Who Me Too'd this topic

Please help.

I am a long time Netgear customer, and have been buying Netgear products since the early 2000s. Upon receiving my Nighthawk AX8 (EAX80) and configuring it I found myself fairly disappointed.  I'm hoping to find a solution to my issue, or a promise it will be resolved soon or else I'm going to return this product.

A little background about my home and myself.  I have 1gbps internet fiber connection from Sonic.net, a smartTV, AppleTV, several game consoles, apple "I" devices/ watches, and IoT devices, kindles, etc...  You might say I'm a heavy user, we even have port forwarding and static IPs set up as well for game servers.  I also have a background in computer engineering, and reguallarly do software web architecture level work as part of my job.  I understand IP4 really well, and have set up a few dozen networks in my life.

Over the last few years I've set up 2 Orbi systems and saw how amazing Mesh Networking was and couldn't wait to get it in my home, however, the Orbi system does not have the configurability that I need -- it's great for basic internet, but it can't handle the features that I am used to on a full featured router.

With the announcement of WiFi 6 I was excited to upgrade to increased range, and improve the peformance with the 40-50 devices on my local network.  Again Orbi seemed targeted to more modest users, and so I waited for the Netgear Nighthawk WiFi 6 AX12 ( RAX200 ).  I also bought a Netgear Nighthawk SX10 Pro Gaming Switch ( GS810EMX-100NAS ), because the AX12 didn't have enough ethernet ports on it.  The AX12 has been a modest upgrade from the X10 ( R9000 ) that it replaced.

In the month that I was waiting I updated some of the cables so I could get the 2.5 Multi-Gig bandwidth that the SX10 Switch and the AX12 router support.

Now comes the AX8 Extender and it comes with minimal instructions, it seems to only have 4x 1 Gig ports, and so far it's performance has been poor at best. I have tried the device in a few different configurations and locations and here is what I have found, with my iPhone 11 Pro using Speedtest to Sonic.net's servers.

Placed the Ext in the kitchen, the router is 1 room away separated by 1-2 walls or about 25-35ft.  In this case I get about 15-30% (100-200mbps) of my max performance standing right next to it.  To the Master Bedroom 1 room / 2 walls away / 15-20 ft away, the bandwith get's cut to 5-8% ( 40-80mbps ).

Placed in the Office, the router is 1 room + a hallway away, separated by 2-3 walls or about 35-50 ft.  The bandwidth stadning right next to it was 2-6% of my available bandwith ( 20-60mbps ), and stadning in the bedroom was about 20 mbps.

Placed in the Bedroom, the performance was about the same as the office, just flipped.

Since, I have a 1gbps Cat-6 connection in the Office, I tried to connect the AX8 Extender in the ethernet connection, but then the bandwith drops to ZERO (0).  I think this is because of a loop that's created, and the SX10 Switch might be killing the port.

I looked for a wired back haul ethernet setting in the AX8's web interface but there is not one.  I know that even the Orbi's now support a wired backhaul.

Netgear my Goal was simple, get WiFi 6 level performance under ONE Single SSID for my whole home.  As of now I have switched back to using the AX12 (R9000) Router, and using my Nighthawk AC1900 (R7000) in AP Mode with a second SSID.

How do I get to WiFi 6 level performance ( 300mpbs - 1gpbs+ ) on a single SSID, and keep the ability to have port forwarding?

1. Is it possible to have a wired backhaul with the AX8?  Will it ever be possible?
2. Is it possible to have my R7000 in a Mesh Networking mode so I can have a single SSID?
3. Is it possible to run the ORBI WiFi 6 edition nodes and have a wired backhaul with my R9000 and have a signle SSID?
4. Is Netgear coming out with a new product that better addresses these needs?
5. Will the AX8 be improved, was it launched in a buggy state and these issues will be fixed soon?

• Does the AX8 dedicate WiFi lanes from my AX12 ( R9000 ) and reduce the maximum bandwidth of my other WiFi 6 devices?