Newfoundland

Are your Sonos wired to a switch by any chance?

So Exitlag does not maintain a good connection even though it lowers your ping? can I ask what your isp offers in the way of your package? Could you name your isp out of interest please. your main issue is the servers are not showing under your geo filter so you can’t select them. Perhaps you should link your video to help Fraser understand your issues.

I do understand your issues, it cost a fair bit including the added duties and I saw your YouTube video. you said on your video there are no servers showing up in your area, perhaps Fraser maybe able to help with location servers. That way you would stand a better chance of finding a lower latency server to play on if there are servers there. Routers are always a personal choice, for many the features work like finding a good connection. Perhaps if you were to give more details it might at least give you some help. In your video it showed the thread you posted on and that your isp had around 80ms connection where Exitlag was much lower. I’m guessing your isp routes are not the best, probably connecting outside your area then returning hence why you get a large number. Exitlag on the other hand offered better route due to its peering contracts. Now in fairness no home router can alter your isp routes apart from using a third party service and again that would be down to their peering contracts. I do understand your frustration, it just maybe a case sadly that your isp has got poor peering in which case you could argue that your isp offers an inferior service and that at present Duma can’t magically alter that.

https://www.exitlag.com/technology?language=english there you go, it’s all down to peering contracts. Unfortunately not all isp companies offer great peering contracts so it may or may not help. Asus offer similar via a third company who do the peering contracts. There are also other companies and some isp small companies that offer these types of services.

Chipsets are not WiFi alliance certified, they just meet the standards set out by the WiFi alliance. It’s what the company supports. The chipset within the R3 meets all the standards required but the WiFi alliance is a private company and many companies from Netgear, Unifi, don’t register all their products for certification. in theory the Alliance is a good idea but it requires money from a company to join it. it gets complex as depending on chipset mu mimo might be halved, ie a 2x2 turns to a 1x1. It’s where standards fall apart as the client and chipset may change. ive a pixel 8, supports WiFi 7 but only does 160Mhz and not 320Mhz. These standards don’t always work out well but the question is will most notice.

WPA3 is needed for 6E its not a mandatory feature of WiFi 6. all the subsets under WiFi 6 are not mandatory unless it’s registered with the WiFi alliance who list their requirements. However many of the features under WiFi 6 were aimed at helping within congested environments and increasing MU MiMo if clients supported it as well as client battery saving and protected management frames. Some features were never added but along pops WiFi 7 and that’s another step up towards a better WiFi future. A router does not require WiFi alliance certification. While they aim to help to bring a standard it’s not required and to be honest 99% of consumers don’t even know what WiFi alliance is. More importantly is does not guarantee a quality product, it’s simply aimed at standards. Don’t forget a client must also support WPA3 as well as supported WiFi 6 and we still see a general lack of IoT for example that are well behind standards. As long as you have a nice long and complex password I can’t see an issue. The chances of anyone wanting to spend time getting into a home network is very small.

WiFi 7 is still in its early stages. Early adopters always end up with first gen chipsets so it’s best to wait for it to mature plus until you have clients to support this in any numbers it’s not really a rush. 6E while it does offer better throughput and latency is range dependant. WiFi 7 will improve this by the nature of how it utilises the channels and bands. 1Gb is still plenty, if you require more then there are plenty of other routers or home network equipment that can be deployed along side the R3. The question is does a normal household require more than a gig for daily use and if it’s for more business centred then you would be wise to have a more secure network and equipment to suit. Ram is subjective. Yes greater number of clients and throughput may well require more but Duma is not collecting historical logs from every aspect of the routers connectivity. It’s not designed to handle 200 plus clients, or running services more applicable to enterprise level networking. It’s running a basic home network with concentration on gaming and normal house hold activities. True more ram would give a buffer but in reality any ram not used is wasted.

When they first moved over there was a few people upset but for Unifi it was bring the whole range into a single bundle for ease of use and to make them more secure. I’m not keen on their iCloud services, recent events kind of show this.iCloud and keys need to be handled well and perhaps it shows they are not quite there yet but lessons learned. Many use pfsense and OPNsense and you have their own line of routers from Netgate from pfsense which many like. There is some bickering between the two as it’s a love hate relationship between users. Not all services are free though but it offers more flexibility. Suricata is what Unifi use where on pfsense/OPNsense you would be on the most upto date version or snort is another IPS/IDS. Unifi probably do better with APs in many peoples eyes.They are known to be good and they have a WiFi 7 one out soon but not a full fledged one not that it’s needed yet until more clients appear. IPS/IDS is more aimed at if you run a server for example, most home users don’t really require it. It’s a long way behind the AI stuff from other companies which is the way forward now but you pay for it. For home users though it’s just not needed though so basic ones are fine. Unifi go down the cheap and affordable small business pro consumer route, Netduma is more aimed at gaming so different markets for end users.

As you know there is honeypot, IPS/IDS, DoH etc, rogue access point, firewall all though basic, traffic rules, VPN, network config, CVE updates and other updates to services and rules to help with network security. I don’t think Duma will be on the same level as the UDM range. I’ve had one instance of a miscellaneous code within my network, which was picked up, and I’ve had one rogue access point detection. Did have an Amazon device probing my network as well which was picked up by the honeypot and blocked. The IPS/IDS is not on the latest release though from the company they use.

WiFi 6 was designed to help in congested areas and did succeed to a degree but also failed as not every subset was added. Preamble puncturing was there but was never implemented for example where on WiFi 7 this will be more of a standard. Unifi do a plug in unit for IOS that is a WiFi analyser or you can use Apples own app called airport utility which is very basic. The router needs to show more info to help users understand their WiFi connection. I’m not sure if -70dBi is mid if that’s how it’s worked out. That would be more classed as poor. Sky is always 36 and 80Mhz. You could change to 40Mhz to gain a bit more distance and avoid some interference if you have issues or move to DFS if supported but really DFS has its drawbacks and pluses. The upper 5Ghz frequencies changed as OFCOM relaxed the reg here in the U.K. but it’s a mess as clients and most routers don’t meet that standard. Great idea but failed completely as not enough support. Would be nice to know exactly what WiFi 6 subsets are up and running too. Not a single piece of info on this.

It’s been a thing on Unifi for many years where people have added custom stuff however recently Unifi have made it clear that recent beta updates and general release are going to make this hard in the future. They changed the container structure so many so called custom addons no longer work. The UDMB and UDM Pro was behind the new UDM Pro SE and UDR but now they are all inline with current firmware. These are more complex routers compared to the more traditional home routers but they are not as advanced as the next tier up but that’s going into full blown enterprise stuff and licences which most users don’t require or would not understand the core uses.

It is a 2x2 and drivers to hardware make a difference as does any port issues or whether they have amps fitted to them or not, which Asus and Netgear tend to have which are seen on reviews from say Tim at Smallnetbuilder on his strip downs. Better hardware, official drivers. The Asus you have is a 4x4 and 4x4 so good hardware. Just better hardware and drivers which is why you pay a fair bit more.

It’s to test to see if there’s an issue. If it remains the same or with very little difference it points to an issue which might be a fault on your router

What about if you try with none on

When you change to a higher gain the pattern changes and you end up with a more directional pattern. That might not be the answer to your issues as coverage might not be perfect. It could be a number of reasons why coverage is effected from transmit power to hardware. You might be better off with an AP that offers better coverage and more streams which will help with WiFi but I’m not sure how well Duma acts with an AP, not this version anyway. if you have a spare router that offers AP mode it’s worth a try. The R3 is a 2x2 on both so it’s a single 2x2 client on each channel. Most middle end APs offer 4x4 and you might be able to find the odd one with 8x8 but that might have to be something like the RAX120 ran in AP mode.

Could you do me a favour and test it without the antenna is attached and see if the results are the same. It’s an odd request but is helpful.

If you mean an AP then there are lots available. I would probably look at a good wifi 6 or 6E AP noting the 6E is for short range only to see any benefits.

Some do, some don’t. The idea is to clear low level code in the NVram. other routers clear this themselves after an update, some routers can reinstall automatically if corruption occurs. It depends on the routers capability. Me personally I tend to on NG and The R2 so it’s nice and fresh after factory reset. The choice is yours but sometimes a reset may be requested by the company.

Try looking at the web UI. The netgear app is not great. When you go into the app that has more details and should show you the connections.

Where is your router situated? do you have any other kind of electrical equipment near it? Did you test to insure there is no leakage and that the antennas are acting as normal. It’s why I asked to remove them and test to insure the radiation pattern is working as designed. If the signal remains the same without you have an issue that would indicate hardware.

this extender supports 160Mhz so therefor uses DFS. WiFi Band : Band 1: 1.2Gbps @2.4GHz - 1024QAM; Band 2: 4.8Gbps @5GHz - 1024QAM

That would be an issue with Duma firmware as it’s not picking up IP allocation from the extender for clients. That’s an issue Fraser will need to look into. if you run a wire to it via a lan connection does it show clients then?

How are you setting this up, WPS or simply connecting to extender UI? Set it up next to the router to insure the signal from 5Ghz is seen then see if it detects it. If it does move it to location. If it fails then it’s signal strength issue. My old EX8000 use to have to be setup this way under the instructions. With WPS I had to repeat the setup twice to gain full throughput which was in the instructions. Off course that may not be applicable to the new extenders you have but also worth a try but important to set it up close to main router.

For home users with just the router, no switches or mesh points it’s not required. Yes it’s an old protocol but still in use but not as applicable as it was.

It’s only capable of 1Gb. Leave QoS off unless your network is congested with clients using up the available 1Gb. To use 3Gb you can use your old router if it can do the 3Gb and simple put the R3 into its DMZ and connect your gaming equipment to that. it’s up to you if the gaming equipment uses WiFi, if not disable R3 WiFi, disable QoS and simple use the geofilter and its options for best service.