Thank you in advance for your responses, and I apologize if this is redundant.
I am trying to increases the area of my home wireless network. I lose signal when I am outside by the pool and in the front porch/yard. I initially had 1 router in the center of my home on the main floor. I have added a second router (set us as AP per setup wizard) upstairs beside a back window. They are connected by an Ethernet cable.
First router Netgear Nighthawk X8 AC5300 R8500
Second router Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 R8000
I have high speed fiber from my phone company
Internet access is great with the second router through my wired connections.
Using my phone wireless bars as an indicator, the wireless signal seems strong all the way across the back yard.
I now have 6 wifi bands in my home. I had read somewhere (couple years back)before that I could rename the channels to match the first router with the same password and they would be like 1 large network. I have scoured the internet and found nothing like that information in the last 2 days. I have found several blogs that state using 2 routers is a bad idea. I am really confused about what to do because most of the information I am getting seems to more about product promotion than objective results. I just bought the second router, so I could return it if I need to.
What is the best option going forward? Have I gone completely down the wrong path, or do I just need to finish tweaking my network to make it as efficient as possible?
On a much scarier note, I found some information from 2017 about my first router having a security flaw. I have found no announcement that it has been fixed. Is it a reasonably safe router? I have been pretty good about firmware updates over the last 3 years.
I am trying to increases the area of my home wireless network. I lose signal when I am outside by the pool and in the front porch/yard. I initially had 1 router in the center of my home on the main floor. I have added a second router (set us as AP per setup wizard) upstairs beside a back window. They are connected by an Ethernet cable.
First router Netgear Nighthawk X8 AC5300 R8500
Second router Netgear Nighthawk X6 AC3200 R8000
I have high speed fiber from my phone company
Internet access is great with the second router through my wired connections.
Using my phone wireless bars as an indicator, the wireless signal seems strong all the way across the back yard.
I now have 6 wifi bands in my home. I had read somewhere (couple years back)before that I could rename the channels to match the first router with the same password and they would be like 1 large network. I have scoured the internet and found nothing like that information in the last 2 days. I have found several blogs that state using 2 routers is a bad idea. I am really confused about what to do because most of the information I am getting seems to more about product promotion than objective results. I just bought the second router, so I could return it if I need to.
What is the best option going forward? Have I gone completely down the wrong path, or do I just need to finish tweaking my network to make it as efficient as possible?
On a much scarier note, I found some information from 2017 about my first router having a security flaw. I have found no announcement that it has been fixed. Is it a reasonably safe router? I have been pretty good about firmware updates over the last 3 years.