I am replacing my WiFi network. Had installed it in December 2014. I had a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 and 2 Netgear extenders. I live in a New York coop with wire mesh walls and plenty of local interference. I needed both extenders to push the signal out to the outer bedrooms.
The above configuration has served me well, but the time has come to upgrade. I purchased the RAX200 (Nighthawk Tri-band AX12 12 stream Wi-Fi 6 Router). I was hoping that would be enough. However, I am still experiencing the same interference that I had before. As powerful as this beast is, I cannot get a strong enough signal into my bedrooms. I had decided to get extenders (either 1 or 2) to extend the signal across the apartment.
I looked at the specs of the X6S EX8000 and was dismayed to find that it was designated as 802.11ac (WiFi 5) technology. Otherwise, it had all the features I was looking for. Does Netgear have a MESH Extender with WiFi 6 technology that also is as powerfule as the EX8000?
Everybody around your apartment does the same. All try to put up more power, more Mesh systems, illegal antennas, high-power WiFi equipment, HDMI extensions over wireless, wireless audio systems, and much more. Everything does happen on essentially two bands, resp, one 2.4 GHz band and two 5 GHz band parts (and the bandwidth hungry ones use all). What is going on over the air - a single shared medium with a very small public frequency band(s) available - will hit whatever issues. Collisions, interference, ... nightmare!
There is only one advise: Install network cables from your router (somewhere at a central place, or near to the Internet [two-wire, cable TV, fiber, ...] inlet into all areas of your apartment where you need coverage, and better coverage. Add wireless access points in each of these network cable outlets.
The EAX20 and EAX80 are both wireless AX extenders.
But like @schumaku says, you're still going to get interference because of everyone else trying to get coverage. The wired backhaul is your best option. If its not possible, then I'd use the extenders.
Something else to keep in mind if using a wired backhaul, when the EX8000 and EAX20/80 are using a wired backhaul, they don't function as a "mesh" extender. They act as access points and devices won't roam like a mesh network currently.
the orbi models have the option of wired or wireless backhaul and will function as mesh with both.
If you're still in your return perior on the RAX200, I'd take it back and change over to the orbi triband system.
Thanks for your reply. Just thought I would provide some feedback. I purchased the EAX80 to match up with the RAX200.
They have been fabulous. The smart connect works as advertised.
Just had a small glitch with my Sonos. The extender picked up some of the speakers. Sonos didn't like that. THe Sonos app can only see the units that are on one access point. The EAX80 has a feature where service can be denied to identified devices. So, I denied service to all of the Sonos devices, and Voila. They are all accessing the router and I am good.
I tested the above by streaming to 3 TV's and 3 computers at the same time. Worked fantastically.
So, previously, I had 1 router (R7000) and 2 extenders (EX6200) with 6 SSID's. With the above I have one SSID. No hardwiring required.
