Netgear Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band Wi-Fi Extender Helps Standard AC Routers Blanket Your Surroundings With Gobs Of Bandwidth

Netgear has a solution to eliminate those pesky Wi-Fi dead zones in your home and to extend wireless coverage to every nook and cranny. It is called the Nighthawk X6S (model EX8000) and it is an AC3200 tri-band Wi-Fi range extender, which itself does not sound all that sexy, but there is more here than meets the eye. One thing that makes this range extender stand out from the competition is Netgear's patented FastLane3 technology.

FastLane3 is a fancy marketing term Netgear came up with to describe three critical components of the Nighthawk X6S, those being tri-band Wi-Fi, a dedicated Wi-Fi link from the extender to your router, and an optimized antenna design inside the range extender. That is the secret sauce to extending fast wireless coverage in your home or office building, without degrading bandwidth.
If FastLane3 sounds familiar, it is because the same technology is found in Netgear's mesh Wi-Fi router system called Orbi. Mesh router setups are becoming increasingly popular because users do have to contend with different network names when roaming their home, and the network speed is virtually the same throughout the entire area of coverage. The Nighthawk X6S brings the same benefits by using the same technology as Orbi—basically a dedicated fat pipe back-haul link to the router/base (FastLane3), only it does it with standard Wireless-AC routers.


"Our Orbi Tri-band WiFi system with FastLane3 Technology has been an overwhelming success. We’ve been flooded with positive feedback regarding its performance, range, and ease of use. Yet, we continue to get questions from consumers who are looking to achieve an Orbi-like experience, but must use a modem-router provided by their ISP," said David Henry, senior vice president of Connected Home Products at Netgear.

The Nighthawk X6S takes full advantage of current wireless standards, too. For example, using MU-MIMO and Smart Connect intelligence, every device on a network is assigned the best optimized Wi-Fi connection available. The only caveat is that the devices themselves (and more specifically, their network adapters) must also support MU-MIMO.


To ensure healthy range, the Nighthawk X6S has six high-performance antennas. It is capable of delivering up to 400Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, and up to 866Mbps on the first 5GHz band and up to 1,733Mbps on the second 5GHz band. All of these will share the same SSID as your router, so users are free to roam from room to room or outside to the pool without having to worry about interruptions in their device connections.

The Nighthawk X6S will be available next month for $230 (MSRP).