I purchased 1 extender and managed to have seamless coverage in my house downstairs, and all worked well.
I have since purchased a second one for upstairs! and set up as a new device (same set up as the one downstairs) using the Nighthawk App.
However it seems to not be working seamlessly. Somehow when I use my mobile devices upstairs now I need to manually switch over to the nearest extender! I think the set up is not quite right as my devices are not connecting very well to Wi-Fi now after introducing the second extender.
My questions are:
1. Will 2 of these extenders work in a house ? (1 downstairs and 1 upstairs with main router halfway between them) ?
2. Will my devices connect seamlessly (automatically) to the nearest extender in the zone in which I am in ? I selected smart connect for both extenders in the app
3. Is there a specific setup protocol I ought to use to have 2 extenders in the house ?
Many Thanks for your help !
Model: EX8000|AC3000 Nighthawk X6S Tri Band WiFi Mesh Extender
@shazaz wrote: I purchased 1 extender and managed to have seamless coverage in my house downstairs, and all worked well.
I have since purchased a second one for upstairs! and set up as a new device (same set up as the one downstairs) using the Nighthawk App.
Are they both the same EX8000?
If not, then you won't get the seamless handover of Mesh. Wifi clients will have to negotiate a new connection whenever they move between sources.
Actually, the original EX8000 is not even a Mesh extender. (The manual doesn't say it is.) Did they upgrade it with new firmware?
If so, perhaps you need to update the firmware. You don't say which you have.
In any case, a lot depends on the wifi clients. Even without a Mesh system most of my wifi devices happily move between two completely different wifi sources, different routers, without me noticing it.
Unless the unnamed router is also a Mesh device, that too will complicate things.
You have posted your message in the section of this community given over to Nighthawk WiFi Routers. (This is easily done, given Netgear's impenetrable community structure.)
You might get more help, and find earlier questions and answers about your hardware, in the appropriate section for your device. That's probably here:
Thanks for your reply Yes they are both EX8000 ! Think you might be right and it is a range extender and not Mesh ! I am being a muppet. In either case would love to have 2 seamless range extenders in the house of at all possible 😕
Problem is though there isn't anything controlling the system because its not a full mesh system like orbi/eero/etc.
They rely on the ssid to connect to. and if they're running in mesh mode and both EX8000's are to close to each other versus the router, they can sometimes end up connecting to each other or daisy chained.
A couple things you can try.
1. Actually move the ex8000's further apart. it can cause issues if they're to close to each other.
2. make sure they're setup in a star configuration and not daisy chained.
A. Star: extender<-------router-------->extender
B. Daisy: Router------>extender----->extender
3. If that doesn't help, you can shut off mesh on one of the extenders and simple run it with a different ssid.
Another thing to try is when setting up the EX8000's, disable the "extender 2.4ghz connection". This doesn't disable being able to use the 2.4ghz but it does disable the extenders capability of using the 2.4ghz as a backup backhaul connection. 2.4ghz broadcasts further but is sensitive to interference and slow. So if your extenders are actually to far apart or have some other interference, it could be falling back to that connection.
