ARRIS Surfboard mAX 6E W161 Mesh Wi-Fi 6E System
$339.99
$499.99
32% off
Reference Price
Condition: New
Top positive review
Best value tri-band mesh router
By J. Consumer on Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2025
Networking is complicated and I can understand how a non-technical person could make a mistake and buy the wrong gear, not understanding that walls and floors attenuate radio signals, expecting extreme range from any 5 or 6 GHz system, or not understanding that all you need is a simple, inexpensive network switch to plug into a single Ethernet port to hook up a few more wired devices (which for non-techies, seem to be quickly falling by the wayside anyhow). The list goes on, but the bottom line is, when you do goof up, please don't post negative reviews of the product. It wasn't right for you - but it might be perfect for me - so just return it and and move on. If I had believed some of the negative reviews (both here and on the web) of the ARRIS Surfboard mAX 6E W161, I would have passed it up without a second look. But I knew what I was looking for: a mesh system to use in a 3000 square foot ranch style home with essentially line of sight positioning possible between the main and satellite units. A system for a regular user with symmetrical gigabit internet service but no advanced networking needs, who only cares about reliability and speed, and could care less about the management UI, or if the system is configured with a phone app or from a web page. Big cable providers use Arris gear for a reason, and no doubt reliability, durability, security and value factor into that. With that in mind, and knowing my user and my user's home, I picked up this system at an unbelievable price. End result: an easy to set up and simple to manage mesh router system, delivering great speed everywhere in the home and zero range issues. You would be hard pressed to find anything else in this price range that even comes close to this level of performance, so if you know what you need, tune out the noise and enjoy!
Top critical review
4 people found this helpful
So nice I bought it twice (though not as nice as they claim) (Update)
By Iggyboo on Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2024
(Update) So after having this for a few months I'm not as happy as I was when I had it before. I'm not sure what's going on with these but when they are freshly started, they work great. 1Gbps and all is easy. But for whatever reason because of heat or something else they drop down to like 200Mbps. You have to restart them to get them working again. You might as well buy a standard Wifi 6e setup at this point as these, though a good price, will let you down. I know I have two sets and they both do this. I needed a way to get a 1gps+ connection between a room in the middle of the house to the router and all other connections were just not cutting it. Either that is because I've got some kind of interference on the 5Ghz band or something but whatever, this seems to have worked. I don't need a new router or anything so I didn't want to buy one of those new Mesh systems since most of them are routers and don't even offer wired ports (though after I bought these I found a set [of course]). So best thing I can find it for is a backhaul to the router and it works almost perfect. Even though it's line of site and doesn't have anything in between it still can't reach the 1Gbs it claims (it claims 2.5Gbs so you'd think it should) HOWEVER, it gets close at 700-800mbs so I'm good since it's so simple to set these up. I purchased them from the used portion and one set was bad but support helped me out and we tested all we could. They are pretty much plug and play and even have a management web page you can login to and change channels and even enable an AP mode so you can connect other devices to them which I didn't expect and it's a nice feature. I even purchased a new set to jump another room into the other. Though if I had found it sooner a mesh system might have worked but added complexity that I didn't need. PLUS the latency is absolutely negligible! I mean most wireless systems add a little bit but these seem practically wired! So ultimately if you need a simple point to point WiFi connection without any fuss, a set of these are perfect. BUT your mileage may vary depending on how many walls and distance you have to go through
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