i appreciate the honest review... keep it up

Thank you for the very detailed video on this devise.

I've been running this router for more than a year and LOVE IT. Been 100% stable.

Great video. Can you set up the Alien into "Access point" (Bridge) mode without having to use the Mobile app? Or can you delete the App afterwards and avoid any Vendor based privacy issues?

Missing some features but the performance and firmware updates are the best in the industry.

Thanks for the info I got a apple house so they already have the parental controls. So that bridge mode will help

Nice video. Can you limit the bandwidth per device? Also thinking for controlling the kids!!

Not sure about AT&T Fiber but with Verizon FIOS and NOT getting their TV (We stream) I can plug the Gig Ethernet directly from the Verizon ONT to the bottom of the Amplifi Alien. No Cable modem needed for things like cable guides, moca to TV's etc. hence no double NAT problems and full speeds with parental controls as the Alien is not in bridge mode.

Would you say this is better then Comcast's xFi xfinity.. I have the xfinity internet xFi system and 3 xFi pods with gig pro speeds

On this mesh system if your not using the band steering that’s automatically enabled because you need to have seperete SSIDs for 2.4ghz only devices . I read the amplify Configuring SSIDs article and am confused because the router 3 SSIDs available , 1 WiFi 6 5Ghz. 1 WiFi 6 2.4ghz and 1 WiFi 5 5Ghz to be able to enable and in their setting it shows like example of SSID name AMPLIFI-Alien-Routrer-2x or 5x. However the mesh point on that page shows a completely different SSID than any on the router ? All I want is 2 SSIDS one for 2.4ghz only devices like smart plugs , cameras etc, and the 5Ghz network for computer, phone , etc . This is very confusing with Amplify ? So I guess my main big question is CAN THE MESH POINT HAVE THE SAME SSIDS AS THE ROUTER ??

In respects to bridge mode you can set your providers router to bridge mode which would give you your customizable features in the alien back. Please try this. So in short make the providers router a modem.

Been super stable for me

I plan to do exactly what you did with putting the Alien in bridge mode. Eventually I plan to buy a second Alien Router, put my ISP Router in Bridge Mode and have an Alien as the router, and one in bridge mode as an extender. Expensive, but huge upgrade for years to come. Have you considered putting your ISP router in bridge mode so its essentially just a modem, and added a second alien?

Can someone help me understand why bridge mode increases the speed in this scenario?

Wait I know nothing about WiFi specs so if I have a standard netgear Comcast WiFi box how would I go about making the alien my primary source of WiFi? Like how would I activate the alien like I would call Comcast to turn/pay for my WiFi?

Does it work in rural areas

What are the 2.4 ghz channel band options? All from 1 to 11 or there is a pre-selection option only ?

I prefer my wifi to just be access point and use a specific router as a firewall/nat/router (usually just a small computer I use specifically for that). All that being said from what you said this device is a full router so it sounds like you could connect any other router through this device and just make sure that device is in bridge mode. Actually easier to just get a new pure smart switch which are very cheap now to plug into this device. All the special management and grouping feature should then work across everything.

Just an FYI - I use the ATT ARRIS modem - going to try this and see how it works: @jamplifi I got my AT&T fiber installed back when it was first available in my neighborhood, which was back in 2016/2017. I'm assuming they've changed the modems/routers they're using because mine is the Arris BGW-210, not Pace. Even so, they all should have a very similar, if not the same, backend settings for AT&T. It has been a while since I set this up, so I had to go look around to see exactly what I did. Essentially you have to enable IP Passthrough from the modem to your Alien. This essentially puts the modem/router into bridge mode. Here's how I did this on my Arris modem: Sign into the modem advanced configuration page. The IP address to access this should be on a sticker on the modem somewhere. It should also include the access code or default login creds. If you can't find this on the modem itself, Google the modem model and try to find the access info that way. Once I accessed the settings site/page, I went to "Firewall" -> "IP Passthrough" There's 5 settings on the IP Passthrough settings page. I set them like this: -Allocation Mode is set to "Passthrough" -Default Server Internal Address does not need to be set, so leave this blank -Passthrough Mode is set to "DHCPS-fixed" -Passthrough fixed MAC address is set to the Alien router in the dropdown list, or you can manually input the Alien routers MAC address -Passthrough DHCP Lease I set this to 10 minutes Doing the above basically puts the modem into bridge mode where it will always pass the WAN IP address to the Alien router. After you save the above settings, you will probably have to power cycle the modem and the Alien to get the new IP assignments and passthrough. Next I went to "Firewall" -> "Firewall Advanced" in the modem settings and disabled or enabled the firewall features I wanted the modem to handle. Next I went to "Firewall" -> "Packet Filter" in the modem settings and disabled all packet filter rules. Lastly, this is the time that I disabled all the wifi radios and SSIDs in the modem settings under "Home Network" -> "Wi-Fi". Basically just disable the Home and Guest SSIDs. You may see the setting to disable DCHP Server in the modem itself, but now that I'm looking at this all again, I remember that once I did this it screwed up everything else. I had to completely reset the modem back to original config and go through the above steps again, but I left the DHCP server enabled on the modem. The IP Passthrough is essentially bypassing that anyway, so don't worry about that. Once I did all that, everything worked exactly like I wanted. The modem is simply passing the IP address to the Alien and the Alien is managing all IP address assignments. The modem is no longer broadcasting any wireless SSIDs and I no longer had the dreaded double NAT. Couldn't be happier with it at this point. Again, it may look a little different than my modem, and if so, just Google your modem model and IP Passthrough. That's what you're wanting.

Love the looks of this one but 200 to 300 down from a 1 gig line is pitiful compared to the Orbi 960 I’d rather spend the extra money to get the speed of the Orbi

How much distance does it cover? I meant to ask about the coverage.

I have the amplifi alien but no extender, which one do you recommend?

I'm alittle confused, if you buy this thing why would you still use your IPS's router and not just direct connect to the IPS's modem? wouldn't that fix the issue with the IP addresses and allow you to use the parental features?

Thanks for the review, appreciated the details. I too want a good router with solid parental controls I don't have to pay a monthly fee for (why I'm leaving Netgear's Orbi). Where did you end up purchasing it from? Was it directly from Amplifi? Thanks!

It makes no sense why you would use Bridge Mode with the Alien router and that's not what Bridge Mode is for in any router. You set Bridge Mode on a Customer Provided Equipment modem device like the AT&T router so you can pass off the public IP address to the WAN port of the Alien router, this allows you to fully utilize the Amplifi Alien as the your main gateway, this has numerous benefits including not having all your devices in your home behind double network address translation (NAT) and the Quality of Service capabilities in the router software, so no 1 device can consume all the your internet connection bandwidth. PS. Call AT&T and ask them how to configure their equipment to operate in Bridge Mode so you can use your own Alien router properly.

It’s probably better to buy two AMPLIFI Alien routers and use them as mesh. It’s not that much more expensive. I use 4 Alien routers with Ethernet backbone enabled. They all see each other and I even use a MOCA setup to get them connected to one another. Speeds between routers are over 900 mbps. Plus the mesh satellite with AMPLIFI can only be used with the router it came with. Can’t use it with any other AMPLIFI router as it is pre paired with the one router it was packaged with. The one catch with buying multiple Alien routers is in an Ethernet backbone connection you have to follow the instructions specifically as outlined or there can be problems. Outside of that they work spectacularly.

Can you tell me if there is a USB port anywhere on the alien?

my friend. I have fios gigabit to the. home. I also have the amplifi HD. Do NOT go bridge mode and compromise all the features you just paid all that money for. if you were going to do that, then pay much less for a couple of powerful/cheap range extenders. Your bottleneck anyway will be the comcast router. Listen,, all you need is better networking knowledge or assistance. Save $ every month and return the cable company’s wifi box. Purchase for < $100 a MOCA adapter. It has coaxial and RJ45. that will allow you to hook YOUR ALIEN ROUTER directly to the network and also the MOCA will send the proper IP Schema to the cable boxes and all of your menus and PPV functions will all work just fine. You will KEEP your parental controls as well. You have plenty of discretionary funds with a 5k/sqft home but spend some time on researching this and you will be much happier you did my friend. best of luck.

I can't believe the satellite mesh node only has a single ethernet port. What were they thinking? I would want to put the satellite node in my office, which then has a switch. There's a hardline ethernet to the office, so what I want to do is use the "backbone" to have a hardline to the base unit and then another port to connect the satellite to the switch. So, because of this I'll probably look elsewhere.

Do you have to pay every month for it ??

I know this guy...hey boss

You are doing everything backwards you put the isp router into bridge mode turning off the wifi and you use the amplifi alien as your main router, I don't understand how you had no problems with the amplifi hd if you didn't know to put the isp router into bridge mode before that.

If you add a second router after another router then the second router needs to have NAT turned off! Seems as old and long an In tenet user you should know this! So on second Alien turn off NAT but keep it's Wi-Fii on!

Unfortunately nothing is perfect as long as it performs well last long that's basically all that matters

Can’t you just put the AT&T gigapower modem in bridge mode? That would allow your Alien to still have the parental settings. It the AT&T device wont let you I think ARRIS makes gigapower modems now that allow bridge mode. I don’t have AT&T where I live so I might be wrong. 🤷🏻‍♂️

1) in general you'd shut off dhcp from your modem/internet router and pass along that responsibility to your new powerful router. You'd shut down every feature possible on your old router, assign new router a static ip Then setup all items on your new router so they share the same subet. Most people don't use the isp provided router though, just the modem and then go straight to their new router. 2) you could set it up in your bridge mode and use other apps or appliances like fing or fingbox to pause and group devices together.

This functionality is actually on the Amplifi documentation/site. I just installed it yesterday in a 4100 sqft house and having some issues w/ the 2.4 Ghz devices having REALLY poor performance (even compared to the ISP issued wifi). So I've done the whole, set up seperate networks for both the router and the mesh for 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz and have each device assigned to an individual network and turned off Band and Router Steering. Seems to have slightly improved but it's not ideal. I'm about to just disconnect all but the base, do a factory reset and set either the Alien or the ISP issued to bridge mode (if I can access the ISP I'll do that one.) But if anyone has figured out the "fix" for getting older 2.4 Ghz devices (ex. Yi cameras) to connect with a strong, reliable connection that would be awesome.

I’m paying for 1GBps. I had AMPLIFI HD with 150MBps with no issues. I “upgraded” to this with the extender and upgraded to 1GBps with my ISP (MediaCom). After initial speed of about 750MBps wireless the speeds dropped off to about 500 and never came back. I had MediaCom out here and they showed me that I have almost 1GBPs at the back of the modem going into the Alien. So it’s not the ISP nor the modem (NetGear CM1200). What it IS is the Alien which is not capable of above about 550 MBPs. As a matter of fact I can’t get more than 150 MBPs with WiFi 6 on my only WiFi 6 capable device (iPhone 11 Pro). So the WiFi on this unit will not reach GB speed. On the box it states, “Aggregate speed: 8.9 GBPs”.... apparently what that means is they don’t guarantee any specific device speed but it’s capable of many devices totaling up to 8.9. So if’ you’re looking for 1 GBPs wireless, you ain’t gonna get it with this Alien. Now, I’m not sure of the maximum speeds that WiFi technology is capable of today but you’ll only get around 500 per device here. I don’t know why it was able to produce 750 for a few minutes and then it wouldn’t do it any more. Maybe I had a setting that gave it to me for a few minutes but then it went away. Ubiquity support could not figure it out themselves. I spent days going back and forth with them, sending them screen shots and doing SSID setups testing different frequencies and devices... once again being their R&D while not being paid for it. I hate it when companies do this... just send out complicated products and provide little to no educated support on what to do. They want YOU to do all the work while they accumulate the data and give you no suggestions that actually works. It is a patronizing system that keeps you busy while your warranty time ticks away. Just return it or exchange it and don’t bother going through their customer service. It’s an awful waste of time with no answers.

This has nothing to do with the Amplifi Mesh Router and everything to do with your internet connection setup/provider. Specifically ATT sucks with their device hardware and don't have q modem only option. Again, nothing to do with the Amplifi Alien.

I bought one of these things and 3 other routers at the same time. I then ran speed tests on all of them. The ubiquity dream machine was the worst one, getting like 80 to 100 megabits around the house. Second worse was this one, getting 150 to 350 megabits. A RAX45 netgear nighthawk regularly downloads over wifi at 350 to 720 mbps, and is substantially cheaper. The dream machine was awesome with functionality, and this one looked cool, but I’m convinced that Netgear has more talented networking engineers. Also, some dumb asses decision that routers shouldn’t have antennas is really handy caping ubiquity devices.

Can’t hear you

why would you not bridge the ISP provided Modem. 99% of the time these are junk devices with garbage routers. Networking 101. Let the better device do DHCP....If you know about double Nat's you SHOULD know to bridge the crappy modem.