NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Range Extender Review (EX8000)

1. Introduction2. NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Range Extender3. Setup and Administration4. NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Range Extender Analysis5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

The NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Range Extender has clear benefits over a standalone router. It can extend your usable 802.11ac range by 5-10m, which can mean the difference between covering your house and not. However, it's not in the same league as a dedicated mesh WiFi option, particularly NETGEAR's own Orbi. We also found ASUS's AiMesh could outperform the X6S and XR500 with the ASUS router combination we used for testing that system.

If you're already a NETGEAR router owner, though, you won't be able to use the ASUS option. For those in this category, the X6S provides a sensible way to extend your WiFi over a larger area, although improvements are more obvious with 802.11ac than 802.11n. Considering the power of the WiFi radios on board, it's more reasonably priced than adding a router with the same wireless bandwidth specification, too.

In other words, it's not an unreserved recommendation for the NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Range Extender. If you've got the money and want the best mesh available, we would still recommend NETGEAR's Orbi instead. If you own an ASUS router, the AiMesh route could be very effective too.

But if you're already the owner of a capable NETGEAR Nighthawk router and want to extend your WiFi range without the expense of a complete mesh replacement, the X6S is good value and is a more seamless solution than a traditional extender, thanks to the single SSID.

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Pros:

• Extends WiFi range with any router (but compatible NETGEAR router required for single SSID).
• Keeps your existing router, unlike dedicated mesh systems.
• Relatively painless setup.
• Not as expensive as dedicated mesh WiFi.
• Four-port Ethernet switch.
• USB port for printer and storage sharing over the network.

Cons:

• Only extends 802.11n a little.
• Not as much extra 802.11ac range as a dedicated mesh WiFi system.
• Only USB 2.0.

KitGuru says: The NETGEAR Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band WiFi Range Extender improves wireless range whilst maintaining the same network name, but results are best with 802.11ac and a dedicated mesh is faster.

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