Linksys EA6500 Dual Band AC Gigabit Wireless Router IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n Linksys EA6500 Dual Band AC Gigabit Wireless Router IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n

Pros: EA6500

Cons: Everything is going well. So far, so good .

Pros: The Good: It's fast, the user interface (once you get it working) is slick, and it comes packed with options.

Cons: Web based UI, Firmware doesn't update, Tech support has no solutions, drops wifi network every night requiring you to power cycle the unit every morning.

Other Thoughts: My biggest complaint, and why the unit was returned for and ASUS unit, is that every night it would drop the wifi network. The hard connection remained, but the wifi network would stay down until I power cycled the unit. I dealt with tech support three times over this issue, there solution was to change random settings each time. Eventually they tried to cast blame on a microwave or cordless phone, but none of those are within 40 feet of the unit (we don't even have a cordless phone), and weren't running during the outage.

It's my belief that the firmware is causing the problem because the unit is running the old firmware and will not update to the latest version. I went over this with tech support each time, but they skirted the issue, opting to change settings again. It's my belief that the only way to update it is through a command line process that the average customer won't be able to do (myself included) and they know this.

The unit comes with no physical instructions like most units do. A simple sheet of paper with a quick start guide would have saved at least one online tech support chat. The most confusing thing for me was that between this router and my last Cisco router they've done away with a software based UI for a web based solution. A simple piece of paper outlining that would have saved more than they paid in tech support than they saved by not printing the paper.

My frustration with this unit led me to look up articles on routers and I found that the comparable ASUS router is much faster. I've had it hooked up for three days now with no sign of the dropped network issue that the Linksys was plagued with leading me to conclude that the problem was not environmental as Linksys tech support wanted me to believe, but instead was caused by the router itself. It was as if they just wanted me to get comfortable with the idea of needing to power cycle the unit every morning when I got up, as if that was a good solution for a router this expensive.

I've been a loyal Linksys customer for years, but it looks like Cisco rushed this to market a little too soon, the result of which was the loss of my trust in them as a customer.

Pros: Nice web interface, if you have no technical knowledge

Cons: Unreliable, unreliable, unreliable.
Disaster of a product. Poorly engineered (heat dissipation) and inadequate QA on firmware.
Speeds will degrade shortly after bringing it online, eventually losing connection altogether. Well documented on CISCO forums now, but no response/action from the company. You'll get the whole "have you tried resetting?" "Try the factory defaults"... etc.
Nothing useful from their "tech support". It is layered with folks who have no technical knowledge, just a handbook of comfort phrases like "let me assure you we will work to resolve this issue". Then back to "have you tried powering off....?" AAArgh.

Other Thoughts: I am genuinely surprised Cisco senior management has not briefed the exec level that they may have to recall... Just check their support forums: SEVEN PAGES of UNRESOLVED COMPLAINTS ON THE EA6500 in the PAST MONTH ALONE! That is an eye-watering, cataclysmic fail.
Think its just a few dolts who strangled their own bandwidth accidentally with mis-set prioritization? EEEEEEEH! Wrong. For a real confirmation, check CISCO's BBB rating now.... C+ and headed downhill fast.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi Rop,

We appreciate your honest feedback with the EA6500. Can you provide us the case number provided by the Support Team when you contacted them? If you haven't contacted our Support, can we get your contact information? You can give us a private message on our Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/linksys ). We'd like to assist you further with the device.

Thanks,
Linksys Support
http://support.linkys.com

Pros: In my review of 4/13, I mentioned that I would "try another one" and I have received it. I followed the advice of Linksys Customer Support and allowed them to assist me in my set up. The set up had to be completed manually. I'm not sure why. Maybe because of my security software. Anyway, it's up and running and it is extremely fast. I'm glad I decided to try another one. I've always used Linksys/Cisco equipment and I've found them to be very reliable.

Cons: I would suggest changing the advertised 'easy setup'. It wasn't easy.

Other Thoughts: Very fast and has very good range. I'm very happy with the product.

Pros: It looks kind of cool

Cons: WIFI didn't work, almost at all.

3 strikes you're out. Went through three of these before returning the last one and buying a Netgear R6200 instead. See other thoughts

Other Thoughts: First unit: wifi clients on either radio (2.4ghz/5ghz) would randomly disconnect, or remain associated but not pass any traffic.

Second Unit: would not broadcast SSID at all on either radio

Third Unit: Same behavior as the first. It wasn't just one device that would drop, but ALL of them ranging from mobile phones, to laptops to wireless printers.

Purchased a Netgear R6200, set my SSID and passphrases the same as they were programmed on the Linksys and all the devices connected on their own, and stayed connected.

Linksys is usually my first choice for consumer routers, I've never had an issue with them and i prefer their interface over the other brands, but this experience will have me thinking twice. It would be bad enough if this was on a bottom of the line device, but there's no excuse for this performance on their flagship consumer device, and yes, the routers were updated to the latest firmware.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi,

We sincerely regret hearing your difficulties with the router. The wireless connection should work as its supposed to. We would have suggested a few things to optimize your connection but you have already returned it. Please don't hesitate to consider Linksys in your next purchase and thank you for your honest feedback!

Regards,
Linksys Support
http://support.linksys.com

Pros: Well, it looked good on paper. Still waiting to see how it works in real time as mine showed up D.O.A. Actually the router did power up and all of my devices could connect to it, but the router never connected to the modem.

Cons: Showed up D.O.A. Spent two days with ISP techs (on my dime) for them to finally tell me the router does not make a connection, via the ethernet, to the internet modem.

Other Thoughts: I'll try another one.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi b_vaughan,

Thank you for letting us know your experience. Were you able to return the product to Newegg? Please let us know once you recieve the new one so we can assist you with the set up.

Thanks,
Linksys Support
http://support.linkys.com

Pros: On paper it looks good/great

Cons: It's performance and reliability are terrible.
names of connected devices get mixed up and you no longer know what devices are attached/working.
Local wifi network will over time not allow users to access the WAN/internet w/o hard rebooting the router.
Support is alright, but after speaking to Linksys support on more than 5 occasions. I also worked with Linksys's "local Sunnyvale" callback center; while they were friendly, they couldn't solve the problems I was having.
No wonder why Cisco sold off the Linksys business unit, they couldn't/can't even design a decent and reliable wifi router.
Linksys has gone from the best to the worst with one generation of products - sad really.

Other Thoughts: I will go back to my ancient but working EA3000 wifi router while I save up again for a new router that works.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi John,

Thank you for letting us know by posting your review. We would like to get the case number given by our Technical Support so that we can look it up in our record and provide you necessary assistance regarding your EA6500 router.

Thanks,
Linksys Support
http://support.linksys.com

Pros: Amazingly easy setup, Extremely fast streaming through Tversity. I was lagging before I upgraded routers now I can stream Bluray on 3 different devices instantly with Zero Lag. The port forwarding is simple to figure out and All in all great customer service. This product is amazing so far and I will update if there are any problems.

Cons: Big power adaptor, Lack of light indicators

Other Thoughts: Overall Great product

Pros: It pains me to see the number of poor reviews that this router has received, mostly from users who, through their unintended choice of words, have demonstrated their lack of knowledge on the material they are reviewing. Some cheaper devices can be a mixed bag, but the number of good reviews (or mediocre reviews with thorough justification) from users who are clearly knowledgeable and highly skilled makes me doubt that this is the case with the EA6500.

I'll start with cosmetics. There is an attractive gray strip down the middle of the device, which I suspect to shroud a heat sink because it gets decidedly warm. The status LED's can be switched off for dark environments where they are intrusive, which is handy. The glowing Cisco logo in the gray strip looks great. Being able to wall mount or sit it on a flat surface is very practical, as well.

The wi-fi outperformed all but a rare few of the many, many, MANY SOHO routers I have owned and worked with in my professional capacity, including several newer models in recent months as an Eggxpert. Since 802.11AC adapters and access points are still in their infancy, I had little to compare performance to. I plugged a USB3.0 wireless AC adapter into a laptop for testing and wandered to every corner of my ~2100 square foot split-level house, as well as up and down the street a few hundred feet with surprisingly little signal degradation or performance drop (I finally lost web about three doors down). A dual-band N600 PCI adapter in my HTPC about 40 feet and three walls away had an almost perfect signal, and was able to stream hi-def content in any format with ease.

The router's web interface is one of the best I have ever seen. Every conceivable feature, including clever expandability via downloadable apps (although not many are available yet as of this writing), are neatly organized into a logical set of menus with useful text and graphical navigation. Even if you find yourself buried deeply into a menu hierarchy and realize you have wandered down the completely wrong path to find what you need, the rest of the menus are still easily available and navigable. Best of all, the home page can be customized with quick links/shortcuts to your favorite or most frequently used options.

Cons: I'll start again with cosmetics. Although irrelevant to many people, some may care that the case is entirely plastic and not partially or completely made of metal to protect it from EMI.

I found the practice of wasting most of the router interface's main page on first-run with registration for online management and hiding local management at the bottom to be reprehensible. The online management features are extremely useful for an IT person like me serving a SOHO customer, so I can work on their router without going on site (although a terminal services session into a workstation or server is just as good). Most users, however, will be just fine with the local access and management only, which they seem to have gone to great lengths to hide at first-run, or at least obscure.

The firmware was decidedly LACKING in features out of the box. I initially connected the EA6500 only to a laptop and not the internet so that I could set it up without taking the old network down, as I needed to be able to see some intricate firewall settings and so forth to copy over from my old router using my desktop. This unit has nearly ZERO functionality besides connecting to the internet when it first comes out of the box. I had to slave it off of the old router to get it online, then it automatically updated itself to current firmware with a full feature set, and I was able to work. That's silly.

I was POWERFULLY disappointed with the media server features. I have several terabytes of media files on a server in my house. I have gone to great time and expense to ensure that the storage medium (a RAID5 array), the server (hexacore, 8GB DDR3, GB LAN), the access point (this EA6500 or one similar), and the clients (all have N600 or faster adapters) are not causing a bottleneck. There just is not any good DLNA server software for Windows Server 2008. My hope was to use the media server in this router to feed the media files stored on my server's RAID array to DLNA clients. Streaming to my wi-fi HTPC over SMB works amazingly, so I didn't foresee a problem. Instead, the EA6500 will only stream media stored on a device plugged into one of the USB ports. Granted, they are USB3.0 ports and will be as fast as any storage media connected to them, but why would I give up the speed and safety of a RAID5 if I have it? I suppose I could connect a large storage device to the router and use Microsoft's SyncToy to keep it synched up with the media volume on the server, but I can't possibly be the only person who thinks that is an absurd idea.

Other Thoughts: I only used one of the wired ports, as four is not nearly enough to support my entire network. The router's internal switch was instead uplinked to a 24-port HP ProCurve where all of my wired devices converge. While this single uplink, carrying all internet traffic AND linking all of my wireless devices to the wired network, has the potential to be a bottleneck, traffic analysis using several hardware and software analyzers during peak traffic never showed full saturation, but that is more an indicator of good network design and traffic management, as gigabit ports on all devices will saturate at roughly the same point. The EA6500 does have useful QoS features if it ever becomes a problem in the future.

I'm not sure what chipset/firmware architecture this router uses, but as best as I can tell, there will never be a DD-WRT or Tomato build for it. That is almost a dealbreaker for me, but this unit is feature-rich enough and performs so well that I will probably leave it in service for a very long time.

While the Linksys/Cisco stamps on any device will often indicate well-made but overpriced hardware, the EA6500 is not the case. Dollar for dollar and feature for feature, combined with unerring performance, make this arguably one of the best routers I have ever worked with.

Pros: None at the moment, will update once I am able to setup correctly.

Cons: Setup exec can't find the network. I am able to connect to it manually, however if I try to setup the router the pin on the device is wrong. That being said, I am able to use it out of the box (wifi only) by just connecting with no security at all. Also, I am unable to pull an IP with a wired connection (and can't manage DHCP due to the other issues...).

So far I am still unable to actually set the router up due to an incorrect pin label on the device, and the software not being able to find it. I do live in a big apartment building and have quite a few networks around me from others, although the distance from my router/computer is about 10 feet...

Will update as I work through this. You would think that a network administrator for 12 years would have no problem setting up a home network, but with hardware not cooperating it makes things interesting.

Other Thoughts: Debating if I want to actually try to work with tech support or just return the device.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi Quackjn,

We appreciate your time in providing such valuable feedback regarding initial setup. We have posted your concern in our Community Forum where one of the users advised you to try the PIN again as it may be case sensitive. You can also check some of the troubleshooting articles included on the thread.

Here’s the link: http://community.linksys.com/t5/Social-Media-Support/Newegg-com-EA6500-Setup-frustration/td-p/624100

Thanks,
Linksys Support
http://support.linksys.com