NETGEARNighthawk Tri-Band WiFi 7 Router (RS280S) - Security Features, BE9200 Wireless Speed (up to 9.2 Gbps) - Covers up to 2,500 sq. ft., 100 Devices - 2.5 Gig Internet Port – Includes 1-Year Armor

Easy setup, and very fast speeds. From a 1Gig cable modem ISP, I was able to pull full 1Gig speeds over Wifi on the 6Ghz band on my phone. 600-700 Gig over WiFi on all my devices connected to the 5Ghz band.One thing to note. We have Windows, Android, and IOS devices in my home. I had to turn off "Smart Connect" to get my Apple devices to connect. Smart Connect attempts to connect a device to either 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz, or 6Ghz bands depending on the type of device, and it's distance from the router. Apple TV, and Ipads don't like it. Simply turn it off in the Netgear app, and your good to go.Other than that, the router appears to be well built. The connections on the back and interface on the front are easy to access and understand. The app user interface is very easy to use. Although, I think it might be a tiny bit buggy, but it does the job.Our entire home is very internet dependent. We have over 25 devices connected, which includes 6 TV's, an 8 camera NVR, multiple: phones, laptops, tablets and bunch of other devices. The connectivity to all devices has been strong, and stable. Simultaneous streaming doesn't seem to slow this thing down at all. If you have a high demand home network, and want peak performance, this is your answer.Our home is 1,650sqft. The signal from this router goes way past the street in front of our house, and past the back fence of our back yard. I would say this router would work just fine for 2500sqft home. If your home is 3000+ sqft, I would probably go with the Netgear Orbi 970 Mesh system. I put one in my mothers home (two separate buildings on one property), and they rock. They are just much more expensive than this router.

I was running a Netgear Nighthawk x10 (R9000) which I have loved for years, but it was aging and I had to add a repeater to get the signal to cover my whole house and out into the garage. I saw this RS700 series device and saw a significant price drop, so I made the purchase. I had it stood up and working in no time with my 10GB switch, NAS, multiple PCs and IoT devices throughout the house. It may have taken me an hour to 90 minutes, and this included me visiting all of my devices and upgrading network creds. I was also able to remove the repeater and I am able to get HD streaming out to my garage without issue. Everything is peppier, and it offers the latest connectivity and speeds. Not all of my devices can take advantage of this, but for the ones that could, it is a noticeable difference. I also like the smaller footprint for the device itself. Takes up far less space than my x10. I am able to manage it from my PC or the app on my phone with ease. There are some great monitoring tools with the app as well. It has made my Plex use snappier, and internet speeds are consistent throughout the network. If you are thinking of upgrading your home router, this is a solid choice. I get solid coverage throughout a 3600 square foot home that extends out into a garage on the opposite side of the house. Fantastic coverage and I have not yet found any dark spots in the house. (The app can help with that!) I highly recommend.

This is truly a top of the line router. I tried a high end TP-Link and Netgear blows them away. Set up is easy and you still have the low level control to customize all the features you need. (Assign fixed DNS IP addresses based on MAC, specify starting IP DNS addr so you can reserve space for fixed IPs, WIFI7 and you can disable auto band assignment(2.4/5/6Ghz.- Auto assign needs work and causes problems.) WIFI signal strength is great and provides good sig, strength everywhere. Throughput is terrific and all devices max out to their capability. This is really a great router and rock solid in performance. BobM (Retired IT professional)

Firmware: 1.0.7.86Review written: November 26, 2024I work in IT and have configured various wireless routers over the years, and this post is written from that perspective.The Netgear RS700S is very highly reviewed online, as of 2024 it's one of the top WiFi 7 routers on the market, in the consumer-grade class. Enterprise gear gets much more expensive, but isn't a benefit for us home users.It was released in July 2023, supporting WiFi 7. I waited until November 2024 before purchasing, to replace my old Wifi 5 (802.11ac) router. The reason for waiting so long is many new tech products aren't actually ready on release, as the software will have a lot of bugs only revealed after being on the market. On release, there were multiple bugs that got fixed over time, which can be read about in forums online or in early reviews here.My RS700S is configured in "Access Point" mode, as I already have a main router/firewall to distribute the wired Ethernet connections. The goal was to get very robust WiFi 7 capability, along with previous 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz standards for older devices. The RS700S is actually 3 broadcasters in one unit, supporting those bands.As a quick refresher, the 3 radio frequency bands of wireless have different tradeoffs. The lower the frequency, data transfers slower, but the range is longer. The higher the frequency, data transfers faster, but range is significantly lessened. A wireless "standard" such as WiFi 5, 6, 7, etc. can make use of one or more frequency bands, depending on the standard and settings.2.4Ghz - Slow, but longest range. Okay for web pages and standard lower-resolution online video, downloads are limited to a few MB/s even with a strong signal.5Ghz - Much much faster than 2.4Ghz, but *much* shorter range. Larger modern homes (with hollow walls) likely need several access points in a mesh network for adequate connectivity and speed.6Ghz - Even faster, but shorter range than 5Ghz. Basically a "be in the same room as the WiFi access point, otherwise good luck" technology.The actual range and speed you will get depends on a lot of factors: The speed of your internet, the speed of the WiFi router, the WiFi connection's actual negotiated stable speed, the distance, any walls & materials between you and the router, radio interference, the antennas and hardware speed of your device, and other factors. At every point the connection must be strong to get speed, as the slowest link determines speed.The only device I have right now that supports 6Ghz is my phone, my other devices are 5Ghz, and one older 2.4Ghz device. My RS700S is stable in the 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz bands, and is quicker than my previous WiFi 5 router (which is several years older and less powerful). But my RS700S seems to have a bug in firmware version 1.0.7.86 that causes issues with the 6Ghz band, which could result in dropouts. I am getting intermittent IP traffic issues when using the 6GHz band, which manifests as phone applications pausing when trying to load data. Signal is okay-ish (4 of 5 WiFi bars, -60dbm) and data will continuously flow at speed, but then for a few seconds stop, then flow again. I am about 15 feet away, with one hollow wall between. I do not get this issue on the other bands, and have been using the 5GHz band mainly. From research online, 6Ghz dropouts seem to happen in firmware version 1.0.7.86 but not in prior firmware versions.Firmware needs to be tested extensively before release, and there should be standardized testing in place at Netgear's lab to catch this. Just test it a bit longer before release! This is an expensive device, and I've had much cheaper WiFi access points over the years that just worked. I do not want a refund or a swap, only updated (and thoroughly tested) firmware.