Advice on setting up my nighthawk as an access point

---

bakarudin wrote:

I've been doing my research on this sub and want to explain the setup I plan to put out tomorrow (new home hype) and ask some questions. I have a nighthawk R8000P. My house is 3500 square feet

From spectrum I got a modem and a router (two separate pieces of equipment). I plan to hook up the spectrum modem and router on the 1st floor family room (one corner of the house) and then send an ethernet from the router into the wall. All the ethernet ports converge in the laundry room (lul) where I've connected a tplink gigabit switch. Then in another ethernet port in an upstairs bedroom I will connect the nighthawk in AP mode. So some questions:

1. The ethernet that connects to my nighthawk goes in a LAN port not the WAN one correct?  No

2. Does the nighthawk automatically set its SSID to match the spectrum router? No  Do I have to config something? Yes, on the access point device.  Both SSID and password for each band (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) .  Or will users have to consciously switch to the nighthawk on their devices when they go upstairs?  Yes, access points do not support roaming.  Mesh systems do that.

3. Am I losing out on performance at all by having the spectrum router connected to the modem instead of the nighthawk? Most likely not.  If you would share the brand name and model number of the Spectrum router it would be helpful. My understanding is both would transfer wired data at the same efficiency and its wireless data that the nighthawk is superior in so which one I put where doesn't matter and I would prefer to put the nighthawk upstairs.

4. Can I use the media storage features of the nighthawk? Should be able to.  My spectrum router has the feature too but nighthawk has readycloud.  May have to experiment here and see which works best for your setup.

5. I have a wifi printer. Should I connect it to the spectrum router or the nighthawk?   Most likely which ever one is physically closer to the printer.  If your printer supports an Ethernet connection, that would be the best option.  A printer connected to your LAN via Ethernet can be seen and accessed by devices connected to either Wi-Fi.  My concern is connecting the printer to the nighthawk and then someone who's connected to the spectrum router tries to print and can't find the printer on the network (my lack of understanding of APs is probably shining through here. I'm sure the answer here mixes into question 2).  May have to experiment here and see which works best for your setup.

Appreciate whatever help I can get!

 

---