NETGEAR has added a WiFi router to its premium Nighthawk product line of WiFi routers.
The Nighthawk X8 AC5300 Smart WiFi Router (R8500) delivers internet performance with combined WiFi speeds up to 5.3Gbps (1000Mbps + 2166Mbps +2166Mbps), a new record for a home router, NETGEAR said.
NETGEAR Nighthawk X8, Tri-Band, Quad-Stream AC5300 WiFi Router will be available, at a price of INR 27,000 with NETGEAR’s authorized distributors in India from January 2016.
The new router is designed to address the connectivity needs of modern homes. A recent research by Market Lab has revealed that an average household has more than 12 WiFi devices connecting to its network.
As the Internet of Things (IoT) smart homes become a reality more devices are expected to get connected to home networks.
With its quad-stream, tri-band capabilities the router can provide internet bandwidth for all the devices in a home.
The Smart Connect feature of the tri-band Nighthawk X8 is engineered to intelligently segment slower and faster devices into the most appropriate WiFi band so that not only can the fast devices run faster, but even older devices will offer better performance, the company said.
The tri-band capability of the device helps segment traffic by devices or application. In a typical older dual-band router, for example, the video streamer and the Internet gamer have to effectively “time-share” bandwidth. However, with a tri-band router such as Nighthawk X8, video streaming and Internet gaming traffic can each operate on separate bands, effectively getting double the speed of a dual-band router.
The router also features a Dynamic QoS prioritization capability. Instead of treating all devices and applications as the same, Dynamic QoS recognizes each individual application and the device it is running on, their network traffic accordingly.
The router is powered by a 1.4GHz dual core processor for faster connections. It supports more wired connections with six Gigabit Ethernet ports including two that can be aggregated for faster file transfers. It has eight antennas in total – four internal and four patent-pending external Active Antennas that boost the wireless range of the Nighthawk X8.
With advanced port aggregation capability of Nighthawk X8, users can transfer large data files, photos, and videos in minutes. The router has six Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports; two of these ports can be aggregated to double the gigabit connection to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device to support 4K HD streaming, faster backups, and faster file transfers.
Rajani Baburajan
