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Puerto Rico, San Juan
1 Level
711 Review
47 Karma

Review on NETGEAR EX7000 WiFi Mesh Range Extender - Boost Signal Coverage up to 2100 sq.ft., Connect 35 Devices with AC1900 Dual Band Repeater & Smart Roaming (1900Mbps Speed) by Darrius Frison

Revainrating 1 out of 5

2.4GHz. the signal drops every few hours and repeatedly knocks my camera out Ring Spotlight Offline

UPDATE: My Netgear AC1900 model EX7000 actually died today. It is lit, except for the 2.4 and 5 GHz indicators, which means that no Wi-Fi frequency is working anymore. Cannot connect to WiFi. It's like this thing slowly degraded and then just died within 3 months of purchase and installation. I've tried rebooting and even the recessed reset button. Nothing helped to fix this piece of junk. The hardware should still be under warranty, but Netgear doesn't make claims on the warranty easy. I'm sorting through this mess right now. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I thought I had the right extender for my Netgear Nighthawk router (which has been amazing for a few years). Unfortunately I was wrong. I purchased this Netgear AC1900 EX7000 power strip specifically to power my new Ring Spotlight camera which I installed outside of the garage overlooking the driveway as the location was slightly out of range of my existing Nighthawk router. But when the Ring camera turned itself off every few hours, I got concerned. As part of the troubleshooting process, I moved the Netgear extender no more than 15 feet from my camera to ensure a good, strong signal. But the problem continued. I quickly realized that the Netgear AC1900 extension was to blame, not the Ring camera itself. Ring cameras are not compatible with the 5GHz band, so I have them with the Entender's 2.4GHz band tied together. For some reason, the extender is unable to maintain a 2.4GHz signal for more than a few hours without service interruption, which subsequently disables my Ring Spotlight camera. The repeater has to be restarted every time to fix the problem! I spent an agonizing hour on the phone with Netgear's Indian call center. CSR dutifully followed her script and let me change channels on my Nighthawk router, which she assured me that she would switch to the Entender and solve my problem. The camera immediately reconnected and I was optimistic and over the moon! That night I slept the sleep of angels. The next morning the camera stopped working again. Aggravating! This has been happening every night since installing the Netgear extender. To make sure the issue is definitely related to the Netgear expander and not the Ring camera, I went with 2.4GHz. the signal from the repeater as the main Wi-Fi signal on my iPhone. Every time the ring cam goes off I check my phone and indeed I find that it has jumped from a 2.4GHz signal to a 5GHz signal indicating that the 2.4GHz -Signal lost due to service interruption and the phone had to search and find a 5GHz signal as a backup. I've researched the issue online and on the Netgear forums and found this to be a widespread issue that appears to be related to one of Netgear's firmware updates. NETGEAR still hasn't released a patch or new firmware to fix the problem. What good is a security camera that can't stay online? Come on Netgear! Maintaining a Wi-Fi signal should be the most basic and important job of a Wi-Fi system. You can do better! Is there a Google Mesh in my future? This is when Netgear cannot find a solution to this problem. Too bad I didn't bother to install my system sooner. I've waited through rainy days and busy schedules for the perfect day to set everything up and now I'm past the point of bringing it back to Revain. I am disappointed, depressed and angry. I still have one month of free NETGEAR phone support, after that they expect me to pay them for the help. For real? And your call center in India further complicates the "help" process. I can only understand every third word CSR says and she barely understands me which only makes the problem worse and creates a very uncomfortable experience for the customer. My advice to others: find the best Wi-Fi solution.

Pros
  • Pleasant
Cons
  • Mostly fine but...