In a smart home enviroment the modem and router are always on giving functionally to every aspect of my home, even when I'm away. Whether my desktop or laptop are on or not my network is always on and that's not a problem with my Nighthawk. When I'm away it allows control and monitoring of my home night and day. That's a great comfort to a frequent traveler. My last Nighthawk was steady right up to the lightening strike that devastated my whole network. That greatly influenced my decision to go back to another Nighthawk. Good equipment is just fast, rock steady, and dependable!
Horrible, low quality product - lasts only a few days past the 12 month hardware warranty period, then gets stuck in locking the upstream channel - light flashing forever. Netgear