Netgear R6100 Wi-Fi Router Review – 802.11AC Wireless For Under $100

Netgear R6100 Power Consumption

Power consumption by your homes electronic devices continues to be a very important issue so we have made an attempt to present some simple power consumption tests on the various routers that we had. To measure idle usage, we reset each wireless routers to the default settings and plugged them with no devices connected to them. We then measured the power draw from each router at the wall with our P3 International P4400 Kill-A-Watt electric usage monitor.

Benchmark Results: The Netgear R6100 turns out to be very conservative on power when in use. It was the greenest router in our suite of 802.11ac routers. In fact, the R6100 uses less than half the energy our other AC routers did.

Since most people will have their routers turned on for 24-hour a day operation, we think that examining power usage is an important benchmark. Total cost of ownership (TCO) is an important financial estimate that helps consumers direct and indirect costs of a product. In our TCO calculation we will be figuring up how much it costs to have a wireless router running per year in an idle state with the unit being installed 24-hours a day. We will be using 12.7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) based on the bureau of labor statistics report from April 2012 showing that amount as the national average.

Benchmark Results: Because the Netgear R6100 WiFi-AC router has the lowest power consumption in its class of 802.11ac routers, the cost of on the market.