Long story short I am looking at replacing my XB7 with the XB8, I'm getting mixed reviews. This article seems to point out that it is worth the upgrade, but I was thinking of more of a proper mesh set up instead of the crappy Comcast equipment. Has anyone made the change and found that it is any better?
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I upgraded to the new XB8 and didn’t have any issues with older devices.
Yes the wifi is better I thought there was a problem with the older pods but it seemed to resolve its self, I have always tried to stay on top of new upgrades.
It runs WiFi 6E, instead of 6. That adds a third band in the 6GHz spectrum that helps alleviate congestion. It doesn't necessarily add speed, but it does add reliability. The thing is, there aren't a lot of devices that are capable of using the 6 GHz band at this point, with about a dozen Android phones, and I think the newest iPhone being some of the only devices that can do it. So although it is nice to have the 6 GHz band, you have to see if you even have devices that can take advantage of it.
If you select WPA3 Transition then it will work on fall back to WPA2 on devices that aren't compatible with WPA3. Also, I got about a 10% increase in download and upload speeds after upgrading from an XB7 to an XB8.
That's actually not bad at all, I'll be ordering it soon I think. Glad to hear there are decent settings on the until.
When I originally ordered it they still sent me the xb7 model. I recently had to go into a store to swap it for the xb8. If you look at my previous post on this sub, I showed the difference in speed tests for 1200 megabit internet speed using a cell phone to do the speed test.
Edit: Here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/s/mCKN1yKJht
Could you share the setting location or screen scrape if possible for this in the router admin page?
Comcrap replaced my MIL's Gateway with an XB8 but it's like all locked down "Optimized' it claims, but half her old sh!t doesn't connect anymore & it's my hell because I'm her IT but also a 90min drive away.
FML
I'm vacillating between trying to get a USB Nano dongles, for the problematic devices, (but at least one is legacy W7 so drivers are an issue) using another different WAP not using WPA3 because if I split the bands the setting seems to revert repeatedly on it's own somehow....power outage? Comcrap Firmware update f'ery? I dunno. I only know she isn't logging into the admin portal and reverting it back.
Ugh /minirantoff but yea if simply enabling WPATransition is easily an option that may be my silver bullet
I just checked and it's all locked down, you can't change any settings. Once you're logged in, you can go to Gateway > Connection > Status and it's on the right side of the screen.
Buy your own modem and save $15 a month
Which modem do you recommend to buy ?
I just recently upgraded from xb7 to xb8 and it's insane in my opinion landline hooks up to it so don't need phone box anymore and my pixel8 phone was coming in at between 600-700mbps download speed with the 7 when I switched it's now getting 1075mbps and 140mbps upload which is insanely fast
ARRIS Docsis 3.1 wireless gateway
In my experience the WiFi is better but I've heard if you have a lot of older devices, they can have issues with the 2.4 Ghz network because it uses WPA3, and some older devices don't recognize it. WPA3 can supposedly be turned off in the app, but it can be frustrating to find.
kreeef [OP] 3 points · Mar 2024
That's a good catch, thank you. Yep I have a bunch of 2.4Ghz devices like my EZViz cameras and my old Chromecast and tablets. This makes things a little complicated.