So first a little background. Like most people I've had several different wireless routers over the past decade. My previous two routers (Linksys and Netgear) I replaced them not because they were broken or too slow, but because a security flaw was discovered in the router that would allow someone on the Internet to compromise my network, and the manufacturer refused to release a firmware fixing the problem. Most router manufacturers only support their hardware for a year or two, after that they want you to buy new hardware - what a waste and what a shame.
Now Synology is a company I've used for years, they are most well known for their excellent NAS (Network Attached Storage devices). I have had a Synology NAS for many years and what I love about them is their support. They release regular updates for their hardware, and they support their older hardware far longer than most companies would.
So in 2015 when Synology announced they were going to release a wireless router I was very excited! Finally a company that would support their wireless router long term. When the Synology RT1900AC was finally released in North America in early 2016 I was a very early adopter, purchasing my unit within 1 week of release.
Unfortunately I've had a number of issues since then and had to contact their tech support on multiple different occasions. Here's a summary of the issues I've had:
- I have a Raspberry Pi connected using wireless, but from time to time the connection would drop out. The Raspberry Pi was connected using a very common "nano" wireless adapter. After many emails with tech support on this I found a solution. If I replaced the wireless adapter with a different one with a larger antenna, the connection issues went away. What's frustrating about this problem, the Raspberry Pi was only about 2 feet from the RT1900AC, it should have had a strong signal. Also, the same nano wireless adapter with my previous Netgear wireless router had no issues. So something about the combination of this nano adapter and the RT1900AC did not work well.
- When connecting to my home network remotely using VPN, I could originally access machines in my network but not the RT1900AC's management interface itself. Tech support helped me get correct firewall rules in place to allow access to the RT1900AC.
- When changing the firewall rules to allow access to the RT1900AC, it removed access to other machines in my network. Neither tech support nor I was unable to find the problem, and I just gave up on VPN for about a year. I did eventually get it working, continue reading for those details.
- A few months ago Synology phased our support for their old VPN server package and replaced it with a new package called "VPN Server Plus." Since the old VPN wasn't working for me, I ditched that and installed the new one. When I went to enable OpenVPN it gave me this weird error about installing a certificate. Tech support had never seen that error before and had no idea what to do. I tried a factory reset and that fixed the OpenVPN certificate error. Now using the new VPN server I'm finally able to access both local machines in my network and the RT1900AC itself.
- Far and away the biggest issue I've had is not reconnecting to the Internet. This happened to me the very first day I got the router and continues to happen to this day. In short, if I reboot my router, there's a power outage, or my ISP drops my connection for some reason when the RT1900AC comes back up only 50% of the time will it reconnect to the Internet. The rest of the time it won't connect, no matter how long I wait. The router can be up for days in this unconnected state, it will never reconnect. The only solution I've found is to reboot the router repeatedly under it does reconnent. Sometimes I have to reboot the cable modem as well. I've had it happen before where Internet drops and I literally reboot my router over and over for 2 hours before it finally reconnects. Now I know this issue is Synology's, I have worked on enough networks to be able to diagnose this. Working with tech support I rebooted my router a dozen times, and I think it reconnected 5 times and failed to connect 7 times (they analyzed logs from these attempts). I then connected my Windows 7 computer directly to the cable modem and rebooted a dozen times. Windows connected to the Internet all 12 times. I've tried a factory reset, no change. I've updated to every firmware as they release them, no change. I purchased a new cable modem, no change. Now I have a family member in other city with a RT1900AC and they have the exact same problem. Synology even mailed me a replacement unit at their cost for me to try. That unit experienced the same problem. They have tried to diagnose this problem but cannot figure it out. In the mean time I know of at least 2 people with this same behavior. It's very frustrating, no one wants a wireless router that won't connect to the Internet. What good is that?
Even though I've had issues with this router, it's still a good router. In fact, I would go as far to say it's better than most wireless routers. But it's far from perfect and it definitely has not lived up to my very high expectations. Many of the problems I've faced were fixed in software updates over the months. But that network connection issue, if they could fix that I would wholeheartedly suggest anyone and everyone should buy this router.
I've spent most of this post talking about the problems. But I did want to mention the good things about this router.
- Regular software updates. Synology publishes updates about once a month.
- The web management UI is far and away the best web management UI. Way better and more responsive than anything from Netgear, Linksys, etc. I'm pretty sure they also have a phone management app, but I have not tried that.
- The router can support multiple Internet connections (e.g. both a DSL modem and a cable modem) and can operate them in either load-balancing or failover modes.
- Built-in support for 20 different DDNS providers, including Synology's own which works great!
- Can connect to the Internet via mobile 3G/4G with additional hardware.
- Very good parental controls/filtering as well as QoS and wifi priority.
- Tons of services like VPN, SSH, FTP, SFTP, SMB, etc.
- USB and SD card slots can function as lightweight NAS for your network.
- VPN server and VPN client with support for common providers such as OpenVPN, SSTP, L2TP, and PPTP.
- Additional packages such as media server to host media files for other devices on your network.
To sum up the RT1900AC router is a good piece of hardware that still has some bugs, and hopefully Synology is able to work out those bugs. If you're a network power user and don't mind a little extra work, give it serious consideration. If you're a regular user you might want to steer clear as you could be overwhelmed if you run into issues as I have.
