I bought 2 EX8000 extenders with the expection of being able to set up one as an Access Point (with an ethernet connection to the router) and the other as an Extender elsewhere in the house.
My plan was to have them both broadbcasting 2.4 and 5GHz bands with a 1.7GHz dedicated band between them.
When I set this up, it initially connects as described above but after rebooting them the backhaul always drops to an 866Mhz backhaul.
Netgear now tell me connecting an EX8000 to an EX8000 is not supported but I dont see why. They both support Triband and both support either Extender or Access Point mode.
Does anyone have any experience of getting this working so should I ditch them and replace with an Orbi system?
thanks,
warren.
Model: EX8000|AC3000 Nighthawk X6S Tri Band WiFi Mesh Extender
I'd go with orbi. Not saying you'll get the full 1733mbps backhaul but its fully dedicated.
here's the issue. With the EX8000 in access point mode, it does act as a full triband with all 3 bands exposed. With it in extender mode, one band is reserved for the backhaul. And the backhaul can be sensitive to interference or the extender in AP mode determining that only 866mbps is needed for bandwidth on that device because of mu-mimo or other reasons. Its not dedicated and the EX8000 in AP isn't reserving it for the device in extender mode.
Orbi dedicates that band between the 2. it might not hit full 1733mbps because of interference or distance but its fully reserved and not going to drop slower.
The ex8000 is more of a hybrid mesh setup. Its designed to work with a single router and when you need more than a single extender, transitioning to a true mesh setup tends to work better and be more seamless.
If I go for an orbi setup how would that work on my network? I'd need the main orbi router to act as an access point so it would have an ethernet connection to my firewall, a dedicated 1733 mbps connection to the orbi extender (noted about the speed not guaranteed), but also accept both 2.4 and 5ghz devices. Does the orbi have different configuration modes and would one of them support this configuration? Thanks again Warren.
Orbi does have access point mode. it works well in this mode. Mines running in it right now because I'm using an RAX200 for the routing portion.
It does have both bands. some people have had issues getting IoT devices running but its not hard with a little work. Or if they're already set for that specific SSID and you reuse it when you transition to a mesh setup, they just connect in my experience.
