Netgear Nighthawk M6 Mobile Router - When to Use It

Vemuda Techno - NETGEAR just sent us their cool new Nighthawk M6 Mobile Router and the biggest question I have, that you probably do to, is when would you use this router over a traditional router system like my Orbi mesh system.

Having a 5G enabled Wi-Fi router M6 and how it compares to a more traditional Wi-Fi router setup.

First, let's just generally take a look at what's new with the M6. This is a battery operated WiFi hotspot that supports WiFi 6. It has 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands but to preserve battery, only 5 Ghz is turned on by default.

Source: Netgear

The Nighthawk M6 is designed to work with 5G networks which can get you a max download speed of 2.5 Gbps. This device is an unlocked cellular device so you can just choose whichever carrier that you want to go with and purchase a Nano sim card from them to use with this device.

You put the nano sim card in the slot located in the battery compartment, then place the battery in, close the case and hold the power button to start up the router.

Now unlike a lot of modern routers, this one  actually comes with it’s own LCD screen that walks you through the setup, there’s no app you’re required to download which is kinda unexpected, but in a nice way.

One feature of having an LCD screen I really like on this router is if you click the QR code icon, it’ll generate a QR code people can scan with their phones to automatically join the WiFi network. That is very cool.

You charge the router through the USB-C port  on the side and you can hardwire it through an Ethernet connection as well and just use it as  a regular router that isn’t pulling data from a cellular network.

And if you do that, you’ll want to make sure you go into the router’s power settings and adjust which power mode its set to. For use at home, change to performance.

If the battery is inserted or remove the battery and keep it plugged in to automatically switch to the best performance and Range Mode.

The max range of this router is 2000 feet and you can have a max of 32 devices on the network simultaneously.

When being powered by battery, you have two  options: Best Battery and Best Performance, and if you want the fastest speeds you can get from the router, definitely switch it to Best Performance, if you have the battery inserted, or the best performance and range mode, when the battery is not inserted, and you have the router plugged in. The speeds are significantly better in my experience.

Speaking of battery life, that’s rated for 13 hours, and if you plan to use this router somewhere where power isn't easily available,  you can't purchase more batteries for it and just swap out the batteries at will.

That's a key difference for why you would need a device like the m6 versus just using your phone as a mobile hotspot.

Because once your phone battery dies, it's dead. You can't swap out the battery on your phone for most phones nowadays.

So that’s a little bit about the router and what you can expect from it, now, let me take you through some scenarios where I think this router makes sense over a more traditional home network or mesh router.

And the first and most obvious one is when you go camping, glamping, and you for whatever reason, want Wi-Fi, this would also be perfect if you're working remotely from something like an RV or just constantly on the go driving around the country.

Another scenario, i think this router would  definitely be useful for is if you travel a lot and spend a lot of time in a hotel, especially  luxury hotels, I just got back from a trip, was in a luxury hotel for a wedding and the room,  you know, it already cost like an arm and the leg, and then the Wi-Fi sucks, they have better  Wi-Fi, you just have to pay more for it.

If you have this router, you can just connect to  a 5G network, create your own mobile Wi-Fi,  and then basically be like, screw you hotel,  you're not getting another dime from me.

The last scenario where I think this router could work for some out there is as a home router where you have decent cell coverage and speeds over 5G but you’d have good fiber or broadband internet.

You could probably get an unlimited or another decent data plan. That's pretty cost comparable to broadband internet service or fiber service at least here in the U.S.

We pay a lot for internet but get less speeds than a lot of other countries out there. Other than those scenarios I think for home internet, you're still generally better off going with a mesh Wi-Fi network solution like the NETGEAR Orbi Wi-Fi router system I currently amusing right now.

You'll get more range and a stronger area coverage out of those systems and can easily add over 100 devices simultaneously on the network, which if you're really into tech like me, or you just happen to have a lot of devices that need to connect to Wi-Fi, you're likely going to need this.

Also the M6 doesn’t come with the latest WiFi  6E standard, so if you want the latest and greatest WiFi standard, you’d want to go with the Nighthawk WiFi 6E router or the Orbi 6E system. If you have any questions, leave them down in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

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