Netgear br500 review in Spanish (full analysis)

Today we are pleased to present the NETGEAR BR500 router, a team intended for a professional environment for companies that need to create and manage their own VPN networks extremely easily to securely connect workstations. Thanks to its implementation with Insight Cloud, the management of resources can be done remotely from the NETGERAR cloud itself, or from the application of our Smartphone. It will only take a few clicks to set up our own secure corporate VPN in seconds.

First of all, we must thank NETGEAR for the transfer of this product for this analysis.

NETGEAR BR500 technical specifications

Unboxing and design

NETGEAR BR500 we will find it in a box of considerable dimensions, all of it white with detailed purple, colors that, of course, define the brand. Surely those who have not seen this router in person, will miss this huge box, and that is that the dimensions of the equipment are quite considerable.

The main reason for this is to offer us the possibility of installing it in a RACK together with other elements of a network such as a Switch. We must not forget that the main objective of this team is to provide small VPN functionality. Ideally, in this case, it will be installed as a gateway to a switch that distributes equipment on a local network.

On the top cover, we have a full-color photo of NETGEAR BR500, as well as informative icons on its features. Of course what stands out the most is the possibility of creating instant VPNs.

If we turn the cardboard box over, we will have more information about the router, such as the possibility of managing it from the NETGEAR Insight Cloud, the manufacturer's cloud where we will register our device and have a remote link to it. The same information will be available in several languages, among which is Spanish.

After turning this box full of information, we are going to open it to see what elements we find inside. The main product is perfectly coupled in two egg-shaped cardboard molds with plastic protection and the other elements distributed in both the lower and upper areas. We will then have:

NETGEAR BR500 router 230-12V to 1.5A power adapter Quick installation guide and warranty information Category 5A UTP cable Accessories for mounting in RACK cabinets or on the wall with screws, plugs and two metal strips.

As we have been warning, the considerable size of the equipment is due to the fact that it is oriented to the installation on cabinets or walls. Its measurements are 314 mm wide, 187.5 mm deep and 43.65 thick. All of them very similar to the brand switches intended for RACKS.

The weight is not to be ruled out either, since it rises up to 1.55KG, among other things because metal steel plates have been used entirely for the construction, both on the sides and the main cover, which gives it a magnificent appearance and above all. all durability.

At the top of NETGEAR BR500 we will only have a completely clean area painted in matt white with a huge brand logo. NETGEAR is one of the leading brands in the manufacture and sale of wired network connection and management equipment for professional use. After decades dedicated to this segment, they have nothing to prove in terms of the quality of their products, and this router is no exception.

If we make a short shot on its front area, we will find, in addition to the brand logo, a fairly complete panel of LED indicators for the functions of this router. From left to right we have:

Router power light WAN network status indicator (green or orange) Insight Cloud access and sync status indicator (blue when connected) VPN status light (green when active) 4 LAN connection indicators (green or orange) Reset indicator

Without a doubt, what has caught our attention the most are precisely the activity indicators for the VPN network and the synchronization with the NETGEAR cloud. As long as the equipment is not registered with our user on this portal and correctly entered in a location created by us, this light will remain off.

The same will happen with the indicator of the VPN network, at the moment we create a group with a user, the light will turn on indicating that the network is available to connect.

On the side of NETGEAR BR500 we find a large grille to provide air circulation through natural convection, since we must know that this equipment is passive cooling. Just to the left we have the holes for installation in cabinets in addition to the screws for opening the equipment.

On the opposite side we will have exactly the same. We should not worry about the weight of this equipment, since the entire frame is metal and the supports and holes will hold up without problems.

This frame basically consists of two U-shaped steel plates attached to each other using the side screws.

We go to see the back of this professional router, here we find only 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, one of them for WAN connection and another 4 for 1000Mbps LAN connections. These will support PPPoE connections, ideal for security cameras, for example.

In addition, we have a small button to reset the NETGEAR BR500 firmware, the 12 V to 1.5 A power connector and finally a port for the installation of universal padlocks.

As we have set, we will not have antennas or anything like that, since this router does not have a wireless connection of any kind. It is understood, since it is not intended specifically for domestic use, but professional.

In the lower area, we do not have anything special, only the indications for accessing the WEB interface in the first installation using the user admin and password. The operating temperatures of this equipment are between 0 and 45 degrees with a maximum humidity of 90%, something that we must take into account due to what we are going to give it in principle.

Internal analisis

In order to explore the properties of this router a little more, we will analyze its interior to see some of its main elements.

The opening of this router is extremely simple, since its two pieces of steel are only joined by 12 screws. We won't need to make efforts to dislodge clicks or anything like that. Very professional finish first and foremost.

The first thing that strikes us is that its main processor, a dual-core chip capable of working at 1.7 GHz, does not have any type of heatsink. Let's also remember that this router is passive cooling, so it seems that the NETGEAR guys have enough security that their main chip will hold up in summer environments.

The plate is attached to the plate to do it by five screws, also very easy to remove. in general a very clean board, having few Ethernet connections, without USB interfaces or antennas for Wi-Fi.

If we zoom in on the main CPU area, we see two chips, each of 512 MB that make the total of 1 GB of RAM for this NETGEAR BR500.

We will also have a 128 MB flash memory that is responsible for storing the device firmware.

As an aid to the main chip, we will have another dual-core CPU stored in this metallic package, which is responsible for switching between the four Gigabit Ethernet ports. We do not have more technical details of this CPU.

Right above it we see two GS5014 magnetic modules for 1000 BASE-T connections. Each of them responsible for two ports, along with another GST5009 that is responsible for the WAN input, also 1000 BASE-T.

We flip the omelette to see a huge metal package right in the central processing area to collect some of the heat generated by the CPU. Although we still do not have finned elements.

Test of performance

Because this router does not have a wireless connection, we have only performed the file and stream transfer speed tests for a LAN-LAN connection. Both teams use 1 Gigabit Intel network cards

How could it be otherwise, the results are up to the latest models tested, both in file transfer and in streams using Jperf 2.0.2

Firmware and features

NETGEAR BR500 Insight

The first thing we should know about this NETGEAR BR500, are the ways through which we can manage it. Of course we can do it with a computer directly connected via ethernet cable and placing the username and password that we have assigned to access its firmware.

In addition to the traditional way, we can also do it through NETGEAR Insight Cloud, a synchronization service in the cloud, through a subscription, free for one year and after a cost of € 1 per month. When we are registered, in NETGEAR Insight Cloud, what we will have to do is register the device using the serial number and wait for it to synchronize. In this way, access to the firmware by LAN will be restricted and we will be able to access the configuration through our account in Insight.

As a third option, we will have the possibility to do it through the NETGEAR Insight application from our Smartphone. The functionalities will be practically the same as in the web portal. Although it is true that from the firmware of the equipment we will have access to all the configuration options, except those of VPN.

NETGEAR BR500 Insight

NETGEAR BR500 Firmware

Speaking of VPN, it is of course its highlight. We will have two ways to create a VPN network.

From the device's own firmware: through the OpenVPN tool we can download software and certificates for the client computer, which we will use to connect to this network. The authentication method will be through a 1024-bit RSA certificate, which we will not be able to create or modify, that is, it will always be the same. From Insight or Smartphone with instant VPN: from the NETGEAR cloud we can create groups of users with their email and password of the corresponding account in Insight so that, through software, they can connect to it. The maximum number of remote connections that we can make will be 10.

The connection technology for VPN will be through Ipsec, PPTP or L2TP, with the possibility of configuring user credentials through Insight.

We will see in more detail the procedure for creating VPN networks in a tutorial exclusively dedicated to it.

NETGEAR BR500 Firmware

If we go to the advanced configuration section, we can carry out the complete management of the device firmware. In the main window we will have basic information on the connections and consumption of CPU, RAM and temperature, in addition to a small map of the network.

NETGEAR BR500 Firmware

Another of the main features, and that we will also see in another specially dedicated article, will be the configuration of the firewall. We will have a firewall with dynamic packet inspection and a configurable DMZ server. We can add traffic rules, control bandwidth, block connected equipment or certain services, etc. A very necessary element for the purpose of this router.

NETGEAR BR500 Firmware

We will have a VLAN section in which we can configure up to 256 networks. For this we will have two sections, the first of them IPTV, will be in charge of configuring the VLAN networks from our router to the WAN network, in case we are connected to an ISP server by VLAN. In the second section, we will configure the networks from our router to the interior.

Another particularly important section is DNS. From the Firmware itself we can activate the use of the DNS service to connect to OpenVPN or remote management. Supports NETGEAR, Dyn.com and No-IP.com DDNS. A very interesting service so that we can access our router through a domain name, since we can create static routes using IpV4 and IpV6 and implement a tuning method with 6to4.

NETGEAR BR500 Firmware

Among other features, in addition to those already mentioned, we will have the possibility to configure a DNS proxy, support for the Ipv6 protocol, advanced configuration for QoS and configuration of bandwidth profiles to control data consumption.

NETGEAR Insight Android / iOS app

NETGEAR BR500 APP

As for the application that we can use to manage NETGEAR BR500, we will have practically the same functionalities as in the Insight Cloud web portal. The first thing we will have to do is register our router to start managing it, we just have to follow the indicated steps and the router will restart to connect to the cloud automatically.

We will have to link our device to a location that we create. This will be necessary in order to manage the router.

NETGEAR BR500 APP

When NETGEAR BR500 is in connected state, we can start to configure it from our app. We will create a VPN group first and then we can create each of the users.

We will be able to see details of the data traffic of the equipment connected to it, and we will access all the configuration from the “Locations” section.

NETGEAR BR500 APP

Accessing the firmware configuration, we can manage many options on our router remotely, although not as many as from the web browser. Of course we can modify user credentials and router location if it changes.

We will practically have no need to access the web site from our team, since we will have everything we need on our mobile. A really interesting and necessary functionality today.

Final words and conclusion about NETGEAR BR500

NETGEAR BR500 is an extremely interesting team to provide the VPN service to small businesses or offices that need certain security requirements for employees and access to documents from their internal networks. With a perfect design to install it in a RACK cabinet together with other elements, it is ideal to integrate it into professional environments at a cost not too high.

An attractive instant VPN configuration option, will provide us access to the computer from anywhere in the world thanks to NETGEAR Insight Cloud from a browser or our own mobile device. In a matter of minutes, we can create a VPN server with full functionality for users. If we add to this the complete firewall we have, it is made by a team with sufficient security to use it in professional environments.

During the time we have been using the created VPN tunnel, we have downloaded files without problems at the maximum upload speed allowed by our 25 Mbps network. According to data from the brand, the maximum speed is 60 Mbps. More than enough if we have Please note that the encryption and decryption process of the data is done using firmware and not with dedicated hardware.

We recommend our guide to the best routers on the market

Regarding aspects that should be improved regarding the OpenVPN functionality, it is undoubtedly the authentication method. The fact of always using the same certificate and not having the possibility of creating others or making a more advanced configuration of this type of VPN, places it at the level of the company's home routers. We believe it is insufficient for professional environments. Compared to good encryption using AES256 bit and SHA256 bit keys, this OpenVPN functionality is insufficient.

Another aspect to take into account, even if it is a dedicated router, is the absence of wireless networks. This option could be interesting, for example, for premises where several potential users can access through open Wi-Fi and for the installation of wireless IP cameras. They are not indispensable, but interesting details.

NETGEAR BR500 can be purchased on the market for an approximate price of 271 euros. It is a consistent amount if we take into account the benefits it provides us. For our part we have been very satisfied in terms of its possibilities and characteristics that it offers us.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ EASY VPN CREATION FROM INSIGHT CLOUD	- WEAK SECURITY IN THE OPENVPN SERVICE
+ COMPLETE FIRMWARE AND DNS AND DHCP FUNCTIONALITY FOR VPN
+ VERY COMPLETE FIREWALL CONFIGURATION
+ GOOD PRICE TO BE A PROFESSIONAL ROUTER
+ QUALITY OF CONSTRUCTION AND PLUGABLE