AsNCo

1) Hi. Will there be an optimization made to its boot-up time? The R2 literally is up and running with my PC being able to access websites in just 20 seconds. But the R3 on the other hand took 1 minute and 21 seconds. It is so long, it took even longer than the Asus routers in AP mode to get up and running resulting in the devices at home reporting that there's no internet connection on that particular WiFi including my phone which refused to connect to WiFi until I manually turn the WiFi on the phone off and on again. I've never experienced this in my life. Considering that my previous XR500 which was the worst culprit was also my WiFi router at that time, this wasn't an issue. The XR500 took around 1min 38secs to be up and ready. 2) Another issue that I'm having is 'Steady Ping' reverting back to their default. I was sure I disabled it. But it turned itself On again when I rebooted the router. This happened multiple times. So should be easy to replicate. 3) And another problem that I'm having is on the Netduma R3, even if Ping Optimizer is disabled (Low Latency Only) or the Upload is at 100%, it seems to make my latency in the Bufferbloat test go up to +173 ms. To make sure it was not my internet but the router, I switched back to the R2. Both at 100% and with Congestion Control Disabled, the Bufferbloat test when the Upload is busy is only at +6 ms. Where is this 170+ms of latency coming from in the Router's pipeline? Download latency test was fine. Only the Upload latency test is affected. Similarly, I ran a test with both Steady Ping Active and Disabled. But that 170+ms of latency is still there. Is this a bug or an expected outcome of the R3? 4) Overall, I am getting lower latency even at idle more with the R2 as opposed to the R3. Is the buffering on the R3 not as good as the R2? Here's an example. R2 with Congestion Control Disabled: Unloaded 3 ms -- Download Active +13 ms -- Upload Active +6 ms R3 in Low Latency Only with Speedtest Bypass Enabled: Unloaded 6 ms -- Download Active +6 ms -- Upload Active +150 ms

Same here. I can never get Ping Optimizer to work if I set it to 'Run Full Test'. But it will work when I set it to Simple or Expert. However, there's yet another problem when I set it to Expert. When it's determining an Optimized percentage level, the Upload percentage will decrease during the 3 tests. But for Download, it keeps on running the test at 100%. Is this as intended? Shouldn't it be testing it at varying percentages to determine the best Congestion Control capping point?

The easiest fix to get the best of both worlds of the Netduma R3 features and the great WiFi strength on your previous routers is to use both. In my case, because I need a mesh network to ensure high bandwidth for all my devices, the easiest solution was to use my Asus router in AP mode (Access Point Mode). This way, I get the benefits of WiFi 6 with it's full bandwidth throughout the house while letting my R2 (with the WiFi disabled) just do it's job as a router with all the gaming features. Also, because placement matters, I got my Asus router to be at the centre of the house to get the best WiFi experience while my Netduma router is close with the modem. Though at this point, you can easily place the R3 in the middle of the house as well if you already have 1 or 2 dedicated Ethernet cables running there. But again, in my case, I needed a Mesh network. Thus using the Asus router to take advantage of AI Mesh. So similarly, in your cases, if your WiFi was a lot better with your previous Netgear routers, then just make use of it in AP mode if you'd like.

You know what would have really helped make your transition to the R3 smoother? The fact that you should have a permanent SSID and password that you will reuse on every router from now and in the future to ensure that you do not have to reconnect any and all your devices to your new WiFi SSID which can lead to issues such as this. So for example, if you have set your WiFi SSID to 'Deasha' and password to 'netduma', all you have to do is making sure to change the SSID and password on your new Netduma R4 or something in the future to that same SSID and password and your devices will connect to your new router like as if you didn't even changed it. That's how much simpler your life could be rather than to mess with some Home Automation devices which can be finicky when changing WiFi SSIDs. Another note, make sure to not use some Smart Connect features like having the same WiFi SSID for your 2.4GHz network and 5GHz network. It can give you a serious headache for some devices where they NEED you to connect to the 2.4GHz WiFi network for setup of their devices. It will be very difficult for you to know which WiFi SSID is which that your phone needs to connect to before letting the Home Automation device connects to the 2.4GHz network for example. That is why, as I always recommend and do, keep all Home Automation devices with low bandwidth requirement and are generally scattered all over the home to always use the dedicated 2.4GHz network and keep your 5GHz band congestion-free for actual devices that can take advantage of the 5GHz bandwidth and shorter range like our phones, laptops and so on. Just a general quality of life thing to save you some headaches with Home Automation devices disconnecting due to the short range of the 5GHz network and because of the congestion in the WiFi traffic all sharing the same 5GHz antenna when the 2.4GHz one is free of any traffic.

Just a word of advice. All your Home Automation devices should always be on the 2.4GHz network. They use little data but can be far away from the router. 2.4GHz network suits their requirement.

I must be so unlucky. Mine never shipped. 😭

So Steady Ping adds around 20ms of latency by the looks of it in order to average out the overall ping? So if I'm getting like 12-13ms of latency on Overwatch, I'm going to end up with 30+ms? As long as I can turn off Steady Ping if it becomes a detriment, I'm all good. But thanks for sharing this. Nevertheless, can't wait to see how it helps in the overall gaming experience. Would be nice if we can get a Gameplay example to see exactly how Steady Ping makes a difference in a game. My ping has always been stable to begin with that even Ping Optimizer couldn't help improve my connection. So I can't really tell what the experience is like to have sudden high spikes when gaming feels like without Steady Ping. I hope the overall outcome will still be a positive one especially for mobile gaming.

I finally got my shipping confirmation. Mine's on the 29. So I presume that yours is finally on the way to you already? Happy to see they are doing their absolute best to get as many shipped out as quickly as possible the entire week. Much appreciated. But seeing that Friday is coming to an end in the UK, am hoping that it will get shipped as opposed to just getting a confirmation. The weekend delay sitting at the warehouse as opposed to being in transit is going to delay my shipment even further. Oh well.

I wonder when mine will ship. Looks like only the UK orders are getting theirs shipped out first...

I am glad you guys are making some changes to Hybrid VPN. Because I can't access my usual VPN that is in the dropdown menu on my R2. All the servers doesn't seem to work with the router. Hope this is fixed for the R3 whenever it releases. And support for the many more reliable VPN services will be very helpful too.

I miss the days where I can tinker around with the beta firmwares of DumaOS to try out some new features. However, the lack of an option to save settings of the router locally for easy restoring of settings made it very difficult for me to upgrade to newer firmware versions due to the amount of time it takes to configure the router back to my current settings with the amount of home automation devices and setting manually reserving IP addresses for some devices make it quite a chore in which a simple setting upload can easily restore the router from it's reset state to immediately be up and running. Or maybe like a script to say, set this mac address to this particular IP address and set Wifi 2.4GHz to this name and with this password. That would be most helpful and should not interfere with any added features in an upcoming firmware when restoring the said settings to the router. Will this be implemented? I thoroughly missed this option from the R1 and the Netgear XR500 when using the R2 that had ample of firmware updates that I never got to try. Am personally on R2 3.3.142. Since trying out the new ones which requires a router reset makes it a hassle and will disturb the annoyingly sensitive Home Automation devices which are not happy when there's any changes made and may sometimes not be able to reconnect to the network for some odd reason. Thus why a settings restore option could easily made sure it is set back to the way it was even if I'm on the latest firmware without the HA devices going out of whack with its connections.

I remember having this problem when I had the Netduma R1 as well. Thankfully, this wasn't an issue with the Netduma R2. So it should be the same for the Netduma R3.

Hi. I was trying to launch Ubisoft Connect launcher on PC but I was stuck with the launcher constantly asking me to allow me to launch the app over and over again. Disabling Adblocker finally got rid of the Windows UAC for Ubisoft Connect constantly bugging me and stopping me from using my PC every time it pops up every 3 seconds until I click pause on the Adblocker in the router. I tried to replicate it again. But it seems the be ok now when launching Ubisoft Connect. I rarely use these apps. But in those instances that I do, the apps are usually trying to run an update to make sure it is updated. Maybe that is why the Adblocker blocked the launcher's connection to the internet? Who knows. I'll tag the spoiler with what advertisement site that Ubisoft Connect was attempting to connect to. PS. These are some of the same sites that Adblocker blocks from websites at times. So I'm not sure it is wise to whitelist them too. Just thought I'd let you guys know that it could cause your game launcher to summon Windows UAC every 3 seconds and stop you from using your PC normally because of it.

I am getting this. Using Zhone 2426 modem/router combo provided by ISP. ISP does not allow a different modem to be used. ISP can control modem from their side and customers are not allowed to meddle much with its features. Thus why I asked them to place the modem in Bridged mode to the XR500 that has the same MAC address as my PC via MAC Clone. This is so that during troubleshooting, where they require my PC to be directly connected to the port instead of through the router, I will not have to fumble around telling them to update the MAC address so the Zhone will recognize my PC. Yup. My ISP is so controlling, imagine wanting to set a port forward. I have to call them and tell them it is for this LAN IP address and to this port and the process repeats every time. Extremely tedious! Also, it is always a good practice to set whatever is behind your router in Bridged mode to prevent the Modem/Router from doing its own processing of your packet which can cause buffer bloat whereas Bridged Mode will just let all packets through and leave the processing strictly to the XR500.

If you need help for testing of Overwatch on PC and PS4, I can help. Getting 2-3ms to the Americas server which has a server located right here in Singapore. Game play so smooth that I don't even need to use my Netduma. I did however encounter getting put into a server that gives me 103 ms which probably means a US server. But that was during non-peak hours that probably means not enough players in the SEA region. I was in the my country's Overwatch Facebook group and see them some players were getting 100-300+ms on the other ISPs. Just to show how unoptimized the other ISPs are from my ISP which was marketed as a non-traffic shaping and route-optimized ISP that is meant for gamers. They were thinking that VPN might help but VPN can only optimize their route to that Overseas server. What they should be doing is blocking those servers and forcing them to constantly land on the Singapore server. If you get where I am coming from. So the Netduma might end up extremely vital to them unless they choose to Change ISPs.

PS4 - LiLAsN Singapore (with closest servers at Japan and Australia which is ridiculously far away) ping above 80+ms on Japan servers and 100+ms on Australian servers 1 Gbps download, 500 Mbps upload PS. Able to record own gameplay

I love the commentator. He's so awesome! Haha