Top positive review
9 people found this helpful
Long Range AP, Good For Home Security Cameras And Streaming
By Jake Volkman on Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2024
After looking at mesh networks and trying to use older Wifi 5 Nighthawk routers as Wireless Repeaters, I settled on this gem. I have a 3,000 sq ft split level home with a long living room and a garage on the end, and I can get my security cameras at the end of the garage to connect to this with no stream interruptions, even with a microwave in between. It's probably too powerful for the average person's home, but just look at the price compared to a good WiFi 6 Mesh Network. This was a great find. There are a ton of business features that I don't need but some of the better ones that I like include combining the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands into one network, support for 250+ wireless devices, PoE, and data collection that is more of a novelty due to my end use being at home. This is an Access Point, not a "Router" (which depending on your networking experience means either a box that broadcasts your home internet, or a device that can assign IP addresses and direct traffic, or even more than that). Now I did see a setting in the GUI to turn on DHCP, and I don't want to turn it on and screw up my network, but I am 90% sure this device will absolutely not work for home users without a router behind it. This is effectively a big complicated antenna for your home router. The way I have this set up, is I plugged this AP into the weak WiFi 6 "router" I had, copied the Wireless Network settings, and turned off the radio on the "router" (this is an important step). The router is now able to do its routing thing while this AP connects to the wireless devices in the house. Simple install. After installing this AP, most of the lag in my network subsided, my office has 5Ghz, and my download speed increased. I am a happy customer.
Top critical review
5 people found this helpful
Very Buggy Web Interface, Does Not Work With HomeKit
By Scotty Drippin’ on Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2024
UPDATE May 23, 2024: I bought a Cat 8 ethernet patch cable and swapped out the Cat 6 and the WAX630E AP was finally able to connect at 2.5 Gbps on the NETGEAR MS108EUP switch. After playing around with the mDNS settings, I was able to get most of my HomeKit/IoT devices working. It also involved downgrading the firmware to the previous version just before the latest release, which is V10.7.0.11. Enabling mDNS and creating an "Apple Net Assistant" policy pointing to the HomePods IP addresses on my network seems to resolve the HomeKit issues. It was not clear which "Shared Service" I needed to use to get HomeKit, (_hap._tcp.), to work. A very long process of trial and error help me find the "Shared Service" that would work. There should be more clear and more detailed documentation about the mDNS and policy configuration. Enabling mDNS created another problem; I am no longer able to manage the access point from the web interface if I am connected wirelessly to it, unlike before enabling it. I would have to wirelessly connect to another AP or physically plug in a network cable, on the same network as the access point, to manage it. I figured, hey at least now everything is somewhat working now and I don’t mind the trade-off of having to physically plug-in to the network or connect to different AP to manage NETGEAR WAX630E AP… BUT… the throughput started to degrade severely. I’m using a MacBook Pro M1 Max, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPad Air, Lenovo Yoga. All of these devices hav WiFi 6 radios installed. After the WAX630E was up and running for about an hour or two, the throughput to all of these devices degraded. Before, I would connect with download and upload speeds of over 840 Mbps, and now I can barely crack 150 Mbps. My Connection speed remains at a Tx Rate of 1,200 Mbps and PHY Mode: 802.11ax but I still get these super slow speeds. If I connect to my old Apple AirPort Extreme, I will get download and upload speeds of just about over 600 Mbps with a Tx Rate of 866 Mbps and PHY Mode: 802.11ac. I contacted net gear support, but they have yet to respond back to my ticket update that I sent in on 19 May 2024. This AP will be returned. Dear fellow consumers listen to the other critical reviews that say to stay far away from this device. It is less than half-baked. ============ Original Review ============= I bought the to replace my aging AirPort Extreme and Meraki AP, The specs were everything I needed. Given the price point and its claim to be business oriented, I expected everything to work without any issues, also the fact that this AP has been out for about a year or two. Backward compatibility with older devices and HomeKit compatibility were the dealbreakers. I could not get HomeKit devices to work properly. HomeKit devices haver error that says "no response." Devices include Wemo smart plugs, Wemo Dimmer Switches, Ecobee Thermostat. I configured inter-VLAN routing on my Firewalla Gold firewall. There is a VLAN for IoT and a VLAN for other devices which include HomePods and Apple TVs. I created an SSID for IoT and an SSID for the other devices. Updated firmware on WAX630E, enabled mDNS reflector on Access Point and Firewalla Gold firewall, Configured IoT SSID frequency for 2.5 GHz Only, configured channel to the least used, configured only 802.11ng. This resulted in intermittent connections with the IoT devices, would connect and then drop. I monitored this with Tildesoft.com's Discovery tool _hap._tcp. When I switched back to my old Apple AirPort Extreme or my Cisco Meraki AP, HomeKit/IoT devices communicate and work fine. When connected to any SSID produced by the WAX630E AP, browsing to IP address to access the management Web interface is very slow and buggy. I get frequent timeouts and disconnects. Managing the AP from a wired connection that is on the same network is much stable or being connected to a different AP wirelessly I was using Safari an Firefox on macOS. The managing the AP while connected to it was much more stable and faster on the older firmware, V10.2.0.17, it shipped with out of the box. When I upgraded to firmware V10.8.6.3, the instability was very pronounced. I did not try managing the AP from NETGEAR Insight (Cloud/Remote) as I do not have many APs and I do not want to pay for another subscription. This AP has been out for a while, and these issues should've been resolved by now. If Netgear could get their act together fix this AP with a firmware update, this would be an excellent/near perfect product.
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