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Forum Discussion
New EAX15 Mesh Extender - I have a few questions
Hello, this is my first post. Although I am a long time Netgear user! For over 2 decades, I have used two of their cable modems, some Wi-Fi routers, Wi-Fi adapters and many of their venerable 4, 8, a...
So I have a few questions:
- Being an old user of home network appliances, I was able to quickly plug my computer into the Ethernet jack of the EAX15 and configure the "conventional" way as expected. The IP was a bit different, but that was easy to figure out. To my dismay, I noticed that documentation neglects telling users about this capability and instructs them to install the Nighthawk App. I installed the app and noticed it wanted me to create an Internet account and provide information to Netgear not relevant for the local network device ... like, Location? OK, maybe it's for Wi-Fi regulatory domain. But still... why wouldn't you document the "old fashion" way to do this? And why would you require an Internet account and collect lots of data from our phones for a strictly local network appliance?----It seems a lot of companies want to push users to using the app. There is a guide to the gui but its on the support site and not natively. Its a bit sad because i prefere the GUI as well. Its so much faster, has more information, and more stable. But "everyone has a smart phone".
- This is probably a dumb question. But why can't this product simply amplify or repeat a signal on specific frequencies? Why do you need a man-in-the-middle computer to serve simultaneously as an access point and wireless client? This device is way more complicated in functionality than I thought it would be.----You don't need a man in the middle. I have testing/used mulitple extenders. Not the EAX15 but the EAX17/80 and never had that issue. It should still function fine without a computer connected to it.
- I use Adguardhome to protect my elderly father from scams and malware (and helpless devices). I logged into it today and noticed that my EAX15 queries netgear.com about 200 times per hour. What exactly is my strictly local network device communicating with Netgear?----I've noticed similar with other things from netgear. My pihole picks up around 15K requests a day to peernetwork at netgear. I believe its something ensuring that its online and connecting the app. A bit aggressive if you ask me.
I've attached s screenshot of part of my adguardhome statistics page for context.
Anyway, I'm otherwise very pleased with the device. It works great! Good job Netgear!