Belkin AC1200 Dual-Band AC + Gigabit Wireless Router F9K1113AU

~ This router was designed to be easy in setup and operation. Belkin has really refined their user interface to be as friendly as possible to the user. Set up was a breeze with the built in wizard which automatically runs when you first start up. After it checks for and installs any available firmware updates, just a few simple configurations and refresh of the router and you will be up and running. The main menu nicely displays the wireless password right under the header of the page, so you should have no problems reconnecting wirelessly if you happen to forget or lose the network key. One of the nice features of the router is it has a built in function to automatically restart once a week on a user defined schedule (you can shut it off as well) to ensure the ... More~ This router was designed to be easy in setup and operation. Belkin has really refined their user interface to be as friendly as possible to the user. Set up was a breeze with the built in wizard which automatically runs when you first start up. After it checks for and installs any available firmware updates, just a few simple configurations and refresh of the router and you will be up and running. The main menu nicely displays the wireless password right under the header of the page, so you should have no problems reconnecting wirelessly if you happen to forget or lose the network key. One of the nice features of the router is it has a built in function to automatically restart once a week on a user defined schedule (you can shut it off as well) to ensure the router is refreshed and free of glitches. The router also offers Norton Connect Safe, which is basically a built in Content-control Software that will restrict access to certain types of websites based on selectable levels of filters. This ranges from sites containing malware to adult content, and should be a welcome addition to parents or employers that wish to restrict online access to sensitive content. Although this router does not advertise the use of an external USB drive as NAS, I have found a way to do so. In order to access an attached USB drive functioning as a NAS you have to open a network share by typing \\192.168.2.1 into windows Run dialog, not a browser. This will open a folder in the windows environment where you can access non-media files on the drive. (I could not find any documentation of how to do this online). The down side to accessing files this way seems that the router caps the speed on the USB connection to about 3MB/s, so large files can take some time. I tested a 3.4GB single file transfer which took about 12 minutes to transfer. I have been able to get an average wireless internet speed test of about 100Mbps, by comparison I get an average of 160Mbps on a wired connection when running an internet speed test. Your results will vary. Range is decent, with a drop off of about 30 feet, passing through interior and exterior walls. Aside from the interference that this router initially caused my modem, this router has been flawless in performance and has not glitched once in the 30 days I spent testing it. I would recommend this router to anyone looking for a mid level AC band router, that wants an easy to use, set and forget system with advanced, easy to utilize features.

I'm giving this router three stars for performance, but I'm knocking two stars off for security. Namely, there isn't any. You can't SSL secure the web interface of the router which means that it is wide open to basic attack types. In the age of Internet Of Things this is a pretty large omission. I was also disappointed in the fact that upon accessing the router the web interface shows you the SSID as well as the first character of the WPA2 key. Even showing one character of the WPA2 key cuts down the time it takes to crack the password significantly. I did like the fact that the router checks for a firmware update everytime you log into the interface. However this should really be something that the router is doing in the background at 2 or 3 in the morning by ... MoreI'm giving this router three stars for performance, but I'm knocking two stars off for security. Namely, there isn't any. You can't SSL secure the web interface of the router which means that it is wide open to basic attack types. In the age of Internet Of Things this is a pretty large omission. I was also disappointed in the fact that upon accessing the router the web interface shows you the SSID as well as the first character of the WPA2 key. Even showing one character of the WPA2 key cuts down the time it takes to crack the password significantly. I did like the fact that the router checks for a firmware update everytime you log into the interface. However this should really be something that the router is doing in the background at 2 or 3 in the morning by itself. I realize that you run the risk of bricking the device, however the risk of a security hole being exploited because of old software is just as large a problem. And let's face it, when was the last time your parents logged into their wireless router? Never. They had you set it up for them. The good thing is that the performance of this device is really quite good. It throws signal all over my two story town house and it does a better job of getting signal to the garage which my previous router couldn't do. My speed stays up around 200 Mbps with only two bars of strength and the latency doesn't show a large jump. I also liked the fact that the 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz bands can be active at the same time. I have a bridge setup for my entertainment system on the first floor and my NAS and Plex server are on the first floor. I'm now able to use the 5Ghz range for these higher bandwidth streaming devices, and reserve the 2.4Ghz band for phones, laptops and tablets which are just consuming web traffic. I'm not sure how much of this improvement is from the beam forming technology. When You reset this router from a full router to a simple wireless access point (which is how I used it for about 75% of the time) you lose many of the options available in the interface. To be honest I prefer this as I like using another dedicated device for firewall duties. So let's put this in perspective. On one hand this router is fast, easy to setup, and it tries to do firmware updates for you. On the other hand it leaves the web interface open to man in the middle attacks and credential sniffing, and WPS stays on even after you've turned it off. I just can't recommend this router as WPS is a huge vulnerability and allowing continued authentication even when it is explicitly disabled is less than optimal.

My first Belkin, an N600 DB, set up on a single laptop with Windows 7, required a few hours of work before I called Belkin support. That time, they were able to help me get the router networks working. However, IMHO, caution is advised for using the Belkin AC1200 DB router in a complex environment. My current environment is a Windows 7 Toshiba and a Windows 10 ASUS, and in addition to the private networks, I was trying to set up guest networks with security on both laptops which may have added to the complexity. The default open and unsecured guest networks were so restricted that they were useless. After at least 20 hours working on and researching issues with 3 1/2 hours of those hours was spent with Belkin support persons, I was unable to set up all the networks ... MoreMy first Belkin, an N600 DB, set up on a single laptop with Windows 7, required a few hours of work before I called Belkin support. That time, they were able to help me get the router networks working. However, IMHO, caution is advised for using the Belkin AC1200 DB router in a complex environment. My current environment is a Windows 7 Toshiba and a Windows 10 ASUS, and in addition to the private networks, I was trying to set up guest networks with security on both laptops which may have added to the complexity. The default open and unsecured guest networks were so restricted that they were useless. After at least 20 hours working on and researching issues with 3 1/2 hours of those hours was spent with Belkin support persons, I was unable to set up all the networks on both laptops. After that, I gave up and went back to Bestbuy and got a NETGEAR AC1200 router. I set up and tested a 2.4 GHz on the Windows 7 and a 2.4 and 5 GHz on the Windows 10 in 1 1/2 hours without using support. I did skip setting up the NETGEAR guest networks. In the end, I can't recommend Belkin, and I can't imagine buying another Belkin product myself.