Fix your ping with this router | NetDuma R3 Router & DumaOS 4 Review

NetDuma R3 hardware

The NetDuma R3 is a dual-band Wi-Fi 6 router with a gigabit AX3000 wireless rating. It has four antennas, five gigabit Ethernet ports with one used as the WAN port, a USB 3 port and RGB lighting. The hardware is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core ARM processor and includes 256 MB of DDR3 RAM. A short Cat 6 cable is included in the box.

The tested wireless performance was strong, with no dropouts and good range through walls. The router was considered a good fit for an apartment or small home. Adding a mesh system is also suggested as a useful combination where more coverage is needed. At around $300 Australian dollars, the hardware was viewed as offering reasonable value for its price range.

DumaOS 4 and SmartBOOST

The main appeal of the R3 is DumaOS 4, its custom router operating system. The interface provides a more modern and accessible alternative to traditional router settings, with visual representations of network activity and a straightforward setup process.

SmartBOOST provides automated quality of service controls. Devices can be prioritised, and activities such as gaming or streaming can be given preference. This offers more flexibility than the limited or difficult-to-configure quality of service controls found on some routers.

The controls can be heavy-handed when the internet connection is slow. Prioritised devices and activities may receive much more bandwidth than other devices, although the selected top-priority device or activity should continue to perform better.

Geo-Filter and Steady Ping

Geo-Filter allows users to draw a geographical boundary around the area where matchmaking is permitted. In testing with Call of Duty, restricting matchmaking to Australia produced games with more Australian players and good local ping. However, matchmaking took longer, and the resulting matches were not always better balanced. Some opponents had much higher skill levels or worse ping than the reviewer.

The feature also created problems outside games. Some websites loaded slowly or failed to load when their content was hosted outside the selected area. A larger catch-all area was found to be more practical than restricting the router to a suburb or state. The feature therefore requires careful use, particularly in Australia, where geographical distance can limit the available matchmaking options.

Steady Ping includes a Ping Optimizer. The tested result was more modest than the packaging claim, reducing ping from 66 milliseconds to 54 milliseconds. The review questioned which server was being measured and how closely that result related to the servers used by online games. Routing tools can reduce latency where a connection takes an inefficient path, but they cannot fix limited bandwidth, household congestion or unreliable Wi-Fi.

Built-in ad blocker and missing hybrid VPN

The built-in ad blocker was identified as one of the most broadly useful features. It worked across devices such as iPhones and iPads, rather than being limited to a PC. The review also suggested that it could help reduce exposure to adverts, scams and suspicious links on a less technical user's home network. Websites containing many adverts may load more slowly when blocking is enabled.

The R3 does not include the hybrid VPN feature found on the previous router model. That feature allowed selected devices, game ports or applications to use a VPN while leaving the rest of the network on a normal connection. Hybrid VPN was described as planned for the R3, but no release timing was known at the time of the review.