"Boasting lightning-fast performance from anywhere in even the largest homes. Photo credit: Ubiquiti. The Velop AC6600 system uses tri-band Wi-Fi, but like most mesh routers, it dedicates the second 5GHz band as a backhaul channel, which means it can keep traffic moving smoothly between all of the nodes, but your client devices won't be able to take advantage of the additional 5GHz band, meaning that even though its an AC2200 router, the maximum bandwidth available to your client devices is only 1,267Mbps. The Eero Pro Mesh Wi-Fi system excels at getting you up and running with coverage for your whole home without the need for you to be a networking expert, thanks to its really intuitive mobile app. "The router is optimized to provide a superior online gaming experience. You can typically buy a nice router and some extenders for less than a mesh Wi-Fi starter kit, but if your situation really calls for a mesh system, it’s well worth the additional investment. The second generation of Google’s mesh solution, Nest Wifi’s satellite “point” units double as Google Assistant smart speakers, so it’s an especially great choice for those who are already invested in the Google ecosystem, as you can issue voice commands for everything from home control and checking the weather to sending messages and setting up calendar appointments. If you're an Apple HomeKit user, then the iPhone maker has taken a different approach. Thanks to its use of Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax technology, it's one of the fastest mesh network solutions available, even when you have a lot of devices on your network; thanks to the four times higher network capacity offered by Wi-Fi 6, you can easily have up to 100 devices on your network. On the surface, the Deco P9 looks much like most of the other mesh Wi-Fi systems you've seen, with two or three cylindrical units that you place around your home to blanket it with Wi-Fi coverage. It doesn’t work with Alexa, so it’s a bad choice if you’re deeply entrenched in Amazon’s ecosystem, but it does work very well with Google Home. If you are using one of the devices as a router, of course you’ll need whatever information you’ve been given to use by your ISP, the same as you would for any router. While tri-band mesh routers are theoretically better, the nature of mesh systems, and the way nodes are able to pass data between each other, means that dual-band systems are also able to work quite well. "If your main purpose is to blanket your home with reliable WiFi, the Samsung SmartThings Wifi Router is the most economical option." As part of our earlier article on extending Wi-Fi throughout your home, I set up a pair of Netgear Orbi units. Mesh Wi-Fi, unlike range extenders, makes a lot of sense if you have many smart home devices throughout the house that need a constant internet connection. The main downside to Nest Wifi is that the base station only includes one Ethernet LAN port, and you won’t find any at all on the satellite points, so you’ll need to add your own network hub if you want to hardwire in some of your devices at the router, and if you need to connect devices at the points, you’ll want to look elsewhere. ", "A quick and easy way to bring reliable mesh networking to your home. Asus is a relatively latecomer to the game in terms of offering self-contained mesh systems, but the company has actually been offering its AiMesh technology on almost all of its routers for years, allowing any two Asus routers to be configured to participate together in a mesh network. You can put chase Velop nodes individually or in packs of two or three, with each one giving you about 2,000 square feet of coverage, so all together the complete system can blanket a 6,000 square foot home. Mesh Wi-Fi network systems are designed to solve this problem by placing a number of nodes throughout your home or business, creating a uniformly strong signal with no dead spots. Since mesh Wi-Fi network systems are uniformly high end, they tend to be fairly fast as well. After the first device is set up, you typically only need to plug in the additional devices and they will locate the main unit — if they are close enough. 59. "The Netgear Orbi is one of the fastest and most reliable wireless routers on the market today." Jeremy Laukkonen is an experienced tech journalist with a background in automotive repair that has taught him the importance of breaking down complex technical subjects in understandable ways. Netgear has also packed in four Gigabit Ethernet ports on each satellite station, giving you lots of room to connect wired devices such as game consoles for even better performance, and the main router on this higher-end model also offers a 2.5Gbps WAN port that's more than sufficient for the fastest home broadband connections available right now. Setting up a mesh Wi-Fi network system is typically a lot easier than connecting range extenders to an existing system, and they automatically pass your connection from one node to the next as you move around your home. Each Deco P9 unit offers dual-band AC1200 Wi-Fi, and although that may seem slow compared to other mesh Wi-Fi systems, because the communication between them is handled over your electrical wiring, you get full AC1200 speeds from each one, meaning that as long as all of your devices are evenly distributed between them, three units could potentially give you 3.6Gbps of total available bandwidth. When he’s not obsessing over (and writing about) the latest gadgets and consumer technology, he can be found traveling and photographing the wild Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest, or tending to a herd of obnoxious goats on a small farm in the shadow of Mt. Philips Hue, IFTTT, and others see less integration. The basic model only offers a single Ethernet LAN port on the main router, but the newer Eero Pro models also provide two Ethernet ports on each satellite. Some have none, but most nodes will offer at least one Ethernet ports, and some have up to four each. Basic security options are often free, but the best advanced protections and parental controls often come at the cost of an ongoing monthly subscription, so make sure to take that into account. That situation has changed dramatically, with literally dozens of companies now offering some type of mesh networking system that provides plug and play wireless access suitable for larger homes and small offices. © 1996-2020 Ziff Davis, LLC. ", "Offering fast performance and a plethora of features customizable in the mobile app. Many of the best mesh Wi-Fi network systems can have you up and running in under five minutes by doing little more than installing a smartphone app and answering a few questions. This is your firewall, DHCP server, and router. You can also choose two extend your network with additional tri-band Eero Pro units as satellites, or the lower-profile dual-band Eero Beacons, making it a more flexible system. Although the Velop offers a fairly simplified setup process thanks to the Linksys smartphone app, if you like to tinker with your network settings you'll probably want to look elsewhere, as it's configuration options are quite limited, as are features like parental controls, which are confined to blocking websites and manually disabling internet access from specific devices. So most of the newest consumer offerings feature management from a mobile application with a simplified user interface. How and why I rebuilt my home network with Ubiquiti UniFi Networking, Unifi, Ubiquiti, USG, CloudKey, 2G, 5G, Wifi, wireless, G3, video, camera, Skip to content. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our, Google’s Big Idea for YouTube: Make It More Like QVC, ET Deals: $700 Off Dell 2020 Vostro 15 7500 Core i7 & Nvidia GTX Laptop, Alienware Aurora R11 Nvidia RTX 3080 Gaming Desktop for $1,899, AMD Said to be in Advanced Talks to Buy Xilinx, Break into Web Development with These Discounted Online Courses, Microsoft Spots Android Ransomware That Hijacks Your Home Button, How to Set Up a Mesh Network for Your Home or Small Office. Google’s Nest Wifi is a straightforward mesh system that provides some nice integration features for Google smart home and assistant users. In fact, you can check out our guides to the best wireless routers and the best Wi-Fi extenders for more in-depth information on the subject. If you want to plug devices into your nodes, and the nodes have Ethernet ports, then you may also need to buy cables for that purpose. 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