Customer Ratings & Reviews

I love this router. Especially because of the fact that I got it for half the price during the Black Friday sale. This router will definitely help me future proof my devices for years to come as they got more advanced and as more devices adopt WiFi 6E. Literally, this router gives me great signal within the house. I actually haven’t seen it drop to two bars yet on the WiFi symbol. A constant three whole bars! Now, I’m not sure how it would fare in my basement but judging from how strong of a connection I get in my room upstairs, I would expect the same signal strength in the basement. Now, the firmware update! I have Verizon FiOS gigabit internet. As I unplugged my crappy FiOS gateway router, I then connected the Linksys Hydra router. Setup is super easy and simple through the app no problem. At the end it’ll say it needs to “update” to the latest firmware. Please note that this firmware update didn’t allow me to take full advantage of my gigabit upload speeds but it did allow me to get my gigabit download speeds. However, after spending time with Linksys support chat, they told me I needed to download the latest firmware from their website manually! This was a fairly simple process and after the router updated to the new firmware, I was able to get my promised speeds Verizon both Downloads and uploads. Again, fantastic router. I noticed things load very fast and snappy like on my computer Ethernet connected and on my WiFi devices!!

Had older net gear router but as things grow I needed to get something better first I had my internet provider install one of theirs had all kinds of problems went to best buy and got a Linksys- Hydra Pro AXE6600 solved all my problems

--- Installation--- The installation of the WiFi Hyrda router was a breeze! Download the app, connect the router, follow app instructions, and you’re up and running in 5 minutes. --- FEATURES --- This router can connect more than 55+ devices, covers 2700 sq. ft, and reaches speeds of up to 6.6 Gbps. This router includes the newest WiFi 6E for low-latency performance needed with the virtual reality headsets. --- PERFORMANCE --- The connection of this router to my modem was a breeze. Though my modem works as a WiFi router itself, I had trouble with some devices not recognizing my 2.4Ghz WiFi band. Specifically, my automatic, keyless entry lock would always be a hit or miss connecting to my modem WiFi router. This new router fixed that issue and now I am able to take full advantage of that device. Little by little, I kept switching my devices to the Hydra router. It felt like night and day. I have 1200 Mbps down because I have over 25 devices connected at any given time. Sometimes, when streaming 4K content on my TV, the TV shows would occasionally pause while it caught up even though I have plenty of bandwidth. After I switched to the new router, that issue hasn’t surfaced. I did a speed check on my iPhone 12 Pro Max before I disconnected it from the original modem router and it read close to 400 Mbps down. When I did the speed check with the new router, it read 943 Mbps down. --- EXPECTATIONS --- As with any new router, I expect to see an improvement and this router didn’t disappoint. In fact, the results were so spectacular that it is now my favorite router. It is easy to manage, easy to break into older Ghz if needed, and easy to set up and install. --- VALUE --- Though many tech products don’t use WiFi 6E yet, it’s a great investment if you are already shopping for a new router and want to future-proof yourself. --- APPROVAL --- This router is highly recommended for people with a lot of WiFi devices at home running at once, and for gamers whose family members also watch streaming shows at the same time as you.

I've been using the Linksys MR7500 Hydra Pro 6E Tri Band Router for the last 10+ days. The MR7500 is one of the newest 6E routers to hit the market this year. The Hydra is also a mesh router that can work in concert with some other Linksys mesh offerings. Before the Hydra I had a mixed setup of Linksys Velop dual band and tri band routers. The dual band system is Model WHW0103, and Velop Tri-Band system Model. I pretty familiar with several of the Linksys mesh offerings. I decided to see what their more traditional router setup had to offer. So far, I have been happy with the performance of 6E Hydra router – with some caveats. For reference my house is 1700 sqft split between 2 stories, and an attached garage. WiFi 6E: What is it? So I have to admit that the switch to a WiFi # has thrown me off – I was very used to 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax convention. So now an N router is WiFi 4, AC is WiFi 5, and AX is WiFi 6. With that out of the way what is the difference between WiFi 6 and 6E? 6E uses the same congestion mitigating tools as WiFi 6 (MU MIMO,1024 QAM,OFDMA, etc), operates the same way on 2.4 an 5GHz bands, and is fully backwards compatible. What 6E does that 6 can’t is the expansion into the 6GHz spectrum. In mid-2020 the 6GHz spectrum was opened up for use by WiFi devices. The spectrum range has lower traffic density, wider channels, and a drastically higher throughput. However, you have to have a 6E compatible device to tap into this range. This is the biggest hurdle because of the lack of 6E devices currently available. At this time only the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Samsung NED QLED 8K TV have 6E radios. There are some PCIe WiFi cards for desktop computers available, but not really anything else at this time. I currently only have 1 WiFi 6 device – an ASUS laptop. The MR7500 Hydra Pro 6E Tri-Band Router This is an AXE6600 router (1 band of 4800Mbps @ 6Ghz, 1 band of 1200Mbps @ 5Ghz, 1 band of 600 Mbps @ 2.4Ghz) with simultaneous tri-band radios and MU-MIMO. MU-MIMO allows multiple WiFi users to communicate with the router simultaneously without taking the performance hit. There are 4 fixed antennas with 6 amplifiers (2 per band I’d assume), as well as 4 gigabit LAN ports, and 1 WAN port. There is also a USB 3.0 port to be used for a networked printer or a storage solution. A single ethernet cable (cat 5e) is included. The router comes with an upgraded processor (quad core 1.8MHz) over the Tri-Band Velop node (quad core 716MHz), and has 512MB of RAM/512MB of flash memory. Before I started anything I took my current Linksys Velop Mesh offline. Setup for the Hydra was a breeze. This is the 4th Linksys router I have setup (2 Velop systems, and a Max Stream), and it was probably the easiest one yet. I already had the app installed on my phone, so I logged in and moved to add a new router to my account. Following through the app took about 2 min total before I was connected to the internet. I copied my settings over from my existing mesh – kept the SSID/password, QoS ranking, and MAC filtering I had already setup. Like I said it was a breeze, and the app really looks like it has been improved upon in the last year. Performance I wanted to test the performance of the Hydra like I have tested my previous Linksys Velop and Max Stream systems. I booted up LAN Speed test from Totusoft and performed some dummy file transfers (300MB packet size) between my wired/WiFi 5 tower computer and my WiFi 6 laptop. Both computers have NVME SSD drives. The PC's were connected wirelessly to the router, each at 15 ft. I achieved 66 Mbps Up and 101 down. This was decently lower than even my Velop dual band system using a computer with a HDD in the mix (101 Up/314 down). I then switched my PC to wired and ran the test again. This time I achieved 193Mbps up and 390 Mbps down. What this tells me is the speed difference that occurs when WiFi 5 is brought into the mix. I decided to do a fully wired test which led me to achieve 383 up/812 down. When I ran the fully wired test on the Velop system I achieved 124 up/423 down. So the wired transfer speeds doubled on the down and tripled the up, which is pretty impressive. I should note that the transfer speeds on WiFi 6 are lower than what I achieved on a fully WiFi 5 setup 2.5 years ago. Something doesn’t seem right here. It seems like the focus of this router really isn’t on WiFi 5 or even 6, and without a 6E device I can’t even tap into the really high speeds that I could be seeing. With a device like this I also wondered what the range would be. I had used another Linksys router (MR8300 Max Stream) with external antenna and it had better coverage in my house than my Velop node. I have a couple of places in my house where a single access point (i.e. a single Velop node) struggles – my garage and my bedroom. The Max Stream didn’t have much issue addressing my bedroom, and did fairly well in my garage. I expected the Hydra to perform similarly with its 4 external antenna. I was a bit surprised when I encounter the same range issues as the single node Velop, and in my bedroom it was actually a bit worse. Streaming Netflix to a Roku Express (1080p) took forever for the content to start and in some cases buffer often. This was at the level of my old DLink N router that I replaced 3 years ago. It’s just a shame that the WiFi 5 devices are given such little bandwidth and consideration. My house isn’t even that big – 1700 sqft split level. I didn’t have a chance to test the USB port. My network NAS has gone offline and is in need of replacement. Reliability Since I have been working from home I took the chance to place several UPS backups on my equipment – one of which was my router/modem. I needed to avoid any service interruptions from power blips, so now I rely solely on the reliability of the Hydra. In the 10 days I have ran the Hydra I have had perfect uptime – no dips or disconnects. I did simulate some shutdowns/power blips by unplugging it and plugging it back in – service was restored in about a minute (this my take longer if your modem is slower to recover). Compatibility with Velop The Hydra contains the same AI Mesh technology as the Velop system I took offline to try the Hydra out. I deleted 2 nodes from my old network and repurposed them in the new mesh. The Hydra sat as the primary node with 2 dual band AC1300 (WiFi 5) routers connected to it. I connected them as wireless nodes without any issue. Setup time when building out this mesh was quicker than I expected – maybe a few minutes faster overall compared to setting up the old network. After testing this out for a bit I took the nodes down as fully wireless mesh points, and connected them to my wired network. In this mode they became wireless backhauls pushing out faster speeds further out. This is how I will be leaving my mesh system. It has the benefits of better LAN performance, “future-proofing” the WiFi, and I can remove a gigabit switch. Interface This isn’t my first time using the Linksys app. I have said in the past that I the interface is fairly slick albeit simple. The interface does not look like router config pages of old, and is made for people that aren’t networking pros. You can still access the router GUI through a webpage if you want to dig into the settings a little further. Enter 192.168.1.1 into your browser URL (I still have to access from Microsoft Edge instead of Firefox). From here it’s a little easier to navigate more advanced features of the router (port forwarding, DHCP reservation, etc). For initial login the password is located on the serial label on the underside of the router. I didn’t particularly care for the web browser layout though. Locations for port forwarding and the MAC/DHCP lists are kind of buried under ambiguous main tabs. The most frustrating thing to find is controlling the different radio bands. The default mode for the router is 1 SSID for all the bands. If you want separate SSID’s for the 2.4, 5, or 6 you will have to configure that in the GUI or the app. However, if you need to turn off specific bands then you have to go through the GUI. This can come into play when setting up IoT devices that need to connect to the 2.4 band only. Some devices won’t initially connect unless the SSID only contains a 2.4MHz signal. The only way to make this happen to find a little link called “CA” in the GUI located at the bottom of the page (along with the Terms of Service and the license agreement). Click this link and it will bring you to a page that lets you turn off the 5 and 6MHz bands. Once your device is connected you can re-enable the bands without any issue. Overall, I have mixed feelings with the performance of the Hydra. Lan speeds were blistering compared to my Velop system which matters the most to me since my biggest internet consumption comes from wired devices (tower, work PC, Xbox one, and Series X). I only have a handful of devices that rely on the WiFi to be as fast as possible – my bedroom Roku and my phone. Since I am pairing the Hydra with my dual band Velop nodes, I will eliminate these shortcomings, and maintain the LAN speed upgrade. However, it is a little concerning that you would need to add additional mesh nodes to service your WiFi 5 devices – especially at this price point. This device is meant to be forward looking as more and more devices will get WiFi 6E rollouts, but that bucks the reality that most devices still utilize WiFi 5, and will for the foreseeable future. All I can say is you need to know what you are buying this device for - faster LAN and future proofing for 6E.

After reading about this Linksys router, I thought I would give it a try even though it seemed a little pricey. After installing it, the router found about 17 devices in my home and automatically assigned them to the correct Wi-Fi. I was having to reboot the old Netgear product about once a week. I have not had to reboot this router yet. It works like a charm. It also has Wi-Fi 6 which I’m sure I will need in the future. I live in a 3 story condo and it works flawlessly. Some of my gadgets are wired but most are wireless. I got my money’s worth.

We haven’t had the problems others have had. Everything speed tested faster than with our old router which was a high end Linksys from 4 years ago. I’m curious as to if people are upgrading the router without a sufficient modem.? No range issues and our house is 2800 sq. feet. It’s mesh capable anyways, but it works fine even outside in the hot tub. It is by no means a miracle product, but it performs as advertised. I don’t think six e will help a 5 year old computer either. This is month 3 and so far so good. I find reviews after a day ro be fairly useless anyways. Its not the best, but it was $370. There are more expensive and better routers, but this guy works fine. Not a gamer, so I could not tell you if it is good for PC gaming.

Don't sleep on this router. I bought this to handle the ever growing WIFI enabled devices in my house. With the meshing system, adding more space for WIFI devices is as easy as can be. Since I've only used Linksys products, setup was a breeze! Routers are mini computers, so you get what you pay for. Don't let the price scare you and if you are scared, buy the protection plan. I'd recommend this to everyone because it's worth the money in my opinion.

Solid performance, easy setup, great coverage, fast speeds

Better than Netgear. Not many updates to the device though. Very few since purchase. Looks good gets warm-hot. So leave vented as best as possible. Would purchase again. However they are pricey.

This router works very well and its range is good. My cellphone supports wfi 6 and 6E which is why I bought it. I do get good performance even between floors. It is also my parent node. At the moment I have two WIFI 5 nodes connected but it has issues. You have to turn off the 6ghz band and remove WPA3 from the 5ghz band. If you don't wifi performance will suffer big time.

Much faster and powerful than our previous router.

Replaced another Linksys destroyed in a lightning strike (despite surge protection). After a month, the Hydra Pro continues to perform reliably with a slightly larger wifi coverage area than earlier model and more than 50 connections. Appreciated the easy setup via app.

This is a solid router, a bit on the pricey side, but worth it in the end. I had to get another 1 because the first one had some issues, but once I got the replacement it connected right away and performed like a Linksys router is suppose to perform. I would have giving it 5 stars but I don't like the fact you have to do the setup through your cell phone. Other than that good solid product.

This is a great Linksys Tri-Band router with 6GHz. This is my fourth Linksys router as I continue to upgrade with them due to reliability and quality of their routers.

The set up on this router was the easiest I have ever experienced. Performance is very good.

The performance of the router is great when it works. Wireless devices will not remain connected to the router. After three rounds of technical support, the issue remains unresolved. Be aware - there is a special support department for this “advanced technology,” but no dedicated support phone number. You are told that a special team handles this router and they have a 24-48 call back period.

Solid performance and blazing fast. Seems like very reliable router.

This was one of the best products I Purchase. Thanks best buy for the item.

Amazing features, and great performance from the Wifi 6E

So far so good, big improvement over my old Linksys router