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X6S - The First Nighthawk® Tri-Band WiFi Range Extender EX8000
Turn dead-zones into fun-zones.
Now you can easily build your own powerful extended WiFi network. Enjoy all the advanced router features that a Nighthawk has to offer and easily build your own ...
Yes it can be setup as an Access Point, just make sure it is plugged into an active network cable on first power up.
You can set it to the same SSID as your existing 2.4 and 5.0 and give the third faster 5ghz SSID a new name.
The "Do More" leaflet that ships with the unit gives the steps in detail.
If you have the EX8000 in Access Point mode, and have One WiFi Name feature enabled, does the EX8000 and the router (in my case a D8500) do smart hand-off as you roam? Or can this only occur if you use the EX8000 in Extender mode? Sorry, the documentation is very confusing on clarifying these scenarios!
I am wanting to know the exact same thing.
I spoke to a local dealer. It does not do "smart" handoff in access point mode is what I was told. Your device will have to know when to pick the stronger signal. If you use the same network name, you won't know whether your device is still signed onto the router or the satellite. He was telling me that ORBI 40 and ORBI 50 now support ethernet backhaul and it supports "smart" roaming. Why the firm ware update only applies to ORBI and not the EX8000 I did not get a good answer. In any event, I was looking at one R8000p plus two EX8000. The ORBI 43 is cheaper so I am going with that. I do not need the USB (its only 2.0 anyway and since I am using Ethernet instead of WIFI backhaul, the ORBI 53 faster wireless backhaul is not useful to me
Thanks for confirming.
I agree, seems like a major "miss" from Netgear to not allow the Extender range of products to also use Ethernet for backhaul and facilitate a 'mesh-style' setup.
I get it that some will say if you want an Extender, then get an Extender. If you want single SSID with smart-handoff, get a Mesh product. But this approach completely ignores people who have already invested in a Nighthawk router which has excellent WiFi, and want to extend from that SSID AND have smart-handoff.
It annoys me that to invest in a Mesh solution means turning off WiFi on my router and thus devaluing the investment in a good Netgear router.
- I agree with you there. The Nighthawk is all speed and power. ORBI is for dumb users like me who needs coverage and convenience. It’s wrong for Netgear to think those needs are mutually exclusive