Netgear xr500 your experiences with this router.

[Gar]

$149 is a really good price and Voxel does a nice job with his f/w. I had a 7800 but as stated, the QoS sux, otherwise liked it fine. Great coverage. Can't imagine an XR500 being worth twice the money and it doesn't support Voxel.

 

[SmallNetGuy]

AirPort Extreme actually just got a security update if I recall correctly.

Maybe for most recent router revisions, but as I stated earlier, the one I gave my sister is A1354, 4th Generation released back in October 20th, 2009. Quite old horse

 

[SmallNetGuy]

$149 is a really good price and Voxel does a nice job with his f/w. I had a 7800 but as stated, the QoS sux, otherwise liked it fine. Great coverage. Can't imagine an XR500 being worth twice the money and it doesn't support Voxel.

Thank you Gar, your input is greatly appreciated! That's what I thought, and I've heard Tomato and some other work on it just fine too... I just don't know how long it will be supported. XR500 seems good on paper, but I have to admit even on sale, it's still pretty pricey for "closed" platform. I don't believe it will ever support third party firmware. I was thinking of getting them ASUS RT-AC86U as suggested earlier in this thread by avtella, but I've read a lot of reviews where people complained something about 2.4 GHz radio started failing after some time. Some people went through 3 returns/exchanges, only to end up with the same problem... kind of worrisome if it's hardware defect or something else, but bottom line, the problem is there.

 

[avtella]

As for Open Source the XR500 and R7800 both do support OpenWRT/DDWrt as they are practically the same other than 128MB more flash in the XR500. Broadcom models are the ones that have issues with the likes of OpenWRT regardless of brand as Broadcom isn’t very Open Source friendly. Tomato is Broadcom specific can’t use it on Qualcomm routers.

If you really don’t want the Asus models, I’d go R7800 + OpenWRT, in it, SQM Piece of Cake QoS is probably the best I’ve ever seen for buffer bloat control and load balancing between users, it’s in my experience been better then Duma’s QoS. I’d use hnyman’s builds on LEDE/OpenWRT forums he adds additional packages and updates his builds every few days.

 

[SmallNetGuy]

As for Open Source the XR500 and R7800 both do support OpenWRT/DDWrt as they are practically the same other than 128MB more flash in the XR500. Broadcom models are the ones that have issues with the likes of OpenWRT regardless of brand as Broadcom isn’t very Open Source friendly. Tomato is Broadcom specific can’t use it on Qualcomm routers.

If you really don’t want the Asus models, I’d go R7800 + OpenWRT, in it, SQM Piece of Cake QoS is probably the best I’ve ever seen for buffet bloat control and load balancing between users, it’s in my experience been better then Duma’s QoS. I’d use hnyman’s builds on LEDE/OpenWRT forums he adds additional packages and updates his builds every few days.

Thank you! Super useful information! I will check that out, seams like an amazing option, and very flexible too.

 

[e38BimmerFN]

I feel the same as you, the XR500 is still abit too pricey for what it does. It's only a dual band router. They all are accept for the the XR700 which is mostly a dual band and a 3rd for 60Ghz WiFi which you have to have devices that are supportive of that. So mainly at least for now, it's mostly Dual band.

The DUMA OS is a combination of Duma and NG code combined together. IT is nice and fairly intuitive. The OS is UI and web browser intensive and can have slower performances. Hoping NG and Duma can improve upon this.

I would check out the R7800 and the suggestions regarding it. Or have a look into the D-Link DIR-882. Very intuitive and simple and a good gamer router as well. Also 3rd party FW supportive.

Thank you e38BimmerFN, greatly appreciated. Looking at all three replies I've received to my initial post, I can't help but notice not once was XR500 mentioned Is that not a good option? I kind of understand when price is like it is now when sale is off, and XR500 went back to its regular price here in Canada ($379.99). Despite the DumaOS and how good some people praise it is, I still believe price is still little too high. Gamers who want to be better than others will always try anything that will give them that edge I am also sure there are many who can't game whatever equipment you give them, and regardless of how good it is... they can have the smallest possible lag, but if they are not built for playing video games, they won't produce any results. I've had probably the worst router at one point, and was always among 3-4 top players in Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3 and 4 back in the days (I meant inside that player list and the score at the end of each game). I never even knew what lag is or had any idea on how to fix it.

Anyway... would XR500 at the price I've got it for ($280 CAD), still be a good option, a router that's not going to die in next 1-2 years? Also, I am really interested to learn your expert opinion on DumaOS. I've learned it's basically an add (and good at that) that's laid on the top of the existing NG firmware, with a lot nicer and more intuitive user interface and GUI. Just to mention... my niece is not so n00b when it comes to networking, she is coming from Ubiquiti EdgeRouterX and Unifi UAP-AC Lite, and she was even able to manage that, alone without anyone interfering with her setups. AC Lite is still in perfectly good working condition, so I plan to extend their network using it in a part of their house that usually have WiFi dead zone... but EdgeRouterX gave its last breath few weeks ago, so they temporarily use very old Airport Extreme A1354 (4th Generation) that I gave them. At least they have internet and it's always super stable with that Airport. However, I think it's time to upgrade their network a bit

Best Regards

 

[SmallNetGuy]

Sure, all great info right there. Thank you again!

Another question... is Voxel still working on custom firmware for R7800? I never used it or even checked it closer only because I haven't used Netgear equipment in so long. The last one I owned was Netgear WPN824 v2. I've had only problems with it, constantly disconnecting and cutting off my internet, so I never looked into any other Netgear routers after. Switched to Linksys and later to ASUS.

If R7800 works nice with Voxel, I believe that might be a good option for my sister's house.

I was looking at AC86U (that's also currently on sale here, till July 4th), but skimming through reviews and people complaining about units dying left and right, 2.4 GHz radios failing, and some other problems, I got kind of scared. Don't want to purchase something and give it as a gift, only to find it giving up after 3 months of use and causing problems for my sister's family. I know better by now, most of bad reviews are coming from people who experienced problems with that router... there is most likely a lot more people who are super happy with it, but never felt any urge to report "how amazing that router really is". When someone is happy with something, he is happy with it, and does not have a lot of need or urge to talk about that (unless doing product reviews or something like that). But people with problems, they normally report those problems... and I don't blame them, they have all the right to complain. They paid diligently with their hard earned money, so naturally they expect working equipment. They also report that not just to blame on the manufacturer (some do that exactly for that reason unfortunately), but in hope they will find some working solution to their problem. That's all normal...

Still, I feel kind of uneasy with buying AC86U if this is like epidemic kind of problem, and whole batch is affected.

Are there any signs some specific hardware revision of AC86U that are affected? Was that only happening with earlier hardware revisions? Did ASUS show in any way they are aware of those problems, and offered fix or solution? I am asking all these questions, because AC86U seems like really nice piece of hardware... at some points it also seems to be better option (newer hardware) than my AC3100, and I have to admit, I have never ever had a better router in my life than this AC3100 with Merlin firmware on it from the day one. Bought it at BestBuy, unboxed, and instantly installed latest Merlin firmware on it. Didn't even register what's the official firmware version on it, couldn't care less about it... I simply updated it with the most recent Merlin I've always had Merlin installed, even back on my old (RIP) AC68U.

@RMerlin - Thank you for all your hard work and amazing support you unselfishly provide... and all that parallel with your personal life, family, everyday job, other hobbies, etc. Amazing!

 

[e38BimmerFN]

Yep, Voxel is released FW versions for the R7800, also R7000 and R9000 as well.

 

[ZippySkippy]

I figured Id give you my 2 cents on the XR500.. Ive had mine for 8 months.. But my experience has not been very good at all.. I cant speak for everyone that has one of course but I will give you a few of my thoughts.. Mine has been one of the most buggiest routers ive ever owned. And killhippie im sure would agree with me at this stage of the routers life as he also shares a few of my concerns. One big issue is there isn't any patches that have been taking place for a good 7 months. They released a milestone update and ever since that dropped the router went down hill fast. Netduma calls there firmware drops milestones. currently we are running milestone 1.3 and once that dropped along came the issues.. The list of issues that have pop up with the XR500 and XR700 is growing. One can just pop in on the Netduma forum and read about them. Many think its Netgears firmware that is causing the issues. But honestly we just don't know completely at this stage of the game. But one thing that has sure changed is the silence we are getting and not hearing anything about current fixes. That has gone on for a good portion of my time there.. So honestly I couldn't recommend any of the XR routers to anyone at this point. If one does want to purchase one and still give it a go id say watch your return date.. If your return date gets near and your having issues pop up from time to time id say return it and save yourself the headaches for the time being.. You can always go back and give it another go once things get ironed out.. If anyone has any other questions feel free to ask.. I can share the list of issues ive had or you can just go over and read a few in the Netduma forum.

Zippy.