RT1900ac

An excellent router, supremely easy to set up and administer via the browser interface or iOS app. The wireless side is fast and rock solid with no deadspots and excellent range. If you have a VM Superhub 3 and your VPN, VoIP, wireless printer etc etc won’t work, put it into modem mode, hook up a RT1900ac and do all the things the Superhub 3 won’t let you do, and much, much more. The little things also count, like being able to turn off the blinking front panel LEDS. It looks good too! Highly recommended.

I bought this router because I'm a huge fan of Synology's NAS products, and the high level of customisation on the router appealed. I also wanted to be able to activate a VPN on the router (the drop in speed, however, from 100gbps on Virgin Broadband, to 10gbps, makes this less attractive than I imagined). I had been using two Airport Extremes, one a generation older than the other, with the older router extending the network. I had hoped to use the AEs to extend the rt1900ac network if necessary. While wifi speeds on 5Ghz a/c are considerably higher than the n-networks broadcast by the AEs, the rt1900ac's range is no better than a six year old AE, which is a disappointment. In turn, the router takes forever (around 5 mins) to boot and where my devices joined the network instantly on the AEs, there's an annoying lag with the Synology. I decided to extend its network using the AEs, but to no avail. The AEs detect the network broadcast by the Synology and successfully connect to it, but the Synology appears to be preventing them from connecting to the internet. This killed the Sonos bridge I had added to the older AE and hence killed the Sonos network. I'm mystified why this should be the case, but the Synology forums report the same issue. Finally, I would have expected some synergy between the router's OS and Synology's DSM but there doesn't appear to be anything in this product to enhance a Synology NAS owner's setup, which is a pity. Synology has released three firmware updates since release so hopefully features will continue to be added. To conclude, if you already own a Synology NAS and have a stable wifi network, there is little to attract you to this router. If you want to dip your toe in a very straightforward network-attached storage setup by adding an external drive to the router, then this is a good option. But for current Synology users, the packages on the rt1900ac are of little use.

This router is awesome! Very good security options and allows bandwidth and parental control. Works perfectly with my wired home network. It did take some time to set up via my Sky router but managed eventually. Seeing the options and control on this router just shows the lack of options with standard broadband routers supplied by the ISP's. I have this router connected to a 16 port switch supplying 16 devices around the house including a Synology NAS, CCTV system, multiple media centres and Raspberry Pi setups. Highly recommended. Highly recommended.

The setup was easy and the functionality you get out of it is fantastic. There were a couple issues with some of the features such as setting up a VPN and some issues with connection speeds at first. I am a little disappointed that some of the services such DS Audio and DS Video are not available with the router with an external hard drive attached, but have still found it quite good to store files and access them remotely. Good router to get started in NAS technologies.

I really wanted to like this device, as I've had a Synology NAS box for years and it's been very reliable, with regular DSM updates along the way. However, despite being an experienced user, I found it quite flaky to set up. It has some really good features but some of them seem to be still in the beta test stage. It takes absolutely ages to boot up, and after the initial setup via wireless and its reboot, the wireless lights were on but it didn't appear to be transmitting its SSID (I left as much on default as possible to start wtih). A quick 'turn it off and on again' fixed that. Well, not quick, as I said it takes ages to reboot... The main reason for returning it to Amazon was the web filtering. The interface is OK, quite coarse in that it only does categories but you can add specific websites if you want. However, it does not filter! I went round and round in circles on an iPad and Macbook (as wireless clients) and even with the severest filtering in place, everything was getting through. However, on rebooting the router the filtering started to work, although it does depend on whether you've visited the site before and it might be in your cache in which case you get a message about 'not secure connection' but if you click 'Ignore' you can still see the supposedly blocked site! I tried the iOS app and it seemed quite good. Tried to visit a blocked website and got the Synology message it was blocked, with opportunity to override with username and password. This should be optional depending on the end-user - you don't want a teenager trying to guess usernames and passwords so they should not get the option to do so, but your own machine it's useful for overriding sites blocked unintentionally. Entered credentials and it seemed to do something after 'OK' but then got stuck on a popup box which did nothing when 'OK' clicked on. So I went to the router setup page via desktop computer and indeed it had added the previously blocked site to the 'allowed' list. BUT it still didn't allow me to see it on the iPad! Cleared the cache on Safari. Rebooted iPad. Still got 'blocked' page (clearly coming from the router) and option to override box. Even selecting 'No protection' didn't help. Rebooted router and finally had full access again. Looking at the Amazon.com reviews this is mentioned there too, ie web filtering not working as one would expect. It does seem that the hardware (which is good spec) has been put out to market long before the firmware has matured. Knowing Synology this has the potential to eventually be a good product, but it shouldn't be left to the end user to have to put up with half-baked firmware. A further frustration was the reporting. Quite impressive reporting page, but I couldn't see how to see which sites an individual has visited, only the whole house. I had enabled 'log all websites' when I eventually found the option, but no better. The scheduling is pretty coarse as well (although it does work); only one hour blocks can be permitted or denied (but on a user basis, which is good). I've had other 'free' routers that do it to the minute. However that could be improved in a firmware update I guess. There's no way of doing what most parents want to do, ie offer secure full access wifi to their children (filtering out the bad sites) but have a further limit during 'homework time' where it's full secure internet access for homework research but chat, social network, shopping etc sites are blocked. Again this could easily be achieved in an update. So, all in all a very disappointing experience for me. I really wanted to own this router, as a Synology fan, but it has just too many shortcomings for a product from a prestige manufacturer such as Synology.

Bought as a replacement for NETGEAR NDR3700. Huge increase in range on both 2.4ghz & 5ghz bandwidth. Good enough to cover medium sized detached house. Network tranfer speeds are a huge improvement. I have a USB 3 which so far is able to handle 2 simultaneous HD streams. The SRM software interface and mobile app are great with improvements on the way. It has a solid media server app. Which whilst basic works well with smart TVs / tablets etc. A really solid product.

Excellent interface which results in an easy to use router with plenty of public support on the forums. Currently in use on a BT Infinity connection via the white vdsl modem - plug the details in on a PPPoE connection type and connected nearly instantly. Firmware update to 1.0.3 at least is required for a stable connection. Wireless coverage is excellent covering a three bedroom house with brick internal walls without issue and offering faster wireless transfer speeds than a Cisco Meraki MR24 which is a £500 enterprise wireless access point. Configuration took a few minutes and is well documented on the panel. Parental control is effective however is not fully comprehensive , it offers more than most home routers and also allows bandwidth and access control on a per device basis. Port forwarding is a couple of clicks and just works. Router can be configured to automatically update at off-peak times such as early morning and keeps the device up to date.

Just received this set up had to be done over a wired connection. Which was annoying. Once that was done the rest of the setup was easy. The features of the router are excellent. The smart wifi works and having a guest wifi is useful. Interusion protection requires a USB flash drive or SD card. Really like the safe web filtering which works well on the initial tests I have done Overall looking forward to many years of safe family Internet surfing.