Haha! They do look like a great way to store papers and books! Though, I admit I like the design better than the upside down bug things that had a bunch of antennas sticking out of them for no reason other than to impress people that don't understand radio technology and think more visible antennas means better.
For multi-story houses, ability to reposition antennas so they would provide better performance in up-down direction and not just on the same floor as the router is not a small thing.
As network performance increases, it makes less and less sense to buy a monolithic router/switch/AP than to use separate components and upgrade only the parts required, e.g. it is cheaper (and FAR less hassle) to swap out an AC AP for an AX AP and keep the rest of the network in place than to effectively replace and recreate an entire network setup.
Well, if you get a new router, no one forces you to throw out your switch, do they? How many routers also aren't wireless access points? So two out of your three items are already linked in all consumer cases I know of. Plus of your, wifi routers usually have 4 or 5 gigabit LAN ports, so they are switches as well. And a quick look at a price comparison website says that wifi routers and wifi router with built in modems are much cheaper across the board (probably due to scaling powers) than routers and router with modems without wifi. The access point stuff seems to be mostly for people building a mesh network or covering larger places anyway, which is a totally different bag in and of itself.
Here in Germany you get provided a wifi router/modem with 4 Gb/s LAN ports or more when you enter a contract. The default model is free of charge in my experience, the premium model from the supplier is either a one time payment thing or a monthly rent thing. You can provide your own modem and anything else, that is a new right we gained a year or two ago. Apart from some people with FritzBoxes who want to use the built in DECT stuff or people with really specific need, I don't think anyone actually does that. You can configure the wifi router to just act as a modem and supply your own switches, routers and wifi APs after the fact, setting up your own pfSense PC, DHCP server or whatever.
So you really need to explain to me in what (preferrably generally done) way your solution would be less hassle and cheaper to boot?
Agreed. I would much rather have a separate access point. I migrated my home network over to a Sophos virtualized router, a Netgear 10 gigabit switch, and a Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Pro. I couldn't be happier. When I ran some iperf tests comparing my ASUS ac1900 router to my UniFi AP AC Pro, the difference was night and day. Even though the UniFi AP is technically slower, I actually get much higher throughput on my laptop with an Intel 9260 chipset. The connection is also much more stable from a throughput perspective. When I ran iperf with the ASUS router, the graph was going up and down all over the place. With the UniFi AP, it's just a nice flat line with no peaks or dips. You can tell that the UniFi AP is much more well built and thought out. There really is no replacement for enterprise grade hardware like the stuff that Ubiquiti and other vendors offer. A lot of it is the same price or cheaper than these ridiculous routers like this new Netgear.
Looks OK. I'm already a prosumer that would rather build a mini PC used as a pfSense router, with external switch, and external WiFi AP, so this isn't something I'd buy.
I do like the antenna design though. The fixed orientation helps make sure that the antennas are in optimal angles to promote ideal coverage. I also liked this about some of the Asus antenna designs, too. (Googling shows one product, Asus Lyra Trio). Many people don't realize that the antennas used inside in-home routers are omni-directional antennas. And while that sounds "fancy", it actually has a radiation patten shaped like a donut. Most households will orient all the antennas straight up because it "looks right", but the fact of the matter is that the antennas will start interfering with each other when they're all trying to radiate along the same axis.
Ideally, you'd need 3 antennas all perpendicular to each other (think of the x, y, z axis or the 3 lateral edges of a cube meeting at a corner), each antenna would radiate out with minimal interference. But orienting a wifi router's 3 antenna to be 1 pointing straight up, 1 pointing straight back, and 1 pointing straight to the right "doesn't look right".
That's why I do appreciate antenna enclosures that can orient multiple antennas into a convenient shape for end-users so that all installations result in good coverage.
You want all the antennas to have the same radiation pattern but physically separated for MIMO since it's intended to deal with fading. If the main signal and multipath are adding destructively at one antenna location the idea is for another antenna to pick it up.
They don't interfere like you are suggesting. If you have them oriented all in different fashions, the beam pattern is going to be all over the place. Which aids in maximum coverage, but it reduces maximum through-put at all ranges where you would otherwise have coverage.
the big issue is that by and large, unless you can't run cables, you should have an access point per floor, with higher gain antennas. Or if the structure is large, multiple APs per floor spaced out.
MIMO works by having a spatial stream per antenna. If the beam patterns aren't overlapping, then at longer distances you'll have one spatial stream at maybe -64dBm, one at -76dBm, one at -68dBm. Well all of the spatial streams when talking to a client must be at the same modulation rate. So what happens is generally you'll get the weakest spatial stream, or if too weak, you'll only get one spatial stream at a higher modulation. Where as if you orient the antennas the same, you may have all spatial streams at -64dBm. Of course the downside is if you are above the radiation pattern, you might have all spatial streams at -76dBm.
The other consideration is with beam forming, if the radiation patterns don't overlap well, you can't increase signal strength through constructive interference. So you lose your beam forming gains, which are typically 2-5dB at medium ranges.
Lastly if the radiation patterns are far enough off, you lose MIMO beam strength gains, which is a relatively uniform 3dB IIRC across all differences. Setting up the antennas at radically different angles is really only something you should do if you can only have ONE access point and if you have multiple floors you need to try to get coverage to, and speed is less a priority.
"The fixed orientation helps make sure that the antennas are in optimal angles to promote ideal coverage."
There is no such thing for all possible house configurations and router locations. Is it optimal for a studio flat with the router in the center of it? Probably. All other configurations would profit to some degree from ability to position antennas differently.
Seems like some very key features not quite ready .. maybe wait on 2nd gen rather than pay these kinds of prices for beta products. Who wants to be quite this bleeding edge?
Can the 802.11ax first gen do 80+80Mhz CA instead of single Single 160Mhz? I cant even remember all these spec any more. That should allow 1.6Gbps peak performance, given the efficiency improvement I am hoping to see we actually have 1Gbps+ in an ideal read world wireless environment.
Which brings the next questions, if we could get 1Gbps in wireless, why are the ports still 1Gbps? Is it that much more expensive to get 2 - 3 NBase-T 2.5/5Gbps Port?
Than there is the CPU and processing power, doing 8x8 + 4x4 MU-MIMO along with all the Ethernet is no longer a low computational task, But Apple's A12 could easily handle all these with ease, and for high end router with Apple's SoC gave them the margin the need while still being in the same price range as their competitors. Why not make AirPort again?
I think we will see more and more with either single or multiple >1GbE ports.
Right now I think it isn't going to be much of a push just because it does add some cost and power consumption and a lot of use cases are a server, desktop, whatever that has enough performance the saturate a 1GbE link. The vast majority of home users, even advanced ones don't have a setup that are going to saturate a 1GbE link from multiple machines, that either need to use the WAP as a switch, or that would be hitting the wireless network at >1Gbps.
I need a switch and NICs that are >1GbE first of all, but IMHO I rarely use my WAPs or WiFi router for more than a single LAN port to connect it to my network (or in my WiFi router's case, the WAN port also. But let's be frank, the use cases where you need a LAN port (or more than one) AND a WAN port that is >1GbE is almost zero of the US at least).
So just having one LAN port at >1GbE to me is really nice. I wouldn't mind if all ports were >1GbE, but I am honestly not going to sweat it nor would it likely be a selling feature to me over one that has all 2.5 or 5GbE ports. On the WAN side, I'd suspect I will be on 2 or 3 routers from now before I need to care about >1GbE speed. I am lucky to have Verizon FIOS and Comcrap in my area. Comcast just added 1 Gig service in my area (I think it is 1000Mbps down and 20 or 25Mbps up?) and Verizon also just finally lowered their price structure so I only have to pay $20 a month more for "Gig" over top of the 150/150 that I just switched to (as I talked them in to paying the same for that, that I was for 100/100), but their Gig I think is actually 986/765Mbps or something like that looking at their fine print. Which is still pretty great....but I suspect it'll be a LOT of years before they offer anything exceeding 1Gbps in speed (and would also mean a ONT equipment change out, as my ONT has only Gig ports on it).
Only Gigabit ports, reallly? This should ahve been the start of 5GBe rollout of new top end models, or will that come with the 2nd generation in 6 months to fleece the customer !
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The Chill Blueberry - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
100% will end up as a document holder. With the added heating+drying bonus too.PeachNCream - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Haha! They do look like a great way to store papers and books! Though, I admit I like the design better than the upside down bug things that had a bunch of antennas sticking out of them for no reason other than to impress people that don't understand radio technology and think more visible antennas means better.peevee - Tuesday, December 11, 2018 - link
For multi-story houses, ability to reposition antennas so they would provide better performance in up-down direction and not just on the same floor as the router is not a small thing.Hxx - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Designed by Kylo Renschujj07 - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
At that price it should have 10Gigabit ports instead of Gigabit portsedzieba - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
As network performance increases, it makes less and less sense to buy a monolithic router/switch/AP than to use separate components and upgrade only the parts required, e.g. it is cheaper (and FAR less hassle) to swap out an AC AP for an AX AP and keep the rest of the network in place than to effectively replace and recreate an entire network setup.Death666Angel - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Well, if you get a new router, no one forces you to throw out your switch, do they? How many routers also aren't wireless access points? So two out of your three items are already linked in all consumer cases I know of. Plus of your, wifi routers usually have 4 or 5 gigabit LAN ports, so they are switches as well. And a quick look at a price comparison website says that wifi routers and wifi router with built in modems are much cheaper across the board (probably due to scaling powers) than routers and router with modems without wifi. The access point stuff seems to be mostly for people building a mesh network or covering larger places anyway, which is a totally different bag in and of itself.Here in Germany you get provided a wifi router/modem with 4 Gb/s LAN ports or more when you enter a contract. The default model is free of charge in my experience, the premium model from the supplier is either a one time payment thing or a monthly rent thing. You can provide your own modem and anything else, that is a new right we gained a year or two ago. Apart from some people with FritzBoxes who want to use the built in DECT stuff or people with really specific need, I don't think anyone actually does that. You can configure the wifi router to just act as a modem and supply your own switches, routers and wifi APs after the fact, setting up your own pfSense PC, DHCP server or whatever.
So you really need to explain to me in what (preferrably generally done) way your solution would be less hassle and cheaper to boot?
Death666Angel - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Some typos and generally sloppy writing and mistakes. My apologies.oRAirwolf - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
Agreed. I would much rather have a separate access point. I migrated my home network over to a Sophos virtualized router, a Netgear 10 gigabit switch, and a Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC Pro. I couldn't be happier. When I ran some iperf tests comparing my ASUS ac1900 router to my UniFi AP AC Pro, the difference was night and day. Even though the UniFi AP is technically slower, I actually get much higher throughput on my laptop with an Intel 9260 chipset. The connection is also much more stable from a throughput perspective. When I ran iperf with the ASUS router, the graph was going up and down all over the place. With the UniFi AP, it's just a nice flat line with no peaks or dips. You can tell that the UniFi AP is much more well built and thought out. There really is no replacement for enterprise grade hardware like the stuff that Ubiquiti and other vendors offer. A lot of it is the same price or cheaper than these ridiculous routers like this new Netgear.Gasaraki88 - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
*drooling* over the AX12 but soooo expensive...HStewart - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Interesting technology, but I am curious what client's are available for 802.11ax - I search Amazon and found nothing.JoeyJoJo123 - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Looks OK. I'm already a prosumer that would rather build a mini PC used as a pfSense router, with external switch, and external WiFi AP, so this isn't something I'd buy.I do like the antenna design though. The fixed orientation helps make sure that the antennas are in optimal angles to promote ideal coverage. I also liked this about some of the Asus antenna designs, too. (Googling shows one product, Asus Lyra Trio). Many people don't realize that the antennas used inside in-home routers are omni-directional antennas. And while that sounds "fancy", it actually has a radiation patten shaped like a donut. Most households will orient all the antennas straight up because it "looks right", but the fact of the matter is that the antennas will start interfering with each other when they're all trying to radiate along the same axis.
Ideally, you'd need 3 antennas all perpendicular to each other (think of the x, y, z axis or the 3 lateral edges of a cube meeting at a corner), each antenna would radiate out with minimal interference. But orienting a wifi router's 3 antenna to be 1 pointing straight up, 1 pointing straight back, and 1 pointing straight to the right "doesn't look right".
That's why I do appreciate antenna enclosures that can orient multiple antennas into a convenient shape for end-users so that all installations result in good coverage.
flgt - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
You want all the antennas to have the same radiation pattern but physically separated for MIMO since it's intended to deal with fading. If the main signal and multipath are adding destructively at one antenna location the idea is for another antenna to pick it up.azazel1024 - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
They don't interfere like you are suggesting. If you have them oriented all in different fashions, the beam pattern is going to be all over the place. Which aids in maximum coverage, but it reduces maximum through-put at all ranges where you would otherwise have coverage.the big issue is that by and large, unless you can't run cables, you should have an access point per floor, with higher gain antennas. Or if the structure is large, multiple APs per floor spaced out.
MIMO works by having a spatial stream per antenna. If the beam patterns aren't overlapping, then at longer distances you'll have one spatial stream at maybe -64dBm, one at -76dBm, one at -68dBm. Well all of the spatial streams when talking to a client must be at the same modulation rate. So what happens is generally you'll get the weakest spatial stream, or if too weak, you'll only get one spatial stream at a higher modulation. Where as if you orient the antennas the same, you may have all spatial streams at -64dBm. Of course the downside is if you are above the radiation pattern, you might have all spatial streams at -76dBm.
The other consideration is with beam forming, if the radiation patterns don't overlap well, you can't increase signal strength through constructive interference. So you lose your beam forming gains, which are typically 2-5dB at medium ranges.
Lastly if the radiation patterns are far enough off, you lose MIMO beam strength gains, which is a relatively uniform 3dB IIRC across all differences. Setting up the antennas at radically different angles is really only something you should do if you can only have ONE access point and if you have multiple floors you need to try to get coverage to, and speed is less a priority.
peevee - Tuesday, December 11, 2018 - link
"The fixed orientation helps make sure that the antennas are in optimal angles to promote ideal coverage."There is no such thing for all possible house configurations and router locations. Is it optimal for a studio flat with the router in the center of it? Probably. All other configurations would profit to some degree from ability to position antennas differently.
Ankou - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
I just imagine this beautiful hardware will be screwed up by Negear's terribly unstable software/firmware.Makaveli - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
I was just going to ask is this running DumaOS like their previous high end router?surt - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Seems like some very key features not quite ready .. maybe wait on 2nd gen rather than pay these kinds of prices for beta products. Who wants to be quite this bleeding edge?ikjadoon - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
>Netgear Announces Nighthawk RAX80 and RAX120 802.11ax AX6000 RoutersUh, don't we mean Wi-Fi 6?
/s
iwod - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Can the 802.11ax first gen do 80+80Mhz CA instead of single Single 160Mhz? I cant even remember all these spec any more. That should allow 1.6Gbps peak performance, given the efficiency improvement I am hoping to see we actually have 1Gbps+ in an ideal read world wireless environment.Which brings the next questions, if we could get 1Gbps in wireless, why are the ports still 1Gbps? Is it that much more expensive to get 2 - 3 NBase-T 2.5/5Gbps Port?
Than there is the CPU and processing power, doing 8x8 + 4x4 MU-MIMO along with all the Ethernet is no longer a low computational task, But Apple's A12 could easily handle all these with ease, and for high end router with Apple's SoC gave them the margin the need while still being in the same price range as their competitors. Why not make AirPort again?
azazel1024 - Friday, November 9, 2018 - link
I think we will see more and more with either single or multiple >1GbE ports.Right now I think it isn't going to be much of a push just because it does add some cost and power consumption and a lot of use cases are a server, desktop, whatever that has enough performance the saturate a 1GbE link. The vast majority of home users, even advanced ones don't have a setup that are going to saturate a 1GbE link from multiple machines, that either need to use the WAP as a switch, or that would be hitting the wireless network at >1Gbps.
I need a switch and NICs that are >1GbE first of all, but IMHO I rarely use my WAPs or WiFi router for more than a single LAN port to connect it to my network (or in my WiFi router's case, the WAN port also. But let's be frank, the use cases where you need a LAN port (or more than one) AND a WAN port that is >1GbE is almost zero of the US at least).
So just having one LAN port at >1GbE to me is really nice. I wouldn't mind if all ports were >1GbE, but I am honestly not going to sweat it nor would it likely be a selling feature to me over one that has all 2.5 or 5GbE ports. On the WAN side, I'd suspect I will be on 2 or 3 routers from now before I need to care about >1GbE speed. I am lucky to have Verizon FIOS and Comcrap in my area. Comcast just added 1 Gig service in my area (I think it is 1000Mbps down and 20 or 25Mbps up?) and Verizon also just finally lowered their price structure so I only have to pay $20 a month more for "Gig" over top of the 150/150 that I just switched to (as I talked them in to paying the same for that, that I was for 100/100), but their Gig I think is actually 986/765Mbps or something like that looking at their fine print. Which is still pretty great....but I suspect it'll be a LOT of years before they offer anything exceeding 1Gbps in speed (and would also mean a ONT equipment change out, as my ONT has only Gig ports on it).
CheapSushi - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
Nice to see 5G/2.5G ports now.Wolfclaw - Thursday, November 8, 2018 - link
Only Gigabit ports, reallly? This should ahve been the start of 5GBe rollout of new top end models, or will that come with the 2nd generation in 6 months to fleece the customer !