NETGEAR Nighthawk - WiFi App

I have been using the Netgear Genie app for a couple of years. The Nighthawk app is ok, but it doesn’t have a refresh for when my kids are turning on theirs devices to be “unpaused”, so I still use the Genie app. I would really like to see all devices that have an IP address assigned to them in my device list. Then I could “unpause” them before they are actually connected. I would also like to see a time limit for certain devices. This is the concept with products like Circle. It would be nice if my router did those things so I would not have to buy yet another router to get that capability. I am aware that Circle is available on certain Nighthawk routers, but not all and the one that it is available on is far inferior to the product I have. I hate that I had to buy the more expensive model without the parental controls I wanted because the router with the controls didn’t work in my house. I fully expected Netgear to upgrade the better routers but that has not happened in well over 2 years. In all I would not choose Netgear again. There are other routers on the market that have parental controls built in and on several models. I hope to switch soon.

So, the app does work thankfully but I have some qualms with it. This app should support all Netgear WiFi boosters. If you don’t use a nighthawk booster, ALL devices won’t show on the device list, not just what’s on the booster. Next, I do like that there are preset times to allow guest WiFi but it either needs to let you input the time manually or it should have a drop down menu like every other Netgear app has that you can select time increments of 15-30 minutes. I have my kids on the guest WiFi since my Netgear booster isn’t supported for the XR500. The XR500 doesn’t have parental controls at all, even though the advertisement says it does. It’s much better to be able to set time periods on a guest WiFi than it is to disable each device and have to look at the time constantly. I’d love to see this app to give more control since the admin is the one who uses the app. I’d love to be able to edit the devices themselves on the app. Yea I’m sure Netgear will say, get the circle app. Guys... the circle app is among the worse apps you have. It DOESN’T work. Netgear products aren’t cheap and you shouldn’t need five apps to do something basic. You shouldn’t have to pay a premium for parental controls. Netgear’s reputation keeps taking major hits because the lack of user friendly apps and trying to cash out on features that every other company gives for free. This was almost a $400 router. I’d expect to be able to use an app that acts like the $400 was well spent.

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I have a pretty old R7000 that has been working well for years. I have it set up as a bridge and have saved the settings in case I have to factory reset for what ever reason. Today was just such a day. Unable to reconnect, I had to reset. After several unsuccessful attempts to access and reload settings I ended up trying to connect my laptop via Ethernet cable to access it. At this point I wanted to try accessing the router with the app and was prompted that the net genie app no longer supports the nighthawk series routers. I downloaded the nighthawk app and tried setting it up. There is only one option, access a setup router, unless you are starting from scratch anyway. The router must get connected to the modem in order for the app to access it, it will not progress past that step otherwise. I finally gained access to the setup on my laptop and restored my bridge setup and attempted to access the router in the app again. Same options as before, if you look in the help section, it’s shows bridge mode and that you can’t use the app to access the router, you must turn off bridge mode. I can’t believe this series of router has such restricted app support and no option at all for manually accessing the router or anything. Netgear, get your “advanced” app in order so advanced users can actually use it to access their routers...

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I used Netgear genie for awhile. After updating one of my routers, I have 5 netgear routers networked together in 4 separate buildings, one of my Nighthawk routers was not supported by the genie app. So, I thought, ooh cool I can try a new app. Well, first off it wants me to make an account online. STOP! Wait I have to create an account online to configure my internet router. 9 times out of 10 that I’ve used the genie app is to isolate an internet trouble. If I can’t use the app without internet it’s useless to me. The only reason I was even going here was my netgear cable modem/router had slowed to a crawl due to dos attacks from what the logs in the router were saying. After a day of searching online and troubleshooting it looks exactly like an issue that was posted on Netgear’s own forum about 5 years ago and as of a few months ago still had not been resolved. It appears to be some weird bug with iOS devices and IPV6 packets being misread as DoS attack packets in the router. Netgear did not even respond to it on their own forum. Netgear seems like it is becoming like every other tech company that focuses on greed more than the satisfaction of their customers. Too bad I have 5 of these things. I’ll be manually logging into them for now until I find a better alternative and will start replacing them one by one.

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The only reason I am giving a one star rating is due to zero stars not being an option. The Nighthawk application is catered to the newer, more expensive routers. I didn’t have an astronomical amount of money to spend a few years back when I purchased my NetGear R6220 when finishing up my masters degree, I was a college student on a ramen noodle budget. The original NetGear app worked fine However, after being forced to download the Nighthawk Application even updating the firmware on my then antiquated R6220 proved impossible. I will also mention that I am a Certified I.T. and have an undergraduate in computer science and technology. It’s not for lack of knowledge on my part. It takes a lot of persistent problems with a product for me to make a negative review but this app earned its rating. I have a hard time believing that all of these five star reviews are actual customers and also know how easily a Corperation of this size could easily send home a product with their employees and get five star ratings, or lose your job. Just saying. Won’t be purchasing anything from this company ever again and am already looking forward to making this ongoing pain a thing of the past. Buyer beware, go with another brand...