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Netgear’s first Wi-Fi 6 routers look like sci-fi spaceships

Netgear’s first Wi-Fi 6 routers look like sci-fi spaceships

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Nighthawk AX12
Nighthawk AX12
Image: Netgear

The next generation of Wi-Fi is starting to arrive, and Netgear is jumping in with its first two routers: the Nighthawk AX8 and Nighthawk AX12.

These are two very high-end routers, capable of theoretical speeds well beyond what most home internet connections can deliver. But their real standout feature is support for the next major Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ax — or what’s being newly branded as “Wi-Fi 6.”

Wi-Fi 6 doesn’t bring with it many incredible speed leaps or fancy consumer-facing features. But its speeds should be somewhat faster, and more importantly, it’s supposed to be better at dealing with a multitude of devices on a network at once, something that’s increasingly important as our homes fill with smart gadgets.

Goodbye evil-spider routers?

Also, the two routers look like sci-fi stealth fighter jets. In a world of evil-spider routers, this is a promising development.

Netgear developed this new design style as a way to make sure its routers’ antennas remain upright. Antennas are hidden inside of the devices’ wings, a position that Netgear says optimizes them for the best performance.

Nighthawk AX8
Nighthawk AX8
Image: Netgear

The AX8 is the lower end of the two Wi-Fi 6 routers. It has two 4 x 4 antenna arrays (one for 5GHz Wi-Fi, one for 2.4GHz), five gigabit Ethernet ports, and supports a total of 6GHz of wireless throughput. The AX12 is very similar, but it includes an 8 x 8 antenna array for its 5GHz network, which Netgear says offers better long-range stability, along with a faster processor and a 5Gb Ethernet port.

For now, few (if any) people will actually be able to take advantage of all that power. In fact, you’re likely better off waiting to buy into the Wi-Fi 6 ecosystem: your phone, computer, game console, and everything else in your home almost certainly don’t support the new Wi-Fi standard, so many of these gains won’t help you. You’ll have to buy all new products in the coming years before support for some of these newer technologies arrives.

But if you’re eager to jump in, or just love the idea of wiring up a very capable local network, Netgear is one of the first to start offering this class of router. The AX8 goes on sale this month for $399. The AX12 will arrive in “late Q1 / early Q2” of 2019, with pricing still undetermined.

And while this is the first major Wi-Fi 6 router to be unveiled after the Wi-Fi 6 branding was announced, this router doesn’t actually state that it supports “Wi-Fi 6” on the box. It still says 802.11ax (perhaps because Netgear initially planned to announce this product months ago, but held off until today). A representative for Netgear said that the company “will be using the generational language from the Wi-Fi Alliance,” but that it would take time to implement.