| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g |
|---|
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Dan Post
Transformed our Virgin internet experience
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2019Capacity: Nighthawk ACModel: AC3200Verified Purchase
Transformed our Virgin internet experience
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2019
As Virgin internet users (Vivid 200), we'd been muddling along with our Super Hub 3 for the past year, and frankly were getting to the end of our tether with the poor internet connectivity we were seeing. Wi-Fi devices were randomly kicked off the network, or would show as connected but with appallingly slow internet access (speed tests as low as 150 Kb/sec). Coverage was also poor, needing a booster for the back part of the house, which considering it's a small 3-bed semi with mostly stud walls, wasn't exactly stellar. What's more, like many people we are adding smart switches and sockets to the house, and with every new device, the creaking performance seemed to get even worse. The other thing sorely missing from the Virgin Hub 3 was any form of decent parental control.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2019
I ordered the R8000 hoping to resolve all of these issues, and a week in, I have to say I wish I'd done it sooner. I now get full internet bandwidth, or close to, on mobile devices, and the stability is absolutely rock solid. Also, the coverage reaches the entire house, and down to the bottom of our 30ft garden with no need for any form of extender. In short, it gives you a proper Wi-Fi network that allows connected devices to perform as you would expect.
Installation was a doddle, and took all of 5 minutes to get it connected and working. Simply log in to the Virgin Hub 3's admin webpage, and switch the Hub into modem mode. This disables all of the Wi-Fi functionality on the Hub 3, and uses it only to connect to the Virgin network. Reboot the Hub 3, connect one end of the supplied ethernet cable to any port on the Hub 3, and the other to the yellow "Internet" port on the R8000, using the Nighthawk mobile app. Download the Netgear Nighthawk app to an Android or iOS device, connect the device to the Wi-Fi on the R8000 with the credentials on the sticker on the top of it, launch the app, and simply follow the instructions. It instantly identified the router, connected to it, installed the latest firmware update, prompted me to update the admin password (no brainer anyway), and then it all came to life and started working.
There's a lot the Nighthawk app can't do, so after doing this, you will need to go to the admin web page for the R8000 (192.168.1.1 default) and log in with the admin credentials you just provided in order to complete the config, set your Wi-Fi security and SSIDs up, configure your access control and guest network, and so on. You'll be tweaking stuff for a while, but you really do get a basic, functioning Wi-Fi network inside of 5 minutes.
The full parental control is achieved via the Circle app (by Disney, strangely), which does come at a monthly cost of £5 (with a month's free trial included), but it is absolutely brilliant. It gives you all the control you need, lots you probably don't, and is so easy to set up and use that it's worth every penny. I created profiles for both my daughters, and assigned the devices they use to them. The software then logs and manages everything these devices do on the network. It will enforce internet access times, bed times, and even let you control access to individual websites or apps. For devices used by adults, or static devices such as our Amazon Echos, smart switches or media streamers, you can set these as 'unmanaged', so that they work without any interference at all.
The app also allows you to quickly and easily enable and disable internet access for an individual user with a single click, extend time limits quickly as a reward, and provides a full breakdown of the URLs and apps accessed by each user, with times and dates, and the amout of time spent on each. The other really handy thing is that you get a push notification to the app if a new device accesses the network. I have experimented with MAC address access control on Wi-Fi before, but it is a pain having to log in to the admin console every time you have a guest who wants access, or whenever you buy a new device. With this, you can leave access open, but get a notification whenever a new device logs in. It's a much better solution, for me anyway. Of course, you can still go a step further and restrict access by MAC address, if you prefer.
Downsides? The router is a big old lump (see pic) which will need a decent amount of space, close to your Virgin Hub. It's also not cheap of course, but when you're paying £50 a month for 200 Mbit internet, your devices are struggling to see a tenth of that in reality, and the standard hardware supplied by the ISP simply isn't fit for purpose, the performance upgrade it delivers is instantly noticeable. It has been nothing short of a transformation in terms of the real internet speeds we are seeing, and I love the visibility it gives over what the kids are doing and when, as well as the easy control to stop unwanted behaviour. The difference between "proper" Wi-Fi, and what you get with the standard ISP provided junk really is staggering, both in terms of performance and configurability.
Fantastic bit of kit. Highly recommended.
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Nigel Hancock
Made a huge difference to the wi-fi perfoemance
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2018Capacity: Nighthawk ACModel: AC3200Verified Purchase
Alex
Forget this if you want to use AirPlay or TimeMachine
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 January 2019Verified Purchase
Sweet Guy
Superhub to Nighthawk
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 September 2020Capacity: Nighthawk ACModel: AC4000Verified Purchase
Andy G
Top bit of Kit
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 April 2019Capacity: Nighthawk ACModel: AC3200Verified Purchase
Top bit of Kit
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 April 2019
With a son who has been complaining for weeks about lag on his online gaming issues and numerous calls to Virgin media to sort out their signal etc, we are supposed to have 200Mb Fibre and a Hub 3 but the signal between 2 x V6 boxes less than 10 feet apart and wired PC’s has been appalling! signal fallout an absolute joke, watching programs only for the TiVo box to tell you the signal has been lost from one TiVo to the other, or just so laggy the Wi-Fi just can’t keep up.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 April 2019
From what I have read online & in forums etc (Though I am sure some other suppliers have similar issues) Seems the Virgin Hub 3 isn’t that good at distributing the signals to the devices that need the best connection – Please do look up the difference between “Bandwidth” and “Latency” as latency is the key! You may well be getting good signal coming in the Hub say 200mb, but it is how the signal is distributed and how quickly (Latency) to your devices that is the key and the Hub 3 is pants at doing that! Though they would never tell you!
The latency with the Virgin was so bad during online gaming that you could say in Fortnight shoot first but get shot first because of the lag etc, I decided to go online, do some research and in the end I bought this beauty, and so far so good, high latency to those devices that ask for it, and connectivity Virgin could only dream of!
Overall, It’s not that hard to set up, I worked out where it needed to go first, then unplugged all the hard wired devices and rerouted the wiring etc to make life easier! just some simple wiring, attaching of network and power cables, and then some good old common sense a bit of tweaking and all is fine.
I also bought the smaller Gigabit switch (To the right of the Nighthawk in the pic) to allow me a few more wired network connections and this just connects to the Nighthawk through one the of LAN ports giving you 4 extra ports to play with.
Once you get set up, give yourself several hours to do it, as it’s not a 5 min job, I’m no computer expert but have a little bit of an idea and it took me most of the day to place, fit, wire, download, test etc.
The result so far is, by just using the Virgin Hub 3 to introduce the internet signal into the Nighthawk, there now appears to be no more latency lag on the online gaming front (The Hub 3 is ok for bringing a signal into your house but appallingly bad at distributing the signals to where they are actually needed!) but with this there is no issue at all, you just connect your Hub 3 in Modem mode (Video’s on you tube to show you from other users how to do it) and then you use the Nighthawk router to connect your devices where you can via a network cable or just use the Nighthawk’s superior Wi-Fi signal for all your mobile devices (You can connect up to 64 wireless devices to this router alone should you wish to).
Regarding Virgin TV, The Virgin Wi-Fi signal for one of our TiVo boxes was often at 18% and would always cut out! and now, with this Wi-Fi its often over 90% with no drop out what so ever.
Really happy just made the decision to buy this router, just sorry I didn’t not do it earlier and save the earache! I Also still need to tidy the cabling up as you can see!
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