Netgear’s first Wi-Fi 7 Nighthawk router trades in the batwing look for a tower design

Netgear’s releasing a new Nighthawk router that trades in the sci-fi spaceship look the line adopted in 2018 for a extra monolithic tower design. The new Nighthawk RS700 will value $699.99 when it launches this spring with seems which can be extra akin to the AmpliFi Alien or Linksys Velop routers. This can be the first of the line that’s outfitted with Wi-Fi 7 — the upcoming IEEE specification that guarantees the lowest latency wi-fi connections but.

Other units we’ve seen introduced with assist for the new spec embody a few from TP-Link and Asus; nonetheless, similar to this one, they’re not obtainable in shops but.

The yet-to-be-adopted Wi-Fi 7 customary (often called 802.11BE) is designed to succeed Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 7’s greatest enchancment, in addition to sooner theoretical switch speeds of as much as 30Gbps (the RS700 is rated for as much as 18.7Gbps mixed throughput), comes in the type of Multi-Link Operation, which lets suitable units join with a number of bands like 5GHz and 6GHz concurrently to enhance reliability. There’s additionally Flexible Channel Utilization that may block interference on channels with out shutting down site visitors on it.

The Nighthawk RS700’s new design accommodates eight inner antennas supporting quad streams: that’s 4 receiving and 4 sending (4×4) antennas that the firm says give “whole home” protection and assist for as much as 200 units. Netgear will launch a software program replace later this yr that may permit customers to put in a number of RS700 items to function in mesh for even bigger houses.

Like Netgear’s earlier Wi-Fi 6E-powered Nighthawk RAXE500, the RS700 can be a tri-band (2.4 / 5 / 6GHz) router with 4 gigabit LAN ports, one 10Gbps “multi-gig” LAN port, and a multi-gig WAN port. The 10Gbps-capable WAN port can accommodate the highest-end tiers obtainable from ISPs like AT&T, Optimum, Frontier, Google Fiber, and Comcast — although none of those but assist speeds larger than 5Gbps up / down. The router additionally helps LAN aggregation that enables for two gigabit ports to behave as a 2Gbps port. It can even use its WAN plus one LAN port to hyperlink with present supported DOCSIS 3.1 Netgear cable modems and allow gigabit-plus web service on the community.

The RS700 consists of one yr of Netgear’s Armor subscription service, which in any other case prices $99 per yr. It consists of antivirus and VPN service for your units — supplied by Bitdefender — and an on-router risk safety service. The VPN service consists of as much as 200MB day by day, or you may pay one other $49 per yr for limitless site visitors.

There’s additionally a Smart Parental Controls service that helps content material filters, closing dates, and monitoring — plus a rewards system that children can change good habits for further web time. You can even construct profiles for your self (and others) to maintain monitor of how a lot time you’re spending on sure actions. These options value $7.99 per 30 days or $69.99 per yr after a 30-day free trial.

Thankfully, the Netgear Nighthawk app doesn’t value something to make use of, and it helps you to remotely connect with your router to verify community standing, see what units are linked, run velocity exams, and arrange a separate remoted good dwelling gadget community. The Nighthawk RS700 prices $699.99 and is offered to preorder immediately from Netgear’s web site for Q2 cargo.