Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 stars2.4 Ghz. signal drops out every couple hours, repeatedly knocking my Ring Spotlight Camera Offline
Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2018
UPDATED REVIEW: Today, my Netgear AC1900 Model EX7000 effectively died. It lights up, except for the 2.4 and 5 ghz lights, meaning neither wi-fi frequency works anymore. Can't get wi-fi on either one. It's as if this thing just slowly degraded then just died within 3 months of purchase and setup. I tried a reboot and even the recessed reset button. Nothing worked to fix this piece of junk. Hardware should still be under warranty but Netgear doesn't make it easy to exercise its warranty. Sorting through that mess right now.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: I thought I was getting the right extender to complement my Netgear Nighthawk router (which has been terrific for a couple years). Unfortunately, I was wrong. I bought this Netgear AC1900 EX7000 extender specifically to run my new Ring Spotlight Cam, which I mounted outside the garage looking over the driveway since that location was just a bit out of range for my existing Nighthawk router. But when the Ring camera kept going offline every couple hours I became concerned. During a process of elimination, I moved the Netgear extender to within 15 feet of my camera to ensure a good, strong signal. But the problem continued. Soon, I figured out the AC1900 Netgear extender is the culprit, not the Ring camera itself. Ring cameras aren't compatible with the 5 ghz band so I connected it to the entender's 2.4 ghz band. For whatever reason, the extender can't seem to maintain the 2.4 ghz signal for more than a couple hours without service interruptions, which subsequently knock my Ring Spotlight Camera offline. The Extender must be rebooted to fix the problem each and every time! I spent an agonizing hour on the phone with Netgear's Indian call center. The CSR dutifully followed her script and had me change the channels on my Nighthawk router, which she assured me would translate to the entender and solve my problem. The camera reconnected immediately and I was optimistic and overjoyed! I slept the sleep of the angels that night. The next morning, the camera was offline again. Frustrating! This has happened every night since setting up the Netgear extender. To verify that the problem was definitely with the Netgear extender and not the Ring camera, I selected the 2.4 ghz. signal from the extender as the primary wi-fi signal on my iPhone. Each time the Ring camera drops offline, I check my phone and sure enough I find that it has jumped from the 2.4 ghz signal to the 5 ghz signal, indicating the 2.4 ghz signal was lost due to a service interruption and the phone had to search for and find the 5 ghz signal as a backup. I researched the problem on the web and on the Netgear forums and discovered this is a widespread problem that apparently resulted from one of Netgear's firmware updates. Netgear still hasn't come up with a patch or new firmware update to correct the problem. What good is a security camera that can't stay online? Come on, Netgear! Maintaining the wi-fi signal should be the most basic and important job of a wi-fi system. You can do better than this! Is Google Mesh in my future? It will be if Netgear can't find a solution to this problem. I wish I'd gotten around to installing my system sooner. I waited out rainy days and a busy schedule for the perfect day to set up everything and now I'm past the point where I could've returned it to Amazon. I'm disappointed, defeated and angry. I have a month remaining of free Netgear phone assistance, after which time they expect me to pay them to help me. Really? And your call center in India makes the "help" process even more difficult. I can only understand every third word the CSR speaks and she can barely understand me so it only compounds the problem making for a very frustrating customer experience. My advice to others is to find a better wi-fi solution.
