The Netgear GUI has few options.

[doc octopus]

Hi everyone, I have been a Netgear customer for 20 years and I am amazed that the user interface of its products has remained lacking in options, poorly organized and lacking in those protection and family management features that are now also available in low cost of other manufacturers.
You will wonder why I keep buying them, the reasons are two: the 5 GHz signal higher than other manufacturers in speed and coverage and why it uses the QCA chipsets that I consider more reliable than Broadcom and others.
There are some shortcomings in the user interface that I consider truly incredible nowadays and, hoping to be read by someone who counts in Netgear, I write my small wish list with the hope one day, to find it fulfilled in a GUI more modern and functional than the current one:

- Wireless 2.4 GHz: possibility to exclude channels 12 and 13 from those that can be selected automatically;
- Possibility of choosing a VPN chosen by the user;
- Family management, time scheduling of connected devices, to limit the time of children connected to the internet with video games or smartphones.

Thanks for reading and sorry for the translation errors.

 

[microchip]

That's generally known about the suckage of NG firmware. I see you have RAX120. If you had an R7800/R8900/R9000 you could load up Voxel's firmware and install the kamoj addon which adds tons of options to the firmware. Extremely useful addon, supporting a lot of VPN and QoS features, including adblocking

 

[Trip]

A truth, but patience my son. Ath11k driver support should be figured out for OpenWRT by the end of the year, after which it can swoop in to save the life of this phenomenally-capable hardware platform. Qualcomm wifi quality is generally top notch, so if you can just hang in there for a few more months, I'm sure you'll be rewarded.

 

[avtella]

I've read on OpenWRT forums that ATH11K will probably be "ready" by the end of the year as well. However I would expect it not to be completely stable for another 4-6 months after that, ie mid 2021, at least based on having seen the progression of the ATH10K firmware on the R7800.

I see the RAX120 (and now AX89X) as the successor to the R7800, having probably the best WiFi chipset on the market right now, but let down by mediocre firmware. I've resorted to using mine as an AP as the non-wifi portion of the firmware has just gotten worse stability wise.

 

[L&LD]

I would be using what works today (supported Asus, RMerlin powered routers).

If/when the hoped-for upgrades do materialize, it is easy enough to switch then.

 

[RMerlin]

But the beauty of running OpenWRT is you get much longer term support.

 

[coxhaus]

There is a lot to be said for long term support. It is one of the reasons I run Cisco. I think I am close to 10 years on my Cisco layer 3 switch. I just put a new firmware on my Cisco switch in February.