Linksys WRT3200ACM: AC3200 Dual-Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Router, Beamforming Tri-Stream Wireless Signal, Ethernet Ports, MU-MIMO (Black, Blue)

WRT 3200ACM A very nice product, setup was very simple. Overall performance verses my 4 year old WD N900 router is much better; improved signal strength, improved throughput and so far no drop outs. I started getting drop outs on the old router when we exceeded 12 devices, the WRT has run flawlessly with up to 21 devices so far. The unit runs quiet and cool – no fan needed, which is nice since fan noise can be quiet annoying. I manually configured the router (enter 192.168.1.1 into your browser) and used “Smart Setup Tool” to get connected to the internet and do a basic configuration, the setup tool makes this very easy. After that I manually edited a few parameters to “personalize” the network, simplify management and optimize performance as follows: Changed name of the 5GHz network rather than accept the default of “Name of 2.4Ghz” appended with _5Ghz. Edited the guest network names and password and turned it off, I will switch it on if needed. Renamed some of the devices on the network map so that it is obvious which device is which. This make the network map much more useful. Edited the Host Name and Network Name, personal preference. Turned off the ability to manage this router wirelessly via Linksys Smart Wi-Fi (Connectivity – Administration tab) to reduce the chance of a wireless hack. Wireless networking defaults were not optimal for our network so I made the following changes: Set the 2.4 GHz network to 802.11gn. This router does not support 801.11b so I don’t think there is a difference between the mixed setting and the 802.11gn setting. I don’t have any legacy b only devices so this is not a problem. Not supporting 802.11b avoids the 2.4 GHz radio having to do gymnastics to talk to any b devices this helps 2.4 GHz throughput and avoids the slight decrease in n or g throughput that results from a mixed (with b) setting. I thought about using n only but since g and n can play together (the overhead associated with sending a legacy preamble before the HT preamble is small and g devices can interpret the n preamble) I left g available. I left the channel width setting on auto and it selected 40 MHz i.e., twice the width and double the data rate of the legacy channels. Set the 5 GHz network to ac only to allow optimum 5 GHz performance, I left the channel width setting on auto and it selected 80 MHz i.e., four times the width and four times the data rate of the legacy channels. I am not quite sure what they mean in the advertising info with regard to 160 MHz channel width since this device only has 4 antennas and 6 are needed to get 160 MHz bandwidth. I left the channel selection on auto for both networks. Restricting the router protocols has some potential disadvantages: 1. Legacy devices that are restricted to 2.4 GHz b and/or 5 GHz a and n only will not be able to connect, so if you have older devices this might be a problem. 2. If there are devices running 2.4 GHz b and 5 GHz a and n nearby they might interfere with your network and your network router might interfere with them. I am too far away from my neighbors for this to be a problem but if your neighbors are close you should probably use mixed mode. Given that the 802.11g protocol was released in 2003 and that manufactures built 802.11g chipsets before 2003 I doubt that many people have many 802.11b devices only. I would like to know if there is a difference between the between the 2.4 GHz mixed setting and the 2.4 GHz 802.11gn setting. Does the router listen for 802.11b signals and back off to allow legacy transmission to a legacy router when 2.4 GHz mixed is selected? I called tech support but the person I spoke too did not seem to know what I was talking about. Some users have reported signal strength gains, I measured the signal strength (using a Wi-Fi Analyzer on my phone) before and after installing the new router (in the same location). On the 2.4Ghz band the signal strength increased by an average of 3dB (double the power) running g and n protocols. This is not a huge improvement but will help in areas with marginal signal strength that are prone to signal drop outs. The increase in signal strength on 2.4Ghz varied from -1dB to 8dB, in looking at the results it looks like beam forming is working and increasing the signal strength in the areas with 2.4Ghz devices with up to an 8dB increase and an average of 4.5dB. On the 5 GHz band the signal strength increased by an average of 16dB (40 times the power) running mixed mode. This made some previously unreachable (for 5G Hz) areas of the house usable for Wi-Fi and is a great gain in signal strength. The 5 GHz radio designs have probably got a lot better in the last few years and this result alone is a good reason to buy this router. The increase in signal strength varied from 11dB to 20dB and did not seem to be affected by beam forming (possibly due to the fact that phone that I used to take the measurements was on the 5 GHz Wi-Fi network when I took the measurements). It is a good idea to back up your router configuration (Troubleshooting – Diagnostics tab) to allow a quick restore in the event you have to reset your router. The Troubleshooting Status report pages are very nice to have. It would be nice if you could search the router help information embedded on the router. The user guide does not cover as much as the help information on the router and he use of screen shots in the manual limit your ability to search (e.g., you cannot find Backup or Restore by searching the user manual). I am very happy with this product.

I bought this back in 2017 with the intent of upgrading a then-10-year-old Linksys WRT54G router that had served with honor and distinction through many LAN parties, firmware flashes, and general abuse. As expected, the WRT3200ACM has been the rock-solid basis of my home network ever since its first power-on event. I have only upgraded the firmware once, and that was with the stock firmware from Linksys. No OpenWRT or third-party firmware, although I vehemently support using third-party firmware. My 54G had dd-wrt on it and I loved it! When I bought the 3200 new, it was not even on the list of supported routers! Now that it is? Meh... Ain't broke, don't mess with it. The range is great! I can be in my garage about 100 feet away (no obstructions but 1 thin wall) with nearly full signal. It makes playing my wifi radio in the garage so nice! The part that makes me so happy is the amount of wired and wireless objects I can have running on the same home network. My place is chock-full of wifi stuff: wireless lighting (maybe 20 bulbs now?), a couple of Samsung TVs, two wifi radios, several phones, some Alexa units, my girlfriend's tablet, a pair of home theater PCs, and a CPAP machine, all getting along with no conflicts. That's not even counting the wired PC and printers and other various bits of equipment being wired in through a managed HP 16-port network switch. I know it says 32 wireless things is the limit, but everything is still working just fine. For now. :)

Problems right from the start. Non-stop 2118 errors, when logged into 192.168.1.1, while trying to click on ANY of the options to manually config. If I don't get the 2118 error, it'll show a blank screen, or "waiting" indefinitely. Have to hard reset router regularly just to get it to work for a few minutes for a manual log-in. But, router won't save any settings or it gets stuck on the blank screen "waiting" forever. Youtube videos show others can click on an option and it comes up in a second or two but mine won't. Another error is that router keeps stating that internet is down, yet I can surf from another browser window or tab, like for this review. I've tried several different laptops, desktops, browsers, and operating systems, and 'no joy' with any plugged into this router, and even created a non-needed useless linksys login identity which just won't 'link' to this router either. I will RMA this failed unit and hope that the replacement works. If the replacement works, I will update this review accordingly. UPDATE: Well, Amazon over-nighted a replacement router. Same problems. When using ANY browser(IE, Firefox, Chrome), Windows 7,8,10(and even XP) with the antivirus and any/all security settings turned off, I just can't make ANY changes to the router from its browser log in. That's 2 routers in a row that can't be adjusted using a simple browser log in. Besides regular 2118 errors and indefinite "waiting", the new router also has 2117 errors. BTW, you can manually download the latest firmware. FW_WRT3200ACM_1.0.6.181063_prod is available for download and my routers shipped with 1.0.5.175944 which didn't not allow browser settings changes. If you can't log into router, you can't update it. The automatic firmware update(via Android phone app) doesn't see the latest firmware that you can manual download to a PC. Auto update(via Android app) says no new firmware is available even though the downloadable, from the Linksys website, firmware is newer than what the router is equipped with. Additional update and review, after battling with router #2 for a couple days, I decided to do another reset and just leave it alone. After a few hours, using the Linksys cellphone app, it finally was able to update itself with the previous mentioned firmware update. I would guess that the LInksys support made that happen. That did the trick and after a reboot, router is now responding to my browsers. I was able to config/save my settings and now the wireless network is working just fine. I don't want "email" log in, Linksys membership smart-wifi log in, or auto-anything-easy-quick config by default. Loses 1 star because firmware updates took a while to go from website to router's auto-update. Loses another star because router browser settings uses stupid silly "pop-up's" instead of normal browser pages like older routers. Pop-up script can easily be blocked by a pop-up blocker or script stopper(that is, a browser with some security settings). Pop-up's can also be stopped by aggressive antivirus-settings, browser ad-blockers,...... The engineer that wanted that should be fired. In the end, this router goes from 1 start to 3 stars. I don't want a "cool" router with apps and silly config page pop-ups. I want a usable router that I can manually set up quickly, update as needed, and then put to work! Linksys, get rid of the pop-up's when clicking on ANYTHING when accessing the router's menus. What was Linksys thinking? Every browser pretty much has a pop-up killer now. Update 12/22/2018: With the latest firmware and selective router manual configurations, router has served well until drowning during hurricane Michael. I'd wager most negatives reviews are caused by either older firmware, or not choosing the proper wireless options for your network. Since it ran nonstop since the firmware update without issues, I've bumped up the rating to 5 stars. If you buy this router, learn how to log into it(no quick setups or phone ap's), and go thru each step by step option. Eliminating "B" and "G" wireless using only "N" or "A/C".... is good start, setting priorities and specific options in your phones, laptops, TV, bluray, audio receiver..... can make your WIFI super fast, well managed, and safe. I replaced my flooded WRT AC3200 with the Gaming Router WRT32X(seriously lacking options and overly dumbed downed user interface). It too works great but I prefer the config/options of the non-gaming router. And, for better reception/distance, Linksys offers high gain antennas which are about twice as tall, and provides exceptional capability an acre away in my work shed. Current Firmware for the WRT AC3200ACM is 1.0.6.186168, released in January of 2018. If the router doesn't automatically update to this firmware, do a manual update.

UPDATE - JUNE THE 2ND/2017: EVERY MONTH I'M HAVING SMALL ISSUES WITH THIS ROUTER, I HAVE TO RESTORE IT TO FACTORY SETTINGS EVERYTIME BECAUSE AFTER 2 AND A HALF WEEEK MY SPEEDS BOTH DOWN AND UP......BREAK TO HALF OF THE AVERAGE SPEED I'M SUPPOSE TO HAVE AND ACTUALLY PAY. ALSO, INSTAGRAM VIDEOS OR FB VIDEOS ALWAYS STOP LOADING! I DON'T KNOW WHY.....I TURN OFF WIFI AND GO TO LTE AND THEY PLAY NORMAL............ALSO I HAVE A LINKSYS REPEATER I THINK ITS A RE4000.....AND FOR WHAT I THINK EVERY TIME I CONNECTED TO MY AC3200 (WHICH ALSO WHEN CONNECTED AND LINKED TO THE OTHER ROUTER, IT ACTUALLY DONT AMPLIFY THE COVERAGE IT DOES THE OPPOSITE AND WHEN CHECKING THE CONNECTION IT SAYS " NO CONNECTION" OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT......AFTER A WEEK OR TOW MY NETWORK BREAKS AS I TOLD U BEFORE TO HALF SPEED. I'M GETTING A REPLACEMENT.....BUT ITS A PAIN IN THE @SS TO MAKE THIS CHANGE AGAIN SINCE I DONT LIVE IN THE STATES! THIS WAS FROM APROX. DECEMBER 2016: Guys, honestly.......u can't get a better router than this one! It's absolutely a most have product. I pay currently to my network provider in order to get 150 MB Download Speed and 75 MB Upload Speed....but that it's only if your computer is wired to the modern.....no read this: I configure plugged the Linksys to the Internet Provider Modem. Set Up was piece of cake! And why not mention the official Linksys App, it's very very easy and well understanding. After the final configuration (both wireless networks 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz, I went and did a speed test WIRELESSLY with my mid 2.012 Mac Book Pro and iPhone 6s Plus........guys 180 - 185 - 179 - 165 Download Speed and 90 - 87 - 93 - 79 Upload Speed! I was literally speechless........Again...I highly recommend buy this product! U won't regret it........I also forgot to say that if u need some special help form Linksys they'll be glad to help u 24/7 on their site! Thanks Linksys!!!!

I am a DIY guy who has been building my own PCs for years and setting up multiple WiFi networks with dedicated servers at home. The main reason I bought the Linksys WRT AC3200ACM was its claimed ability to work with the ExpressVPM firmware which is supposed to be a breeze to setup with great Wifi ranges and bandwidth. Unfortunately, my experience with it was rather disappointing in many aspects. First of all. setting up the AC3200ACM and flashing it with the ExpressVPN firmware was pretty straight forward. The ExpressVPN network configuration interface also worked well. I tested the wired connection with VPN activated from the AC3200ACM and it worked well in a remote room. However, it was a dismal experience when I tested the WiFi connections with a variety of devices including Android boxes, tablets. and my laptops. The connection was extremely slow and also dropped very frequently. When I tested the download speed in a remote room with my Android tablet, I was only able to get 0.3 mb/s download speed whereas my existing TP-Link router gets a 2.3 mb/s download speed on the same tablet. I also used a Wifi analyzer App which displays the Wifi signal strength and channels. The Wifi signal strength from the AC3200ACM was among the lowest as compared to the WiFi signals from my other three cheaper wireless routers. The Wifi signal was so unreliable that I was not able to make any practical use of it at all. In order to isolate the problem, I plugged in a spare Wifi router on the Ethernet port of the AC3200ACM. It worked just fine and performed much better than the WiFi signal coming from the AC3200ACM. I also spent hours working with both the ExpressVPN and Linksys technical support on this issue. Although the Linksys technical support seems knowledgeable, they were not able to isolate the problem. The only suggestion they made was to change the channels on the Wifi AP. It worked for a short while and then the connections started to drop again. With my other spare Wifi router connected to the AC3200ACM Ethernet port, it worked well without any issues. Finally I resorted to use my existing $60 TP-Link router to manually set up the ExpressVPN connection instead of using the AC3200ACM router. It worked perfectly with stronger signals, more reliable connection, and much faster speed than the AC3200ACM router. What bothers me was that for about $200, I would have expected much better experience and performance with the AC3200ACM as compared to my cheaper routers. Adding insult to injury, I was not able to flash the AC3200ACM back to the original firmware as the ExpressVPN software gave an error message saying "Request Entity Too Large". I hope I was the one only that had this problem. But I would not bother to invest this much money when I was able to achieve better results with my cheaper alternatives.

When I received this router I faced some issue with 5G Wifi in 1st day and I contacted amazon for return and as usual amazon representative was very polite and offer for me refund and return the router process already started but during this period I contacted Linksys and do firmware update and now it seems this is brilliant router and I cancelled return process so let me told you about me experience with this router especially that I am familiar with Linksys and I used wrt1900 ac v1 before this, also my review may help Linksys to solve the issue that some USA costumer have with WiFi. I live in middle east (Jordan/Amman) and I ordered Wrt3200acm from Amazon last December and I got it on 30th,Dec,2017, directly I setup the router in my home I looked at the firmware it was 1.0.3.175384 which is the initial release, I keep it as it and start doing all tests as I already read about Wifi issue before and already communicated with Linksys and they told me that lets use the router first to see if there is any Wi-Fi issue, the router worked great except with some minor bugs,although Linksys advice me to keep the firmware and not updated until they find solution for the issue, I take the risk and install latest firmware from Linksys website version 1.0.6.181063, and it seems that it's working fine. Today is the 3rd day of using Wrt3200acm with no major or even minor issue, I tested each option in router and changing all sittings. Everything still working smoothly with great performance, except one issue that all Linksys range extender cannot see 5G Wi-Fi if you leave the channel in 3200acm to Auto as in this mode the router usually used channel 149 which is DFS and all Linksys range extender not support DFS (already contacted Linksys and informed me this) so I change the channel in 5G to 36 (you can use 36 to 48) only to make extender see 5G Wi-Fi. Now let me told you types an numbers of devices connected in my home network ,8 Samsung android mobile (most of them latest devices like note8 and S8), 2 Samsung Smart TV, 1 PlayStation,4 Laptop with windows 7&10, 2 Iphone mobile and 4 linksys access point or range extender as I have very large house) and 1 DVR camera with 5 full HD camera) and everything working brilliant with ISP 100M down/Upload I got 117M download and 101M upload with ping between 2-4. If you compare wrt3200 with my previous router wrt1900 ac Ver1 there is significant improvement as I did many many tests, improvement in 2.4g in speed and range. improvement in 5G range around 25% better with 3200acm, no disconnecting happen to any device connected, also with1900ac I had problem in switching between router with extender or access point as the networking drop down then re connect now with 3200acm it's seamless like a magic no and never dropping in Wi-Fi with my mobile happened (I did within these three days more than 100 tests) even the speed and location in Linksys range extender that I have (EA6300, 1200ac) is show more speed in both 2.4 & 5 and the location between extender to router show me like I move the extender near the router), even wifi signal is STRONGLY STABLE(I am using Linksys high-gain antennas that I gave it before one star on Amazon as I used it before with 1900ac but it seems the high-gain antennas work perfect with 3200acm) , actually no thing in performance similar between wrt1900ac and wrt3200acm except externally they are the same in shape...I did many many speed and ping test the router was very stable and strong even downloading large amount of data through external hard disk connected to USP 3.0 in router was excellent speed and it did the job in short time, even connection speed between my desktop and router reach to 867.0 Mbps. also I got BONUS Linksys AC600 wifi USP adapter as free with the package. I would like to share my experience with other users and with Linksys and I mentioned where I live in Jordan/Amman that may be the hardware or software of our android devices different than US even though that My Wrt3200acm is US version as I bought it from Amazon.

This thing is a tank! And looks beautiful on top of that! I'm on a gigabyte connection in a 2500 square foot house. We connect at times 3 active devices plus a slew of other ones which aren't being used all the time (media player, phones, etc), but mostly computers or tablets and much of the day at least 2-3 devices are actively and at the same time involved in video conferencing. No issues at all. Wired I'm very close to the gigabyte speeds. Wireless I get about half of that which is about normal. Maybe a bit faster if I have my MacBook Pro sitting right next to the router. But what I'm trying to say is that the router doesn't choke even when several devices stream or videocoverence at the same time. I left everything default and it suits my needs. What this router really shines at is if you want to forgo the factory firmware and install the opensource DD-WRT. You can do that with ease. You can also, without any difficulty switch back to factory firmware. I tested and works flawlessly. I initially wanted to install and stick with DD-WRT but I found (after a bitched about it for a while) the "cloud" access and control of this router using the factory firmware very useful, especially for parental control and limiting the use of devices on the network (kids using their tables non stop, for example). The phone app using the cloud account is really neat and convenience and especially the impossibility of trying to teach my wife DD-WRT's interface in a weekend, was what ultimately made me stick with the factory stuff. But you have options and that is why this router is great at! Overall, a solid purchase. Stable and doing its job properly.

I've waited a little over a month to review this product. As you can see it has so far "met my expectations". I've been using a Linksys WRT54GS Wireless-G Broadband Router for over 11 years and hope the Linksys WRT AC3200 Open Source Dual-Band Gigabit Smart Wireless Router serves me as well. I made the change because we've accumulated a bunch of devices connecting to the Internet through the router and felt a more up-to-date router might move data better. Also upgrading meant adding a frequency (5meg) so I was looking to improve speed that way. The installation went pretty well. After the initial part of the setup I was able to change the network SSID and password to my original router information so that saved me re-connecting each 2.4meg device (which for us was about a dozen devices-3 Roku's, 2 Kindles, 1 smart phone, 1 iPad, 1 iPod, 2 wireless printers, 1 network laser). All but the network laser printer took off immediately. My old network cable needed to be replaced by the cable that came with the new router to fix that problem. The 5meg frequency seems to reach anywhere in our home where we use laptops so they were connected to that network. Our DSL Internet service is adequate but not super fast (10 meg) but the system seems adequate even when the visiting kids make their VPN connections to work. The router runs quite cool considering it doesn't have a fan. Windows 10 seems to have Network Discovery hang-ups yet but that can be corrected by plugging in a USB memory stick. I tried it first with a spare memory stick which has subsequently been replaced with a faster, bigger capacity version formatted for NTFS which allows for some of my bigger files (video and data). The plus for plugging the memory stick in the back of the router is that it serves as a media server and you can play your music, video's and photos on a smart TV. I won't know whether my new Linksys router will last for a while but so far I like it a lot.

I bought 2 of these, one for myself and one for a family member. We're experiencing solid WiFi where before we both had flaky WiFi. There's lots of good configuration options and features. For the price I think they could have gone a little further with those but it's not holding us back from normal use.

With so many options listed on Amazon, I was confused which to buy. But decided to go for this one and it turned out to be exactly the right one I was looking for ! Brand new, Middle East version. Price was significantly lower than in Carrefour or Sharad DG! Coming to router - I bought this as it was recommended by ExpressVPN. It was easy to download and flash the router. Although it limits a lot of the default features - you get 2.4 & 5 GHz bands at desired country server. Split tune long enables certain devices to have no VPN and rest to have selected VPN. The range is weak though - network doesn’t go beyond 2 thick walls.

The product arrived within the specified delivery date and in good condition. Set up was easy and it worked perfectly. Highly recommended l.

Do not buy this. It comes with a closed source operating system. Disgusting behaviour

Bought from Amazon AUSTRALIA, and delivered today. However, it did NOT come with an Australian plug. Now I have to also buy a US-to-AU adapter, one that is rotated by 90° if I want to fit it into my power board, or a suitable replacement adapter with an Australian plug. Really? That just sucks. There was NO warning in the product description that it would come with a US plug only. If I buy something from Amazon Australia I think I can expect to be able to use it in Australia out of the bloody box!!!