I'm looking at picking up a Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR500. I am currently using a self built pfsense box. Just curious if, in the opinion of those currently use the XR500 (and realizing that answers may be skewed), I will gain anything by switcing to the XR500 or if I'm better off staying with the pfsense. I have an Xbox One X, PS4 Pro and recently completed a gaming PC build. One thing the pfsense is doing for me is allowing me to seperate a VLAN for my IOT devices. If i did switch would I be able to keep a seperate VLAN for those (both wired and wireless devices).
Disclaimer: I work for Netduma, the creators of DumaOS, the software on the XR500.
I haven't used pfSense myself so I could speak about that aspect of your question but if you could let me know what benefits you find you get using it for your gaming devices then I can let you know how the XR500 can do that and what we definitely have that no other router has (the ability to choose what game servers you play on).
What benefits does using separate VLANs for your IOT devices bring? You can setup VLAN by bridge or tag group for wired or wireless devices within the Netgear settings on the XR500.
Honestly, I can't think of any benefits I get with pfsense. Just basically gets me to the internet (lol).
I keep my smart lights, doorbell, tv, etc. on a seperate VLAN so my actual main network (which has my server and doesn't transmit and SSID) stays seperate and, hopefully, less vulnerable.
Fair enough! Well the two main features that would benefit you are QoS which would allow all your devices to use the internet how they wish, downloading, streaming etc without causing your devices to lag or buffer. Also ensuring your gaming device is ahead of the network queue at all times which eliminates jitter/spikes. The Geo-Filter which I've mentioned allows you to force whatever servers you want for your game, which is usually not possible on console games. By choosing the closest server you'll have the lowest ping possible and therefore the best gaming experience possible.
