The behemoth has been returned; the Nighthawk is gone. Whilst it was undeniably an awesome router that let all our gear fly, I’m not in a position to spend several hundred quid on a new one. I think it’s telling what Netgear are saying at the roll out of their new Orbi multi wireless system (also over $400):
“Today we can’t sell a Wi-Fi router less than $99 because the products less then $99 are no better than what you have in your home.”
True, and switching back to our VM Superhub 2 after the Nighthawk has seen the WiFi range diminish markedly, which is what I would expect after losing those 4 big throbbing active WiFi antennae.
Still help was at hand, as I’ve recently reviewed the TP-Link AV1200 Gigabit Powerline ac Wi-Fi Kit which packs the latest powerline tech into a pair of pass through plug adaptors and bundles a WiFi access point in to one of them. Hurrah!
Now this is where it gets fun. I had to pack the Netgear up in a hurry when we got back from holiday and only had a chance to reset the Superhub 2 back to router mode before the working week started. I did have a spare hour yesterday lunch time though and thought that would be a good time to have a fiddle.
Yes, I basically reconfigured our home WiFi (including another access point that I had meant to clone our Superhub 2’s SSID but had a typo in it and hadn’t got round to adjusting it) via a remote desktop connection. We now have three WiFi access points- the Super Hub 2, the TP-Link homeplug adaptors and an ASUS 556u- that all have the same SSID but operate on different channels to ensure there’s no overlap to cause issues.
It’s certainly cheaper than spending a fortune on a router that has better range!
