I just purchased the R7000 Nighthawk router and while the speed increase has been fantastic the range has not been great. Setup was simple, I installed it in my basement where my old DLINK N router was and got everything working great then discovered the signal died when I go up to the second floor of my house. So I'm looking for an extender to put up on my second floor. I found the EX6200 which seems to be the best netgear has to offer right now. I want the best possible signal from the R7000 to the EX6200. So can I just connect the two with an ethernet cable from a LAN port on each rather than try to use a wireless connection between the two? I already have an ethernet cable run to the second floor. I was thinking that'd be better than using wireless to connect the two units. Thanks for your help.
CAUTION: Do not use an Ethernet cable to connect the extender to a WiFi router. If you do so, the extender does not work because it is designed to use only a WiFi connection to a WiFi router.
Guess this method is out. So I'd need a second R7000 in order to use the wired connection to extend to my second floor. I just don't know if the EX6200 could see the R7000 in my basement reliably enough to trust the connection. I'd rather use the wire. If that means $70 more I may have to just do it. Any other suggestions are welcome. My next question is if I use a second R7000 can the WAN port be used in bridge mode or will it take up a LAN port. I'll be searching the manual for that. Thanks.
Thank you for the replies. The AP setup sounds like what I want to do but the manual says the AP should not have the same SSID and password as the main router. What I'm shooting for is this: As I move around my house I don't want to have to manually switch wifi networks. I want it to be seamless as in a repeater setup. My concern with a repeater setup is that I won't have enough signal from the router in the basement to make a fast connection to the repeater on the second floor. Which is why the AP setup wired to the router in the basement would be ideal. I guess the other option is to go the repeater route and then it doesn't really matter where I put it. I can put it on the first floor and hope to get a good signal on the second floor. In that case I could just get the EX6200 rather than another R7000 which would save a few bucks.
Thank you for the replies. The AP setup sounds like what I want to do but the manual says the AP should not have the same SSID and password as the main router. What I'm shooting for is this: As I move around my house I don't want to have to manually switch wifi networks. I want it to be seamless as in a repeater setup.
The trouble with this setup is that regular clients tend to stick with whatever AP they've hooked up to, regardless of the signal strength, so you may come across a scenario where the client is still hooked to your basement R7000 despite the fact that its signal is bad.
So what is the best option to use so that my equipment would jump to the strongest signal? Almost all the wireless clients would be iPhones or iPads that would be mobile in the house.
Right now I have the R7000 in the second floor office wired to my old DLINK router in the basement. So far coverage seems fine from there but I haven't tested the basement coverage yet. If it works I guess I could leave it setup that way. Spoke too soon my wife just texted me that there's no wifi out on the deck. Deck is off the first floor so that's a problem. She was on the 5G band and couldn't connect to it again from the deck. She switched to the 2.4 band and was able to connect. Really disappointed in the range on this router but I love everything else about it. Maybe I should try the ASUS RT-AC68U? I was hoping I could get one super router to cover the whole house. My 5-6 year old DLINK 655 had better coverage, even from the exact same spot in the basement. No issues to the second floor.
5Ghz will always have less range then 2.4Ghz so your wife prove that. Unless she needs 80.211ac speed then I would worried bout it but for internet needs 2.4Ghz would be better choice for the range for the signs.
The easiest thing to do is use same SSID and security If it does not latch onto to strongest AP Signal, for IOS devices toggle WIFI OFF and ON for PC just disconnect then reconnect it's quite simple and works great. I do more than I care to admit when testing. Or reboot device as your signal level drops.
Again thanks for the replies. The only AC device we will have is an iMac that should be delivered in the next week or two. Everything else currently is N. When the R7000 was in the basement I'd get a signal strength of about -25 to -30 in the room with the router using inSSIDer. On the first floor I got -40 to -50, then on the second floor in my master bedroom the signal would jump around -60 to above -80 or no connection. I think I need to do some more signal strength tests and move the router around and try different antenna positions. I've seen replacement antennas that promise to boost the signal. Reviews on those are mixed.
You are in the bad place... You do not want to any more that -50 reading on signals.
Place the router in the first floor would more suitable and place another extender and spend more money. If broadband modem is located in the basement and can not move then try find the way to run ethernet cable to the first floor.
So I think the original error I made was trying to hook up all my N devices to the 5Ghz band instead of using the 2.4Ghz band. 2.4Ghz seems to have way better signal strength. So I have the R7000 hooked up as an access point in my second floor office and I went around the house and took signal strength readings in a bunch of rooms on each floor and came up with an average signal strength:
So I moved the router to the first floor and it's working reasonably well. I have a usable signal all over the house, at least on the 2.4Ghz band. Second floor also worked but seems a shame to spend the money for this router then use it as just an access point. So I'm going to pickup some higher gain antenna and try it again in my basement replacing my DLINK router. If that doesn't work I may just put it back in my office on the second floor and keep the DLINK in place as the main router. In the future I'll remember to run at least 2 cat 5e or cat 6 cables to each room instead of just one.
Placing the router at top or bottom floor or adjacent from where you want active is never a good. Centrally located is always the better results as you seen when placed in first floor to cover 2nd and ground floor.
