it looks like yet another outdated incarnation of Netgear consumer standard code. Changing seems ot be very difficult - or they still don't understand why one would pay several hundred Dollars for a leading edge router.
intermelt wrote:
As far as greater bandwitdh, speed, or reception on wireless devices. No difference than my AC1900
Of curse ... not sure where you are coming from - for 802.11ac clients it's still a 802.11ac wireless AP and router. There is no magic, beyond of the fat that you might have slightly gained for multiple concurrent clients thanks to the MU-MIMO - the future is with Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) clients - top of the line clients will provide much higher bandwidth.
I don't see any improvement over X9000 Router nothing in range or speed regardless 2.4 or 5Ghz
Redtulips7 wrote:
I don't see any improvement over X9000 Router nothing in range or speed regardless 2.4 or 5Ghz
Of course not (again, sorry) ... with the same 802.11n or 802.11ac standards clients so the very same same standard, similar power (regulatory limited), ... speed differences and enhanced performance when using shared wireless with many different IoT (future, 802.11ax - Wi-Fi 6 devices) won't become visible before you have capalbe Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) clients.
A Fast Ethernet 100BASE-T link from 1995 does perform like a Fast Ethernet link form 2019. A Gigabit Ethernet 1000BASE-T link from 1998 does perform like a Gigabit Ethernet link from 2019. The only diference is that the per-port cost came down massively.
intermelt wrote:
However I think Netgear already has that list. Probably more thourough than anything I could come up with. I assume they have tried (and use) all the 3rd party firmware that is available.
Lots of try-out in the last to years ... the abandoned LPC (OpenDNS), Netgear Armor (Bitdefender), or Circle - none of the newer attempts became systematically available ike LPC - and not at all on the leading edge products.
intermelt wrote:
However I think Netgear already has that list. Probably more thourough than anything I could come up with. I assume they have tried (and use) all the 3rd party firmware that is available.
Lots of try-out in the last to years ... the abandoned LPC (OpenDNS), Netgear Armor (Bitdefender), or Circle - none of the newer attempts became systematically available ike LPC - and not at all on the laading edge products.
intermelt wrote:
After reflecting a bit on what I said and the comments posted. I am leaning towards the idea that Netgear is just doing an expirement which they may be calling Market Research. The problem is they aren't trying to make the best product or revolutionize the (wireless) router industry with cutting edge (maybe future proof) hardware.
True. To much marketing, to keep the market running and the mouths feed.
I'm tired of reading marketing lies like AC2600 ("...The XR500 has 4 ports each at 1 gigabit speed. It moves 2.6 Gb/per second wirelessly with a fantastic range. ...") , AD7200 ("...he XR700 has 8 ports, with the capability to go up to 10 Gb with an adapter on one port, allowing you to connect at incredible speeds wired. It also throws an insane 7.2 Gb/per second wirelessly. ...", AX6000, AX11000 and then the customers whining in the community about the fact that they never see these performance numbers - a sinlge insane marketing lie. And no, I don't blame Redtulips7 to be one of these customers being blinded.
These days, I could no longer bite on my thung - look here over in the Nightawk Pro Gaming community section -> https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-Pro-Gaming-Routers/Wired-vs-Wireless-The-answer-may-surprise-you/m-p/1728269/highlight/true#M9475
schumaku wrote:
intermelt wrote:
Some of the most common features of a $25 router are missing...
Such as what? Provide a list, otherwise Netgear will never understand and hopefully ... learn!
As far as a list of what is missing and considered fairly common and/or obvious... I'll put that together in the next day or two.
However I think Netgear already has that list. Probably more thourough than anything I could come up with. I assume they have tried (and use) all the 3rd party firmware that is available.
After reflecting a bit on what I said and the comments posted. I am leaning towards the idea that Netgear is just doing an expirement which they may be calling Market Research. The problem is they aren't trying to make the best product or revolutionize the (wireless) router industry with cutting edge (maybe future proof) hardware. They are trying to figure out the cheapest (what is the minimum they can get away with) and most profitable (how many times and for how much can we re-lease a piece of hardware) way to continue business.
My guess would be some smart engineer was like... hey, we can make our **bleep** future proof with some SDRs, FPGAs and a few modern processors. It will only cost 2 x our most expensive router. However we can do amazing things in software for years to come! We can let people subscribe to these awesome updates.
Then some marketing dude or bean counter **bleep**ed it all up. Now they will just be stuck with several tons of returned routers that will soon be on Woot for $99/each and paperweights for those that can't replace the firmware (assuming that will even be possible).
intermelt wrote:
Got my Nighthawk AX12 Beta unit the other day. I'll be returning it in a few days.
Some of the most common features of a $25 router are missing. At $20 a month lease I would expect this to have cutting edge configuration options withing the firmware. I was not expecting a locked down interface that is no more (or even less) responsive than any other standard router. Any save takes 10's os seconds up to minutes. The hardware is fully capable of instant updates to any configuration changes. The software is an obvious problem.
Want to configure a VPN?... hope you only use the 1 VPN provider you can configure which is also advertised within the admin interface. That alone should make the router free.
This is definitely not worth the lease price and will definitely not be worth the retail price as a purchased device.
I don't understand why Netgear has created and delivered a premium hardware device that is crippled by the and locked down formware with minimal configuration options.
As far as greater bandwitdh, speed, or reception on wireless devices. No difference than my AC1900 which took a lightening strike and is using the open source Merlin firmware to compensate for a dead WAN port.
I am agreed 100% no difference than other Router!!! HT160 is missing!! UI seems like 1975
