NETGEAR Reviews 132

Netgear nighthawk absolutely a waste of money it doesn't recognise wifi or any devices and currys sells this rubbish

Their returns policy is a joke and actually a breach of the British Consumer Rights Act 2015.
I shall be commencing legal action through the small claims court and would strongly advise British customers from purchasing from this foreign company.

Netgear has officially taught me what a 4000+ euro mistake feels like.

I invested in their premium 970 Orbi system expecting premium performance. What I got instead was a mess of overpriced hardware, lackluster software, and customer service that feels like it’s powered by a hamster who keeps falling off the wheel.

Despite wiring five satellites professionally, the GUI showed them endlessly “connecting” like they were trapped in some eternal digital purgatory. When I reached out for help, Netgear’s support solution was to… change my firmware without addressing the actual issue. Result? The wifi works, but the GUI — the thing I needed fixed — is now useless.

Support kept disconnecting, stalling, or giving half‑answers. And today, I was told the “recommended” number of satellites is four. Wonderful. Maybe Netgear should mention that *before* selling systems to people with homes that actually need five.

For the price I paid, I expected reliability, professionalism, and functioning software. Instead, I got frustration, wasted time, and a masterclass in how not to support your customers.

If you’re considering blowing thousands on Netgear, learn from my experience: it’s a luxury purchase with bargain-basement service.

Edit: If something happens to me because of the stress caused by this netgear product, my family is prepared to fight it in British court until the bitter end.

The worst crooks ever. They want a contract to fix a simply password reset. I recorded the call as a test. There is absolutely no reason to purchase a contract for a reset. Thank goodness Trump is putting things in place with companies ripping off the America public. The product by the way is a wifi extender.

Absolutely shocking customer service. I would not recommend this company. My WiFi device after only a few months and very little use was overheating. Contacted netgear , I was just given the run around. I was told to send it back but they wouldn’t confirm via other emails. In the end after weeks of trying to contact them I just left it. This was all while under the useless warranty. Crap product and even worse service

Shocking service and communication. Don't use the Orbi routers at home anymore as they struggled so badly with assigning IP addresses they were a waste of time. I've tried 4 times to close my Netgear account and remove any payment details - but they still manage to steal the £85 annual "Armour" payment from my account. Fuming.

DO NOT buy ANY NetGear products. EVER,I bought an AC1750 years ago, loved it
ended up moving to ATT and used their gear for some time. decided I wanted the control over my connection back and tried to setup my BGW320-505 in ip passthru
went fine,
till I got the to nighthawk setup.....

theyve removed the URL access, their website url only works from their app when you hit certain buttons etc,

so I cant use the url's to access UI of router.....

get their mobile app, cant remember password, apparently.....

"forgot my password" takes you to the broken site for URL interface....

at least it worked from mobile....

get password, it was the same password I had BEEN trying.

try it a million more times, no dice.

OKAY, reset defaults.

login,

horrible app

takes legitimately a half an hour to setup....

start poking around and LITERALLY,
EVERY :paywall
SINGLE :paywall
SECURITY :paywall
SETTING :paywall

I bought this product and it had full functionality, but now that theyre floundering, they feel they have the right to bait and switch their security stuffs....

WILL NOT touch any NetGear scam equipment again.

Sämsta internet jag någonsin varit med om! Om man bor ute på landet går det ej våning 2 och SÅ SEGT NÄTVERK min mobil har snabbare nätverk! Enligt mig är det inte värt en krona

I changed the SIM card on my mobile router. Didn't work so I called customer services. As my router was over 90 days old they told me they couldn't help unless I paid the £84 for a 1 year warranty. I expressed my disappointment so they offered me 2 years for £140!!! They insisted this was industry standard.....
Finally they agreed to send me an email for free so I could sort the problem out myself.
The email was just a link to a nonsense section of the website. Ended up using Google and sorting myself. Took half a working day to resolve something their operator could have done in the time it took to argue about them trying to sell me a warranty plan.
Great way to lose a customer. Well done Netgear.

Ahh, I should have read the reviews first.

Placed an order and their site said my card was declined. I later got a message from my bank to say another attempt had failed. Then this morning I have a pending charge and the funds are not available to me. Nothing from Netgear. Give them your card details at your peril, they just keep trying your bank even after an initial failed attempt. If they can't manage a shopping portal correctly I have no faith in their products. £710 gone and no order number to show for it.

I purchased a Netgear NightHawk RAXE500 router 4 years ago, This router seemed to be a great option = However, I found that once my Netgear Armour subscription had Expired, I was having speed issues and some devices not connecting.

When I looked into this, I noticed in the 'Connected Devices' section on the router browser (via PC) that the problematic devices were blocked. I tried to change this setting via 'Access Control' but it told me to use the Nighthawk App to manage access control.

Trying to do this via the Nighthawk is is impossible without a subscription to Netgear Armour Security software (£80/Yr Subscription)

Via that app I have disabled remote Access, then this should allow me to use access the browser based login to set access control for my connected devices, but it just sends me into the same loop. This never happened while I had an active sub.

Following the Advice in the manual and from the reply via the Netgear forum:

The Speed Issue:
I have a 1TB fibre connection and download speeds were only around 300mbs which was falling far short of the expected value, My Upload, was fine at 960mbs. I went in to Settings to investigate and when I turned off QoS, my speed was increased to 850-950mbs - I thought great, this was the issue, maybe the bandwidth was being shared into different stream channels (the router is capable of supporting up to 12x 4k Streams simultaneously).

However, I started to have another issue with some devices intermittently disconnecting.
I looked at the QoS and reactivated it (the intermittent issues stayed and the speed dropped again) - prior to this (with active Armour Subscription), all my connected devices had been allowed and were all showing as such in the browser connection and on the nighthawk app and I was able to easily block or allow each new or existing device with ease.

So, it looks like you have to spend £80/annum just so you can change normal settings within the router which is extremely disappointing!!

As a result, I have resorted to reinstating my ISP's original router and now everything works as normal, and I am able to manage my devices easily.

I will stay well clear from netgear in future.....

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Netgear Forum Post:
(I am unable to link the post so copied it)

**Unable to change some settings on RAXE500 Router without having an active subscription to Defender!!**

'OK, so I had no issues with the router for the last couple of years (while I had an active subscription to the defender software. I have a 1TB fibre connection and noticed that I was mostly only getting 300mb/s download speeds, upload was 980mb/s - After troubleshooting with my ISP, it turned out that the issue was with my Netgear RAXE500 router (supposedly all singing and dancing!!)

Reply from user FURRYe38:

'Armor is NOT required to change settings on the RAXE router. Log in to the routers web page and you can make changes there.
(link-How-do-I-log-in-to-my-NETGEAR-home-router)

Routers don't sing and dance.

You can deactivate Armor on the NH app under Settings and Security.

Or do a full on Factory reset on the RAXE and setup from scratch using a PC and web browser and not use the NH app:

(Link-/22697/How-do-I-install-my-NETGEAR-router-using-the-router-web-interface)

This advice, still didn't solve my issue, and the thread was locked, so I couldn't reply.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

None of these options work, unless the Armour subscription is renewed. I had a reply on the above thread, but none of these options worked either. I tried to reply, and found that someone had closed the thread, so was unable to! - I assume, to stop anyone being aware of this hidden con!

I had to open another thread to reply..
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So, you need to pay a subscription and keep it active in order to allow or block devices on the router, this is not acceptable as these settings do not require a software subscription on any other router on the market!! (apart from Netgear)

My Advice, stay the hell away from any Netgear products unless you want to pay a subscription to manage settings that should actually be free!!!

No Android app works with this very expensive mobile router.
Logged in via bowser in the end but why is there no app.
Other than that it works really well to be fair.

I ordered a router with Armor security included for the first year. They charged me £84.99 for the security! I emailed immediately, cancelling the order. Online access to manage the order was unavailable for 2 hours - "come back later". I called immediately the phone lines were open (noon in the UK), and was told they couldn't refund the overcharge until I accepted delivery. I refused and asked again to cancel the entire order. They told me I couldn't cancel the order (even though it was ordered less than 3 hours before, they had received my cancellation email within minutes and it hadn't been processed or shipped yet). They said it would be shipped, then I would have to accept delivery, then return it for a refund. I refused. I cancelled the order before it was shipped, in writing and verbally, but Netgear refuse to accept it. I have applied to my credit card company for the refund. Unfortunately I didn't read online reviews before purchase, as Netgear always used to be a great company with excellent customer service. It seems they are no longer, beware!

Customer support is non-existent, they actively ignore emails, and almost as soon as you buy something it goes end of line and isn't supported and you can't buy the satellite extenders for. Avoid or be happy to waste your money.

I purchased the Orbi 970 Series Router and Satellite in 2024 for approximately $1,800. Last week, I powered down my system temporarily to replace security cameras. When turning it back on, the router could no longer be recognized. After troubleshooting, I was informed by the Netgear rep that the reset button is faulty and that nothing could be done to repair or service the unit. That is absolutely unacceptable for a premium system at this price point. I invested in the Orbi 970 because of its performance and reputation, but to hear that a small component failure renders the entire unit useless, with no repair option or support solution- is both frustrating and disappointing. Netgear offers no help in situations like this—whether through warranty coverage, repair service, or product replacement.

Bought an Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi Router in April 2022. It actually worked well, but I have just received an e-mail from Netgear saying that they don’t support this equipment any more and offering 20% off a new Netgear. I expect to get more than 3 1/2 years support for a new product and after reading Netgear reviews I will certainly not buy anything new from them.

The software is completely unusable. Neither the app nor the online site are able to connect to the Orbi. What an horrible experience from a company which used to make great products

dont waste your time, product crap, support crap

Wi fi extender EAX something or other , the name of which I can’t be bothered to look for, is in my experienceutterly useless, as is the app. Spent over 2 hours on the phone to Nethear to try to get it working, which it did for about 5 minutes. I now need to get contractors back to reset equipment. If you value your sanity avoid.

Products unreliable - crash for no reason- the set up app is useless - simply does not work