Customer Reviews

NETGEAR 5 GHz Wireless-N HD Access Point/Bridge (WNHDE111)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I bought one to pair with a Netgear Rangemax WNDR3700 Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router. It does a wonderful job, and the setup was simple and operation reliable.

First of all, please note that this wireless product has a single operating band at 5GHz. It will not work with 2.4GHz routers or other 2.4Ghz devices that need to connect with this unit wirelessly.

The Netgear has two different operating modes, a bridge mode and an access point mode, switchable with a hardware switch which is so much better than a software enabled switch.

The bridge/access point distinction:

Allow me to digress a little bit here. The concepts of an "access point" and a "bridge" can be confusing to many. I've seen very technical definitions of these, but not really helpful for end-users. What always confused me was they never tell you what exactly connects to what, in what manner (wireless or ethernet?), and the signal is going from which unit to which unit doing what(signal direction and function). So let me try to describe this using the simplest possible language.

-- A wireless access point connects to clients (your PCs, or other end-user devices) wirelessly but connects to the Internet through an ethernet cable. There may be a modem involved there, but that's a detail not affecting the concept. That is, it gives the clients a wireless access to the Internet, therefore called a wireless access point.

-- A wireless bridge connects to the clients directly through ethernet cables but connects to the Internet wirelessly (usually through a wireless router or an access point). The wireless bridge has wireless receiving capability of course, but it does not have wireless broadcasting capability. Therefore it does not connect to the clients wirelessly and does not have an SSID for itself to broadcast like a wireless access point or wireless router would.

However, the above definitions are traditional pure Access Point and Bridge. With the newer WDS technology, bridges start to have wireless broadcasting capability as well. In the WDS setup, multiple bridges are used together to cover a wider area. A WDS bridge would on one hand work like a traditional bridge to wirelessly receive signals from the router or an upper-level bridge, while at the same time transmits signal wirelessly to the next level bridge. Even in a WDS setup, the key point to understand is still that the bridges don't assign IP addresses to other connected devices. They are sort of passive in terms of IP addressing, and that is why you can't simply connect two active routers to do what the router and a bridge can do. But all this is just for clarification and has nothing to do with the device reviewed here.

(By the way, a router is really a network switch plus an access point. The network switch takes care of the network address assignment and management, without which your devices may be connected, but the signals would not know where to go. This part is usually clear to most people.)

I read another reviewer complaining that you need two Netgear bridges to make a real "bridge". Obviously, the reviewer intuitively defines a bridge as something that wirelessly connects (bridges) two non-wireless ends. If a wireless bridge were supposed to do that, then you indeed always need two units to complete a bridge. This is inherently true, because in any technology, to wirelessly connect two sides, you need both sides to have wireless capability. If you have a transmitter on one side, there must be a receiver on the other side, or vice versa. In the field of Wi-Fi, the routers came out first and provided wireless capability at one end. The other end is typically a wireless client such as a wireless adapter card. But sometimes you may want several PCs to share a "united wireless adapter" to connect to a wireless router. That is, the shared "united wireless adapter" wirelessly connects to the router on behalf of the several local PCs while grouping the local PCs through wired connections. This is the concept of a bridge in Wi-Fi. It is always just one side, assuming that you've got a wireless router or access point on the other side.

When and why you need a bridge?

For example, in my case, I needed a bridge. I already had a wireless router placed in a room that has direct access to the Internet through fiber optics. Several computers in the house can individually access the wireless router wirelessly, so I don't need a bridge just to access the Internet. However, these computers are grouped together in a different area. They could benefit from a bridge placed nearby. The bridge wirelessly connects to the router, while the computers in this group connect to the bridge using reliable ethernet cables.

There are several benefits of the above bridge arrangement. First, I would no longer need to worry about wireless cards installed on separate computers, etc. All computers in this group connect to the bridge using ethernet cable. As long as the wireless connection between the bridge and the router is reliable, all computers in that group enjoy reliable Internet access.

Second, the bridge allows me to place printers nearby the computers which are in a different room away from the room where the router is located. In my case, placing the printers in the router room is absolutely not an option. If I had that option, buying a router that has a built-in network printing capabilities would have solved the problem quite easily. But if I place the printers in the room where PCs are (away from where the router is placed), I face two options to choose from in order to network these printers. The first would be using a wireless printer server. The second would be using a wireless bridge plus a non-wireless print server. The second option is far superior. A simple and reliable non-wireless print server connecting to the bridge using ethernet cable turns out to be an extremely reliable solution. This may sound trivial, but in reality, if you have ever dealt with wireless print servers, you will appreciate the significance of this non-wireless ability.

The performance of NetGear WNHDE111:

With all that background, I'm glad to report that the Netgear bridge works flawlessly.

The setup was extremely simple. I did not use the CD that comes along with it. I directly accessed the control page of the bridge, and once there the setup took only a few minutes. It's just a matter of entering the SSID and the password of the router which this bridge is supposed to communicate wirelessly. In fact, the most time-consuming part was actually to find the default IP address of the bridge in order to access its control page. The bridge I bought did not come with a hardcopy manual, so I had to go to NetGear's website to find and download one to check. It turns out to be 192.168.0.241 for the bridge(or 192.168.0.240 for the access point). Why can't they just print such simple yet important information on the device itself? It would have made things so much easier.

There is an important detail that may be worth explaining. When you access the bridge the first time before it is already hooked up with the router, the operating IP address of the bridge is the above-mentioned default IP. However, once the bridge is connected to the router and joined the network, it would gain a different IP address unless it has been set to receive a static IP address from the router. You may set it to manual IP address assignment, and give it a static IP address which you can remember. Anyway, if you try to access the bridge using the above default IP address but couldn't, it may be because the bridge is already part of the network and has gained a different IP address. In this case, you have two different options to access the bridge. One option is to temporarily and manually disconnect your computer from the network, and set your computer's network properties of TCP/IPv4 to be in the same subnet with the bridge. Another option is to log into your router's control page to find what network IP address has been assigned to the bridge and use your computer to access the bridge by the new IP address. I highly recommend using a static IP address for the bridge.

My only complaint about this product is that it has only two ethernet ports. This is not enough for even a very simple application. Two PCs and a print server would require three ethernet ports, thus would need a separate multiport switch to be connected with this bridge. This is too cheap. The thing is not small at all. It's rather largish, and they could have put eight ethernet ports on this thing without any problem. Just four would make such a difference. I believe adding two extra ethernet ports would only cost less than one dollar in manufacturing.

AN UPDATE

I have had this bridge for almost 2 years and it has performed flawlessly. In the following, I'd like to update on a procedure to set up a wired print server on this bridge:

1. Connect the bridge to your router (if you haven't already done so). The quickest way to do this is to use WSP buttons. You first press the WSP button on the bridge, and go over to your router and press the WSP button for a few seconds. I think you have a few minutes to complete these two steps. It is very simple. If you don't have WSP, or don't feel comfortable doing that, the simplest way is to connect a computer using ethernet cable to the bridge (make sure that you have switched the bridge to the bridge mode using the switch in the back), and type in following IP address: 192.168.0.241(the default IP address for this bridge). You might need to manually set up the computer's network settings to give it an IP address in the range of 192.168.0.2xx; and the default gateway 192.168.0.x. Once you are there, log on using the default password "password", and manually enter the SSID and the password of your router to make the wireless network connection.

2. Once you have made the wireless connection with the router, log into your router to set a reserved IP address for your bridge. This is optional, but may significantly improve the reliability of your bridge.

Note that once you have connected the bridge with the router, your bridge will acquire an IP address from the router which is different from its original default IP address. For example, if your router is a Netgear router, the bridge will have an IP address like 192.168.1.xx, instead of the original 192.168.0.241.

3. Connect your printer server to the bridge using the ethernet cable. Also connect your printer(s) to the print server. Power on your printer server (the sequence is not important).

4. In a browser, go to the bridge management page using the bridge's current IP address on the network, logon, and go to the tab link "device info" on the bridge's management page. At the bottom of that page, it lists the "LAN computers" that are detected by the bridge. Find your print server by the MAC address of the print server (the MAC of the print server can be found on the printer server itself). It should give you an IP address of your print server.

5. From this point on, the setup will depend on your print server. But it is important that you have the IP address of the print server you just obtained in the previous step. Some print servers may be able to automatically set up your printer(s), but regardless whether it has an automatic setup procedure or not, it usually allows you to set up manually, which I found to be the most reliable way to do. The following is an example.

5.1. Go to Control Panel of your Windows operating system, find the "device and printers" there. Open that, click on "add printer". From there, choose "add local printer". (This is important, do not choose "add network printer", because a printer that does not have built-in network capability and has to be connected to the network through a print server is not considered a "network printer". Go figure.)

5.2. Choose "create a new port", and select "standard TCP/IP port". Click next.

5.3. In the "host name or IP address", enter the print server IP address you acquired in the previous step.

5.4. Now this is critical, the computer would have automatically filled the "port name" to be the same as the IP address you entered. This is wrong. You need to delete the automatically set "Port name", and enter a real port name which you can find in the configuration page of your print server (or in the user's manual of your print server). The port name is usually entirely different from IP address, even in format. If you use a multi-printer server, each printer will have a unique Port Name (while sharing the same IP address of the print server). Click next when you are done.

5.5. Choose "Custom" for "device type" and click on "settings".

5.6. This brings you to a "port settings" page. In most cases, everything is already filled, and you just need to click on OK. But if you use a multi-printer printer server, you probably need to select "LPR" as your protocol type, and enter the "port name" into the the box for "Queue Name" (identical). Click on "OK" when you're done.

5.7. This will bring you to the printer driver page, which is usually self-explanatory.

Again, not every printer server requires such a complicated manual set up, but my experience is that the above method works for just about any print server. And once you set it, it is static and very reliable.

--

Old Setup
Netgear WGT624NAv3 (G - 108Mbs)
Netgear WGPS606 (Print Server/Bridge 54 Mbs)

New Setup
Netgear Rangemax WNDR3700
Netgear WNHDEB111

Background:
I honestly hated Netgear. The nightmares I had with my old setup were terrible. I constantly had to reboot the router; the bridge required me to reconnect wireless devices in a certain order every time; my fiance's Apple never stayed connected long; bittorrent, VPN and video streaming knocked the router out the few times it was working; and the customer service is just horrible. I swore I'd never buy another Netgear product, but I finally had to buy something that would at least work for my fiance. I waited a few months for 802.11n to mature a bit, and was going to get the DLINK DIR-655. Recently it's had horrible firmware issues though and the other brands had low reviews. Then along came the WNDR3700.

The reviews were great so I picked it up and this bridge. I fully expected it to work as badly as my previous Netgear products, but I felt I had to give it a shot.

Conclusion:
I've had this product connected to my WNDR3700 for two days now and it works flawlessly. I have had many wireless setups and this is the best I've ever seen. I've seen people complain that it's on the 5Ghz frequency only, but it works great. All of my other systems are wired or on the 2.4Ghz frequency so I have very little overlap. Of course the WNDR3700 is dual-band so that may not be the same for everyone. I will update this if anything changes but for now I'm extremely happy. It could work at half the speed it does and I would still be happy to have something that just works for once.

Update:
Everyone in my home has problems with the iphone and this router. We constantly get disconnected. It's a known issue on their forums. There is a recent update that helps a lot but almost everyday I still lose my connection and have to re-enter my password. Otherwise this router is still working amazingly. I've only had to reset it one time.

Update:
The last update pretty much fixed the iphone issues. I rarely have to reconnect my phone anymore. If you plan on using the USB storage part of the device though I'd recommend reading the Netgear forums. Some people have had some issues with this.

Love it. I've used a wide variety of networking solutions, some bad, some good. This one is GREAT. I'm in an area with tons of wireless networks running and some of the other devices i have had have been pretty spotty. This one on the other hand runs very well. No loss of signal or dropped connections, its been good enough that i've even been running a server I use for development wirelessly.

Connection speeds have been great as well. If you have multiple public static IP addresses I recommend using the FVS124g as your router with this product.

Best wireless device i have used to date. I have used other 'N' devices that haven't been nearly as reliable.

Draw backs are that it only supports N and A. G is not supported.

This Netgear product does exactly what it is supposed to do, in a fairly uncomplicated way. I have set up hundreds of routers, switches, hubs, and wireless routers over the years. This one has just enough features to do the job, and be simple to set up.

When first connecting, it prompts you to check for new firmware, which is easily downloaded and installed. You have a switch on the back to select which type of device it is to be, in my case I needed a wireless Access Point. I plugged in a network cable from a nearby 4 port hub, which was plugged into a distant 8 port switch. I connected first though a network cable to set the security settings.

The customer's laptop, running Vista Ultimate, located the device, connected, prompted for security log-on, and that was it. My customer had a reliable connection, and could access the office network with her laptop anywhere throughout a 5000sf office (various walls, hallways, and rooms) We were using the 'N' band, WPA2 security with AES encryption. The signal was strong, and had no interference problems, even though we were in the middle of a large group of small independent offices.

While I wish these bridges had a few extra features and better admin applications, they work as advertised. I just plugged them in and had them working within minutes.

I set them up in the same room and saw data rates of 300Mbps. I then moved the bridge to its real destination, an airplane hangar in my backyard, and the signal strength is down to the 70% range and speed down to about 160Mbps, but my home LAN is still just 100 Mbps, so I'm very happy with it. I notice no difference from when I was working in the home connected directly to my home LAN with an Ethernet cable.

I have been using these devices for a couple months now and work on my computer in the airplane hangar all day long and the bridge is working flawlessly. My Internet and network access is just as good as it was when I was working in the home.

I also have a Replay TV in the airplane hangar and can watch recorded programs from another Replay TV in the house and that works just fine, and streaming video like that is a pretty high-volume network load.

These devices are working great and have allowed me to move my office out to the airplane hangar where it should be whereas with Wireless G before I was seeing data rates around 8Mbps which was not acceptable and prevented me from working where I needed to be.

Using as an access point hanging off of a Cisco-Linksys PLK300 PowerLine AV Ethernet Adapter Kit -- to get an ethernet connection to the right location. Fairly easy set-up, fast speed, and good range. The Cisco PowerLine product is hooked up to a dlink 655 router. If you have a large house, and one wireless router isn't enough, the Cisco Powerline, together with this Netgear product will solve the problem, solve it well, and with limited frustration. Highly recommend. Only drawback is -- it's "N" only -- no "G".

Purchased from another place refurbished. Newegg has this refurbished, and had a one-day special "BOGO Free". I was looking for a network bridge product because I was moving my office space into the basement, where I did not have any hard-wire network connections. My choices were to rip open the finished basement ceiling to find a good spot to put a drop, or purchase wireless-G adapters for the two computers, or use a wireless network bridge. I was about to purchase the wireless adapters when I found the special sale on this bridge (2 units).
Got the units yesterday, installed in 5 minutes. Basically, set one unit to AP, attached that to my existing G router. Set up the second unit as the Bridge in the basement office. Went upstairs and pressed the WPS button on the AP unit, and ran back down to press the WPS button on the bridge. Two minutes later, plugged in ethernet cables to my two computers in the basement, turned them on and was up and running. Couldn't be simpler. Forgot to mention that one basement computer was a linux server, which was on an older computer with USB 1 connections. That would have severely limited my wireless connection, but now I have a full 100 network connection through the Bridge unit.
This is a very good product for what I needed, to make the wireless connection from my old office to the basement without any drilling. I do not plan to switch anything else to wireless N because I have too much older equipment running fine on b/g.
I may decide to use the Netgear software to try tweaking the network settings on the units. I saw some interesting comments on the Netgear forums.

Ok read all the reviews on Amazon. I have a Asus Eee Pc 1000h. I had to change the wireless card inside the laptop to pick up the 5ghz N signal. I knew this,and its very easy to do and Amazon has great deals on these cards. This Netgear is my second wireless access point on my home system, My other wireless access point is a Linksys WAP G band. The 5ghz Netgear does connect at 300mps and my wireless connection is fantastic, but the range isn't as good as my G access point and if I try to transfer large files it sometimes looses connection. If I go more than 25 feet away from the Netgear access point, the signal drops drastically. It may be because the 3rd antenna on my Asus wireless card is not fully compatible with the 5ghz range, so I ordered another type of antenna and will give that a shot! meanwhile to all readers, remember there is no adjustment to the 2.4ghz N band. You are on the 5ghz A or N band only. No G band, which is ok since I already have the Linksys G wireless. I would like to point out that I did like the second port on the back of the unit, my Linksys works fine connected to that port, which saves a used port on my wired router. Still testing....so far disappointed in the distance and file dropping....

UPDATE April 2009
Sold the Netgear on ebay. I purchased a Linksys refurbished 160N wireless N router and it blows the netgear away. Although I am connected at 144mbps in N wireless mode on the Linksys, it transfers large files faster without drops with much better distance.Goodbye Netgear, BTW, the Linksys is at 2.4ghz. If I could change my rating, I'd give the netgear access point a single star.

This is a reasonably priced single band (5 GHz) bridge and Access point. I am using this as a wireless bridge. There are few other competing products in this area from Linksys (WET610N) that supports dual band but cannot be used as an access point and has only one Ethernet port. The second product is from D-LINK (DAP-1522) which has four gigabit ports, can work as an access point and a bridge. The price for both these devices is much higher then the Netgear WNHDE111.

I have paired it with Netgear WNDR3700 Router. Setup was very easy, I just pushed the WDS button on both the router and bridge and within a minute it was all setup. But it was a pain to optimize this thing so it wouldn't drop connections every few minutes. The firmware support page does say under known issues something like "in high traffic environments the bridge drops the connection and reconnects itself occasionally". I believe I don't have a very busy traffic in my home. I do have my router on second floor and my bridge on first floor at the opposite end. The signal does have to travel through a wall. The first problem was range on 5 GHz router and to improve that you need to play with additional channels on your router to see which one gives you the best signal. It turned out channel 157 on my router is it for me. Now I get consistent 70 percent and above signal on my bridge. But, the bridge would still drop connections at a very high rate. Changing the setting to 20 Mhz after a lot of experimenting with different values fixed the issue. The throughput now is around 38 Mbits which should be good to stream two HD quality video streams. Once setup properly for your situation, it works without any issues. I have tested this setup by streaming six of my DVD's and did not see any issue. Very happy with the purchase now. I bought it from Amazon for $41 refurbished with shipping included.

I set up a dual band Wireless N (2.4 and 5 GHz). Higher frequency 5GHz DOES have better range if it's unobstructed but the dirty secret is that the LOWER frequencies (2.4GHz, etc for Wireless G, etc) have better PENETRATION through walls etc. My experience with "N" is mixed- I do like my dual network to split traffic but have not been overwhelmed by bloated range claims of wireless N. This product is better value than Linksys options (My router is Linksys and the products work well together).