Today, Netgear announced its team-up with Best Buy's Geek Squad and their joint release of the new Nighthawk DST home networking bundle. According to Best Buy, the bundle, which includes Netgear's Nighthawk DST 1900 and its accompanying DST (short for "Dead Spot Terminator") adapter, was built to its specifications, making the router an ideal home solution for eliminating dead or weak spots in residential networks.
The Nighthawk DST AC1900 Wireless-AC Gigabit Router has dual band support and is equipped with a 1 GHz dual core processor and comes with three high-powered external antennas. The router features implicit and explicit beamforming in order to increase the speed and reliability of a user's Wi-Fi connection. All-in-all, the bundled hardware runs wireless speeds of up to 600 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 1300 Mbps at 5 GHz for the router, and 300 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 350 Mbps at 5 GHz for the DST adapter. The Nighthawk DST also comes with five gigabit Ethernet ports (one WAN and four LAN) and two USB ports (USB 3.0 and 2.0).
In an effort to battle dead spots in a typical home network, the bundled kit relies on its DST Adapter. The adapter has a single gigabit Ethernet port and works with HomePlug AV and HomePlug Green PHY. To setup up the adapter, first install the router, then simply plug the DST adapter into an available outlet near an area with a weak signal and push the WPS/DST router sync button to create a new Wi-Fi access point.
Note that because both the Nighthawk DST router and the DST adapter are powerline devices, they need to be plugged directly into power outlets, as power strips and surge protectors can interfere with data transfers.
As with other Netgear devices, the Nighthawk DST AC1900 Gigabit Router comes with ReadyCloud, turning any USB storage device into personal cloud storage. Remote access is also made available using Netgear's genie app, while Dynamic QoS helps boost app performance. The Nighthawk also includes up to one year of free continuing online and phone support from Best Buy's geek squad.
The Nighthawk DST AC1900 Gigabit Router with DST Adapter is available now only at Best Buy online and its retail stores at an MSRP of $299.99 USD.
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