Customer Ratings & Reviews

I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program. Introduction: Packaging First let me start with the things I really liked about this router. The packaging is very clear on what you get - in fact sometimes boxes overwhelm you with too much information. The Linksys packaging was just right - inside was everything I needed. I'm not one to read instructions and so I jumped right in setting up this router to replace my Asus N66. There is a power cord, cables, and DVD (I didn't use this, does anyone?!) SETUP: Setup was a breeze and I was online with my cable provider in about 10-15 minutes. Plug it in, adjust the antennas, connect, reset passwords and setup WIFI - BAMM! First Impression: It has what you'd expect at first glance which is Gigabit ports on the back, AC wireless support and USB ports - in fact their is 2.0 and 3.0 and esata support which makes streaming movies direct to this device really nice, easy and FAST! Web Interface and APPs: The web interface is clean and like you'd expect easy to use - many routers these days have an interface that is clumsy or buries too many features - not an issue here. As an added bonus and in "keeping up with the joneses" Linksys now has a IOS app that lets you access and change the routers default features - one really neat feature is the ability from the app to control what devices need the greatest bandwidth. I found the app and the web interface to the router really nice touches by linksys, I did not try Android but I suspect there is an app there too! What the MIMO? This router features MU-MIMO(short for Multi-User, Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) - for the uninitiated, this is a feature that allows the router, in homes with multiple devices talking to it, to allocate the appropriate time to each device giving what each device needs instead of a full stream to everyone, thus limited everyone's experience and from my experience this works! Overall impression Overall this is a fairly strong consumer grade router future proofed for at least the next 3-5 years. Cons: So what's missing? The lights on the front are not adequate - there is only one and it flashes or stays on - useless for me and not user friendly. The antennas need to be tightened every so often or they droop - no big deal really. My biggest gripe will not impact the average use and really hits home for the nerd / power user - no VPN server, no channel bridging and lack of DLNA/FTP support -don't know what these are? Don't worry about it and buy the router it will work really well for you! Want those extra features? I just mentioned, you should look elsewhere. Bottom line: Solid performing consumer grade router, Excellent upstream and downstream bandwidth, fantastic consumer features and USB 3.0/Esata support and worth the money. I think the average person reading this would generally appreciate this router and find it easy to use. Especially to stream movies from a movie service or network drive! So sit back watch Netflix and Chil!

wifi crashes almost every night haven't had 3 months.

Spotty access in the basement of a ranch style house.

I am a semi-professional product tester with more than 20 years of experience testing technology products. I was provided the Linksys EA8500 for testing in my home environment and I am in turn writing this review of my experience. I hope you will find my review to be unbiased as my reputation remains most important. The EA8500 is being compared to a Linksys EA9200 which is what I was using prior to receiving the test unit. The EA9200 is supposed to be the current Linksys flagship model. I was happy to try the EA8500 as I had noticed a bottleneck in my home as I have dozens of devices which are not the newer AC wireless standard. The EA8500 has 4 bands to allow access to my 2.4 and 5GHZ, which is double the EA9200. For my environment, the EA8500’s quad band really made a huge difference lessening the bottleneck I was experiencing with the EA9200. I would strongly recommend it over the EA9200 for home with many devices that are not native wireless AC. I had little problem with decreased speeds when every device was calling for data through the EA8500. I did have a couple of annoyances, which I can only attribute to the EA8500. There were quite a few occasions when one of my devices could no longer access my WIFI and there was no firewall preventing the device according to the EA8500’s settings. The only way I could get the device(s) to access WIFI was by rebooting the EA8500. This happened over a dozen times during the 30 days I spent testing the device prior to writing this review, and it is not an issue I would tolerate as an end user. I also found the 5GHZ coverage and speed to be similar to the EA9200. It is great within 10 feet of the router, but drops quickly with any distance or any obstacle. This router would get an almost perfect score if Linksys could figure out a way to increase 5GHZ performance over typical household distances and to work out the aforementioned bug with devices being blocked requiring a reboot of the router. I also found the 2.4GHZ coverage to be similar to the EA9200, which is excellent with 80% signal reported only at the very far corners of my home. Overall, I would recommend this router to a home user with lots of devices that are not cutting edge AC wireless. The quad bands really help to eliminate the bottleneck from many devices calling for data at the same time. I have not seen reports of device blocking in online forums as I experienced, or by other reviewers, so at this point I am chalking my experience up to a hardware or firmware issues unique to my EA8500. If I receive a replacement from Linksys I will update this review.

I recently replaced my old router and extended router with this one product to cover my entire house. This router has a GREAT signal strength and does reach across our entire house and over several floors! My son is a gamer and loves the speed. Super impressed at how easy it was to install and set up. I'm all for simple! Thank you and I will be recommending this router to my co-workers and friends.

I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program. I live in Connecticut and was an ATT UVerse customer. This worked well in my home, with the wireless router in the living room and good wireless speed and stable connectivity. Unfortunately ATT sold our accounts to Frontier, after which I went through months of problems. Finally I was forced to move my router to basement the where I had a drillout to the outdoor hookup. With a two-story house and my router in my basement our network connectivity took a real hit- laptops, tablets, and phones, multiple Apple TVs – all sharing wifi coming from my basement. I also have IP telephone on the Frontier router, so when I received the Belkin I decided to use it as a bridge and increase the signal strength in the house. From this point you can either read the entire review or go straight to the key point- I definitely recommend this router if you want to extend the range and strength of your wifi and provide stability with a large number of devices connecting. The unit is very easy to assemble right out of the box. It has four screw on antenna, and I do wish the antennas were a little tighter when screwed down completely although they usually stay in place exactly where you want them. On the other hand they are very easy to configure. Using the device in a bedroom or right by your media center might be an issue because a light on the unit is always on- not uncommon for network devices but annoying. It’s unfortunate because the device is sleek and attractive, but I’m glad it’s in my basement where I don’t have to deal with this indicator light. I was psyched the router comes with a companion app. I downloaded it to my Android device expectantly, hoping that I would be able to connect locally to the device and configure it. However, the app is for managing the router once it is set up and working on your network- and you need to create a Linksys account and log into it to connect and add the device. That said the app is useful, but I really wish it was a configuration app- I don’t like to have to find Ethernet cables to connect a laptop to a router to configure it if there is a problem. Despite these little irritations I mention above, I have to say this router really satisfied my needs, offering 5GHZ and 2.5GHz and equivalent guest networks. I definitely like the idea of the guest network. I host a Super Bowl party with a lot of people attending and I don’t want to hand my private network password to any of them. The signal strength and speed tests I have run have convinced me -I am definitely getting better connectivity and connectivity that’s stronger in more of my house. I would never put a router in the basement by choice, but the Belkin has solved that issue for me.

First off, I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program. My first impressions of this router were that the box is well designed for this router, antennas, power supply and ethernet cable. It should handle the harsh shipping environments from any of the carriers. The antennas do not come attached to this router so upon unboxing the antennas will need to be assembled onto the router. The power cable is about 6ft in length along with a 3ft ethernet cable. The router itself is made from your typical plastic used for computer components. By no means does it feel "high end" although it does seem to be well vented with almost the entire top, sides and bottom being perforated to allow air flow. The cooling design does seem to work well because this router doesn't feel hot to the touch even though mine has been streaming videos on 20+ devices running 24x7 a week since i received this router 3 weeks ago. This router seems to excels at what routers are basically supposed to do and that is routing network and internet traffic. The router does a great routing the traffic on my total of 32 devices on my network. The network doesn't seem to lag or bog down at all. On my old router my entire network slowed when my macbook pro was doing a complete time machine backup to my NAS drive. The backup was faster and didn't seem to impede other network traffic that was happening at the same time. Where this router falls short is the system software, UI and lack of Linksys' support for open firmware. At this price point Linksys should be providing the ground work on open firmware with the development community. Linksys has done this in the past with the WRT1900AC router and they should be doing this for every router over $150. The stock system interface seems to be ok for a novice user. Linksys need to allow an advanced tab that more power users can access if we so choose to. One last tip which is not in the quick start guide even though it should be. When it gets setup have 2 antennas vertical and 2 antennas horizontal this will give you the best possible coverage throughout your home. All and all this router does a great job with what a router should do. It does a great job with whole home and more coverage. Even on the edge of the wireless network my devices still are able to access the network or the web without any major issues.

This router is great. Works well in a 2 story townhouse. Allows a wide range and speeds. I get my 300mbs through the 5ghz wifi. Must buy product

I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program This wifi router was much bigger than my standard Uverse wifi router that it was replacing, but it definitely made a difference in the signal strength throughout (and outside) of my home. This was super easy to set up and I loved all the customization options available through the app. It was a breeze to go in and change the password, add parental controls, and prioritize connections. I never even knew a router could do all of this, and honestly, I've never done anything with my wifi routers at all. They usually are installed by a technician through the cable company, and I never touch it after that...so, to say I was impressed with all the possibilities is an understatement! We had no trouble getting all of our phones, tablets (both android and Apple), TVs, Roku, Wii, or Xbox connected and all had "excellent" signal strength. After a few days, we noticed our Uverse was cutting out and after having a tech come out to check the issue, he knew instantly that we had another router. This router is so powerful that it fights the Uverse router, so we have had to unplug this at the moment until we, hopefully, receive a call back with a fix for this issue. I really enjoyed the strong connections and faster speeds we were experiencing! This router would definitely be a great router for homes or buildings, even those much bigger than mine. The signal is THAT strong. I just hope we can find a workaround so we can start using ours again!

I bought this router and the first one I had worked the absolute best until the day it powered down and it refused to boot back up and function that is why this gets three stars. The LED that illuminated Linksys on the top of the router never went solid after leaving it for a few hours . I returned it under the extended warranty I had purchased for a new one. The replacement unit intermittently looses internet even though the signal is constant on the PC and has done this since the day I got it the replacement. Both of them were on the latest official firmware as Linksys doesn't allow a third party firmware on these routers anymore. Will be returning it and getting a different one.

I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program I really like this router. It helped my connections speeds, although only a little but acceptable. It was super easy to connect and get up and running quickly right out of the box. I also like the home page of the router. It has so much more to offer than any other router I have ever used.

I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program Unboxed and completed setup in less than 15 mins. I like the design of the router including the Linksys light on the top of it which you are able to keep on or off at your preference. The set up process was very intuitive and easy to go through. Speeds were very good, but turned out not to be as fast as my current router when doing speed tests. For also being a high end router, I was surprised it didn't have additional features like VPN client/router (it does have FTP and Media Servers). It would have also been nice if you could use the USB to connect to a cellular network for WAN access and use as failover. This router is a great router for the money and I would recommend it for the average user up to the moderately above average user, but if you are looking to do more, I would suggest you pay a bit more for a different router.

Installation was straightforward using the provided quick start guide. Linksys Smart Wifi interface provides quick access to the router features via application or computer. Strong signal and connectivity while using 5gz but limited range. Router features 4 adjustable antennas designed to increase performance. Adjusted the antennas per the Linksys instructions and did not experience any change in reliability, range or connection speed. •Used router for 2 weeks and it worked well the first week - no issues. However, during the second week connectivity issues started to occur while on the 2.4gz setting. Due to the high price and unreliable connection issues that I experienced, I would not recommend purchasing this router

I honestly dread setting up anything techy, This was so smooth and seamless with their mobile site, I honestly couldn't believe it! Last time I bought a router was the old Linksys G54, so I decided to stick with linksys again. They did not let me down. Also, my kids no longer bother me about the internet being slow.

I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program We have a ton of devices slowing down our performance. So I looked forward to replacing my Cable supplied router. Setting up the router in less than 15 minutes was very easy and I didnt use my CD. The power brick is VERY VERY large in size, Placement can be tricky. I installed the Linksys app,it is great for those who want more control over their router. It I love the parental controls to keep my eyes open. My connection range wasn't too bad with my Cable Router and with the Linkys it was just a little better but not alot. I live in a large concrete home, and Lose signals in far off rooms. Note that It wasn't 3 times as fast as it promises on the package I had quite a few drops which was a issue as well. Its a "okay"router, but I will be going back to my Arris Router for now since the drops were not good and try it again after they work the bugs out

The router, Linksys - Wireless-AC Dual-Band Smart Wi-Fi Router with 4-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch - Black, I connected to many hard wired devices and wifi devices. My old tried and true old computer that was updated to windows 10 worked really good signal wise. My computer with a later version of windows to windows 10 kept loosing the signal during the evenings. The color and when the computer was streaming to a tv correctly was great. I am in a neighborhood that is old with new wires. In bad weather, the signal was good. The tv screen did give me error messages when the router lost signals and I had to get the tv/computer going from the home screen several times. My cable company, did not know if it was the router, weather or the neighborhood signals to the router was the issue, since they do tend to cycle sometimes and this router is really new out to market, able to carry a high fi signal.

I have had this router now for about a month and I can tell you this link sys router blows away my old Cisco 802.11n router from 7 years ago. The speed is incredible and rock sold and the signal is always at full wifi bars on both the 2.4ghz and 5ghz. I can stream 4k video with no pausing from my IP provider. I was kind of reluctant to get a linksys router now that they are own from belkin but looks like they are keeping the old linksys cisco tradition of creating a great product and supporting its will very helpful and valuable upgrades to the performance and security of the router.

I received this product for free as part of Belkin's Friends + Family Program. This device is the first time I've been interested in leaving the Apple environment as I have been an Airport Extreme user for quite some time. I have to say Multiple MIMO access ROCKS. I have always been frustrated that I have some devices that are able to utilize more/higher bandwidth links to wireless APs and then stuck with the 802.11b type devices that share the network. THIS PRODUCT solves that problem and provides a pretty easy GUI to manage it all with. While I don't think its perfect by any means, it does do a very good job with 90% of tasks asked of it. My one 'wish' is that the parental control options that this device offers were a little better tuned/refined. I would have no problem purchasing another unit when it comes time. This this is a game changer.

The router was easy to set up and connect to my ISP. The only problem I had was connections being dropped, and Linksys help desk was able to guide me through how to correct this issue with one call to them.

Great router! I replaced an old N router. Am paying for 100 down and 20 up but never got anywhere near that with old router. I need fast internet since I telecommute. Noticed a crazy speed decrease whenever my kids got home from school. With this new router I see no speed reduction at all and am getting over 100 down and nearly 40 up. Man what an improvement! Setup was easy. Nice to cut my kids off the internet at certain times as well. The mobile app as well as the setup gui work great!