20 Best Channels For Wifi (2022 Updated)

So, let me start off by saying that I currently use a Linksys router that is about four years old in the basement of my 3 story home (including the basement). That router has been working fine since I moved into my house, but I do notice that upstairs I get a slightly weaker and slower wifi signal.

So, i decided to try a mesh system after reading a lot about them and this specific one have a lot of good reviews. Well let me tell you how disappointing the system was. The biggest benefit I see to it was that it is extremely easy to set up.

Set up took about 10 minutes and then it updated for about another 10.  The Wi-Fi signal in the office that the main hub (the puck that was acting as the main router) was extremely fast. My current router gives me about 240 mbps down and this one did give me 380mbps.

But, on every other level of the home (I placed a puck in the basement, main level and upstairs) was extremely laggy. I couldn’t even stream Hulu or Netflix without it buffering every minute. And the Apple TV is inches away from the Wi-Fi puck.

everything on the Google Home app said that all three pucks had extremely strong signal and the mesh network seemed to be working seamlessly, but that didn’t feel like the case. Anywhere in the house besides being in the office with the main router on any device was extremely laggy.

Overall this system was very disappointing and I will probably just be getting another (stronger) single router and returning this one.

Simple setup, looks clean, supports up to 1 Gbps, all for a pretty affordable price. But the range is just horrible. I thought—based on Google’s recommendations—that the router alone could cover our single-level, 1200 sq ft home.

Nope! It can’t, thanks to this one egotistical, cake-eater design flaw: it supports “dual band”, but unlike every other router in the market in the last 20 years, it presents a SINGLE network of both 2.

4 and 5. 0 GHz bands, and THE ROUTER chooses between the two frequency bands for you?? Not your device??? That means, if I am more than 1 room or 20 ft away from the router, my device will be stuck on the (very poor range) 5.

0 GHz and cannot connect to internet at all, despite the device looking like it’s connected to the network. Also very frustrating to try to set up home automation devices, since almost ALL in the market rely on 2.

4 GHz. Sure, buying more of their Google mesh points would help coverage, but should that be necessary? Very frustrating design decision that makes this otherwise great router virtually garbage.

We have the higher power Google mesh router system in our house, and wanted to get something for my parents’ for Christmas. They live in a brick home that is half basement (similar to mine), and the Wi-Fi range was terrible.

At our house, we had upgraded to a rockin modem / router combo and got 1/10 of the distance promised because of the building materials. The Google Mesh system changed the game, in a time when both my husband and I are on Zoom calls all day and need reliable connection.

Back to this product – tried the lower price one for my retired parents (who are also on WiFi all day, just not video calls) and they LOVE it. This is perfect for their house, and makes it so we can also work there whenever we visit.

One thing to note – when we set up our system, my husband spent hours trying to figure out why it wouldn’t connect. Nothing online addressed his issue, customer support couldn’t figure it out. He ended up flipping a switch / turning off a feature on the modem that literally nobody had addressed, just to see what happened, and it finally worked.

For this system, we had none of those issues connecting it to their modem / router combo.

Needed to upgrade the MESH network in our mission’s training center (3 stories, 10,000 sq ft) from older Wi-Fi 5 dual band due to I/N dropping out frequently. Bought these, paired with 2 TP-Link Deco W7200 AX3600 Wi-Fi 6 Tri-bands to cover all 3 floors (including dormitory rooms at far ends of corridors) for those housed there.

Supports Smart TVs, gamers, and usual mix of Wi-Fi needs (about 18 people using). I/N is 300/30 from modem on middle floor connected to X90 parent, 290/28 upstairs/downstairs main rooms, and 120/25 in corner rooms (behind several walls, different floors from parent router).

Solved the I/N reliability issues!.

This is the best by far. I tried everything linksys velop , orbi netgear, Alien amplifi all top notch stuffs spending days and hours on the phone with each tech support and their tier 1 engineering departments they couldn’t solve my speed fluctuating around my 4000 sqf house and all claiming covers 6000 sqf.

Some areas close to the router I was getting 400gbps and all of a sudden 0mbps crazy fluctuations. But tp-link deco x90 Ax6600 I set it up no exaggeration in 15 minutes and I get speed around 470 out of 500 all day long even I’m streaming 4k Netflix on 4 different rooms at the same time and my test results the same.

I don’t know but there is something different about this router. Looks simple and only 1 ethernet port but I have ethernet switches that I connected to it. I even have it inside the tv cabinet unlike other ones that I tried.

I was almost giving up because I didn’t know what to try after this if it didn’t work. App is also covers everything you need. Hopefully stays the same.

We bought these to increase the wifi range in our house. The AT&T fiber router is located downstairs and the front of the house and devices struggled to connect upstairs at the back of the house. We tried AT&T’s mesh point, but it never seemed to fix anything.

Once we installed these, wifi connectivity througout the house has been amazing. There are no dead points anymore. Extremely easy to set up and the app is very easy to use to set up port forwarding, etc.

The hardest part was setting up the IP Passthrough on the AT&T router.

We purchased the 2 pack Nest Wifi Mesh router as a replacement for our older Apple AirPort Extreme. We could never get it to function properly, eventually returning it to the store. I’m digitally native, fairly technically competent and work in a technical field (engineer).

These routers could not consistently maintain an internet signal. We have Xfinity internet. I imagine this is a very common setup in many homes using Nest routers. We tried the router with two customer owned modems, an older Arris DOCSIS 3.

0 unit that has worked perfectly with the AirPort for about 6 years (can’t remember the last time it even needed a restart) and a brand new Arris DOCSIS 3. 1 modem. We contacted Xfinity each time before switching to be sure they were activated in their system and receiving an internet signal.

The router had the same issue of not being able to obtain/maintain an internet connection with both modems. I had to call technical support 3 separate times over the short time we had this unit. In the end, they blamed Xfinity, who in turn blamed Arris.

But given that we had the same router issue with two separate Arris modems, and that each time when we reconnected our old AirPort, everything worked fine again, the variable here clearly is the Google Nest router.

The Google Home app, which controls the device, is cumbersome. It’s designed for ease of use, but this also means it’s a “black box” with minimal user control should adjustments be needed. I’m still not sure if the issue we had was hardware or software related, but in the end it doesn’t really matter as Very glad I was able to get a refund and try a router from another manufacturer.

If you do plan to purchase one of these, in addition to price shopping, be sure to pay attention to the return window the retailer you’re purchasing it from allows. We found national retailers vary from 15 days to 90 days.

If a defect doesn’t immediately present itself, in my experience, Google’s warranty isn’t where you want to be stuck, so those extra days may end up being valuable.

Homes differ. I don’t want to suggest that competing products are intrinsically inferior to this product, but I did try out 4 different makes of mesh systems in my home and found the Google Nest AC 2200 three pack somewhat better than the competition in my home.

The mesh systems I tried were the Netgear Orbi AC 3000 two pack, the Amazon eero 6 four pack, the TP Link Deco S 4 four pack and the Google Nest. All systems were comparable in price, around $ 250, during the Cyber Monday sale window, except for the TP Link system which cost about $ 180.

I would consider these systems mid range mesh systems, not entry level ones. My yardstick was that the mesh had to deliver better speed and signal strength that my existing router and extender combination and had to be stable and consistent in speed.

What I found is that none of the four named systems, all of which claimed 5000 to 6000 square ft of coverage, actually covered my 3000 square ft L shaped home with uniform speeds across the home. I got about 160-200 MBps in one half of my home and only 50-70 MBps in the far end of the other half of the house with these mesh networks.

My subscription is 350 MBps and I get 120-160 MBps in one half and 30-50 MBps in the other half with just my router and extender. The three unit Google Nest based on the older AC 2200 standard gave me better speeds than even the four unit eero 6 mesh which is based on the newer Wi-Fi 6 standard, though the difference was not big: about 15 % better.

Speed apart, the clincher for me was that the two Google extenders in the Nest pack came with built in speakers which could be used as network connected speakers to play streaming audio. Overall, the Google Nest was better in my layout but I wish I could get a true 5000 sq ft mesh with equal speeds across my whole home.

I bought this to upgrade my main node as I already had the 2017 version of the 1st gen pucks that worked fairly well. I appreciate that it’s backwards compatible with the older gen and able to use them as mesh nodes without any hassle.

My new home has several walls in between the main node and the locations that it makes to most sense to place the mesh points, so the upgraded antenna on this unit has given my older mesh points a boost.

I’m now getting close to double the speed at the ends of my house. It’s supposedly rated for 2200 sqft which would cover my whole house on its own, but I haven’t tested it out. When replacing the main node I did have to set up everything from scratch and reset the mesh points since there’s no way to transfer an existing network to the new unit.

Other than that, setup is a breeze guided by the Google Home app. My main complaints are the new plug shape and removal of USB C that the previous gen had, the lack of VLAN tagging, limited upload speeds on PPPoE mode, and limited download speeds in general (I get max ~600 Mbps from my 1 Gbps fiber, the ISP provided router got around ~850 Mbps).

If the nest WiFi points had wired backhaul and PoE to use as WAPs I might have considered purchasing them as well. If you want advanced networking features and settings this is not the system for you.

TP Link AC 2300 MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Router — Archer C2300 I’ve had to use several routers to have connectivity in my houses over the past 20 years and I’m pretty good at setting them up to work with my internet connections.

I recently moved from a home that had a metal roof and was on a slab so getting a good signal was difficult but we had 100+ mbps speed. I moved 5 months ago and all we are able to get in my rural town in Maine is DSL with a max speed of 25mg.

The router is a dual band 5 GHz and 2. 4 GHz which is overkill for my data speed, but Maine is trying to provide fiber optic speeds in many rural communities in the near future. There are many features I like with this modem.

First it has 4 gigabyte Ethernet ports which means I can run lines to laptops, desktop computer and smart TV without losing speed using the wireless connection. There is also the WAN port that goes directly from your modem into the router.

We are a couple of seniors, but rely heavily on our electronics. Not only do we have 2 desktops, 3 laptops, 2 iPhones, 2 Kindle tablets, iPad, and Samsung Galaxy but we stream videos from Netflix, Prime, and STARZ.

All of these need to be connected through a router or wirelessly. This TP Link router has the ability to use something called “beamforming” to send the WiFi signal to the device that needs it for a stronger signal.

I don’t profess to know what all the technical stuff means or does. I just want to be able to plug in the product, connect the wires, and have everything work. I get easily frustrated when things don’t work as expected and this was not the case with this particular router (yay).

Anti virus and parental controls that you set up are included as well as a guest network for when people come to visit. they can log into an “open” connection with an easier password that you create and it will not interfere with your secure system for all of your home computers, protecting your data from being taken off your computer.

The router has 3 external antennas that you can bend and point in different directions for the best signal. There is also an internal antenna which all has to do with getting the best signal strength in which to get online.

I didn’t have any trouble setting the router up because it has some sort of “smart connect” that scopes out your available devices and lists them for you to connect to. As usual the most difficult thing was reading and tiny serial number under the router.

I have used several brands of routers over the years and one of my chief complaints is having to pay for tech support after the warranty is up. I’m not able to judge their customer service or tech support because it was a breeze to get it up and running.

One of the pluses for this specific router is the gold label on the front that says TP Link wireless router was rated #1 in customer service in 2019 by JD Power (a big, recognized name in the field).

So far I’m impressed. I look forward to when fiber optic lines come to my town so I can take advantage of the blazing speeds! Until then I’m happy that I have a consistent signal that doesn’t drop and I’m not rebooting my modem / router several times a week because if dropped signal!.

Simple but still technically sophisticated, all the normal settings. I’d beware of setting a specific channel on this or any other router. If your neighborhood is packed with others a fixed channel will get you dropped from your own router dye to conflicts with nearby strong signals.

This unit set up easily and functioned flawlessly. Place high up on a wall so no interior items (mirrors, furniture, metal file cabinets) block line of sight. If there’s solid metal between a user and the router, the user won’t connect easily, if at all.

Mine is dix feet up the wall, and I can walk 250′ to my outdoor mailbox and still have a “good” rated signal. I get “excellent” signals everywhere within my home. With radio signals (wifi is radio), higher is always better.

And I’d you have mirrors, signals get blocked or reflected, and play havoc with WiFi. Take down all unnecessary mirrors. It’s like lining your walls with Faraday cages, not good.

I really like this router, of course there is some sacrifices by the price you pay, namely the wired ports are 10/100M and the USB is 2. 0, but this is clearly stated in the specs section (at least in newegg) so no surprises there unless you don’t pay attention.

Setting up was relatively easy , tested the USB sharing capabilities, simple but really good so far. Range is good and stable for a small to medium apartment/office but be aware of obstacles and location of the router for using the 5GHz band.

Great for a budget initiation to the ac1200 world with some simple but useful media server/usb sharing capabilities. Edited because, recently, after a little “shifting” at the office, we are using the Printer share capabilities.

So far works great with an all-in-one HP printer. Only a little extra step for using the scanner (you have to “capture” the printer using their app, this happens automatically for printing) and the app itself is very simple (great for not eating your OS resources).

The bad side is that such app is for Windows and Mac only (so far). and since seems like a proprietary comm protocol between the app and the router to simulate the USB-Network bridge, there is no manual configuration nor app/driver for linux :(.

Works fine for most of the things you want it to do. For required tasks, the WiFi connection is dropped for a split second every ten minutes or so. For gaming, you may be dropped from a game. This happens once every 30 minutes or so.

At other times, you will see a slight lag or glich for a split second. For streaming video on Roku and Home Essentials Direct Fire stick, you will see the video freeze for a second or two. Once every ten minutes, you may lose the stream and the Roku/Fire will take you back to the main menu.

This is really annoying if you are trying to watch a movie, or a Basketball/football game, and the signal drops. Since I have multiple sources wired to a switch (2x game consoles, Roku, AppleTV) when the signal drops, the switch cycles through and searches for a new signal and land on the second streaming device (for example, I will be watching Roku and it will automatically swap to AppleTV, or vice versa) and I would need to manually switch it back.

Slightly annoying. so when I have a gathering, I unplug all the other sources and only have the Roku plugged in. Even if the signal is dropped, the switch stays on the Roku since it has no other sources plugged in.

(This happens with both a Roku media player and a Home Essentials Direct Fire stick so I know it is not the device). Like I said – Slightly annoying.

If you are in a situation where you cannot run wiring and are in a medium/larger home that is filled with lots of walls, this is the absolute best non-commercial system you can buy. Pros: -SUPER fast speeds.

On a Fiber 1000/1000 connection and was able to get up to 850Mbps at the base router, about 600Mbps on the mesh points, all tested using an iPhone 13 Pro Max. I’ve used/tested many brands and this one is cannot be beat outside of buying a much more expensive commercial grade system.

-5Ghz dedicated backhaul ensures amazing connection between mesh points and router. Most other systems do NOT have a dedicated backhaul, meaning the mesh points connect using the same channel and frequency as Wi-Fi-devices, meaning this can create slow downs in many situations.

-This system penetrates walls better than other systems, but do not expect night and day difference either. -Simple controls and interface -Aesthetically pleasing router and mesh points that can usually blend in most places visually -2.

5G WAN port will help support faster speeds when available -House is hurricane proof with lots of concrete and and metal studded walls. This system seems to better penetrate walls vs other systems. -Simple setup.

Bridge mode or router mode offer the same performance. Cons: -Price is hard to justify for most. I did it because my house was extremely tough to connect throughout, but it was a fraction of what it would cost to wire the house with Ethernet.

-The moment you try to start doing advanced stuff, such as VLAN, IPv6, or parental controls, it becomes extremely buggy. So keep it simple with this system -Hate the cash grab they do from the subscriptions they want you to pay for extra parental controls or internet security.

It’s pretty insulting for a system of this price. -VPN Access requires some extra work -While the general interface is good, the app needs further work.

A year ago I ordered a Linksys Velop AX4200 mesh wifi system to replace my 10 year old wifi setup. Without a long diatribe – the LINKSYS system initially worked fine, but over the period of 12 months progressively degraded and malfunctioned to the point of being almost useless, making me long for my old fashioned WiFi router.

I had heard from several different sources that Orbi was a great system, and I really wanted to stay with WiFi 6 and a mesh network so I rolled the dice. Orbi has been operational now for a month and I feel that I can give some initial impressions.

Setup was pretty smooth – some strange hiccups with the app required multiple resets of the nodes and a complete reset of the base node once. It took me about an hour to sort through the setup which gave me some trepidation.

However, once setup was complete – done. It has worked flawlessly ever since. Extremely high bandwidth, great coverage, excellent performance through walls and across two stories in an old house with very dense construction materials.

I have not needed to reset Orbi (Linksys needed to be reset 1-2 times a week or it would completely shut down) since I installed it. We run multiple devices across the house simultaneously to include video streaming, multiple web applications, work computers, home security and monitoring devices, etc.

Can’t say enough good things about Orbi. Well worth the switch and deserved of it’s great reputation.

I’ve been with Google Wifi since Asus Google OnHub, and 1st and 2nd Generation Google Home Wifi, and it’s worked for me mostly, until my smart home outgrew it. The Asus Onhub was nice, I had good experience, but as my home eventually outgrew it.

I then upgraded to the 1st gen of Google Home wifi, but as more devices were added on, I would lose connection and needed to be reset consistently, then I bought the 2nd Generation to replace it, a 3 mesh node set up.

A year or so later, same thing, I needed to reset it consistently. I have 70plus devices on my home wifi, and apparantly Google Home Wifi cannot handle it. So, I tried Netgear Orbi AX6000 with 2 nodes, I hated it, after 2 days.

The mobile app was limited in functionality and appeal. Also, you are required to pay an annual subscription to Netgear Armor security. I returned it and exchanged it for this Asus Zen AX6600 XT8. It’s been excellent!!! Rich and full featured mobile app with a visually appealing interface, accessibility and control of this router is great and connectivity performance is exceptional.

I’ve increased my wifi speed and coverage at least 3x’s. I’m fortunate enough to live in the AT&T fiber area and with GigaNet, this Asus Zen AX6600 XT8 was a great quality and value purchase. No complaints and I would highly recommend.

I have 3200 SQFT home 2 stories with this mesh set on each side of the home on the main floor. It provides connectivity throughout my home with 70plus devices on my wifi – tablets, smart TV’s, gaming consoles and systems, smart phones, smart lights, smart appliances, smart cameras, and we stream youtube, youtube TV, netflix, hbomax constantly.

We use over 1TB of data monthly. Asus Zen AX6600 XT8 is the workhorse I needed. From experience, skip Google Wifi, skip Netgear, go with Asus. AIMesh is for real. I hooked up my inlaws on it with their old Asus router that happened to be compatible with another Asus router and it worked flawlessly.

Very good value for money router. I have been using it for 2 weeks already, and the router is rock solid: no restarts, no connection drops. We are two people working from home with constant video meetings, plus we have close to 10 devices hooked on the router most of the time (work laptops, personal laptops, phones, tablets, chromecast, etc.

) and the router seemed not to be bothered at all by it. The network coverage is solid, although it drops quite fast with the distance and walls between the router and the device. Anyhow, for the given price range I must say I cannot ask anything more from the router.

Some figures: I have a 100/100 Mbps connection. In the same room wit the router I am measuring around 95/95 Mbps which is acceptable. In my office, which is a complete hallway away (and 3 walls between my computer and the router) I am constantly measuring 80 Mbps (down/up), which is more than acceptable in my book.

Overall, does not get much better for 490SEK, thus the 5* rating despite the certain shortcomings pointed above.

This is very poor quality. I’m returning it after trying to use it several times. We have admittedly relatively slow internet. My old TP link router seemed like it could use an update as speeds have increased since I purchased it well over 4 years ago.

We average about 10 Mbps DSL internet (an increase from about 3 Mbps 4 years ago) and we do not stream HD, only SD. Plus, I figured well over 4 years could likely be about the end of the life span of a router and I don’t want stuck without WiFi.

So, I ordered this “updated” version and it boasted that it’d improve WiFi speeds. I was initially excited. It worked fine for two devices at once, but totally blocked out using 3 devices. We could not stream 3 devices (SD) at once on this router.

No matter what I tried — reset, WiFi extender sync’d, still no dice. I plugged back in my old WiFi router (to see if it was internet speed at issue as we do live rural and sometimes our internet gets slower than our normal kinda slow) and almost immediately everyone could stream (SD) at once.

I even tried downloading something on WiFi and opening a bunch of youtube videos on old WiFi router at the same time and it handled it fine. I plugged this router back in and set everyone up onto the WiFi and we again could not stream more than 2 devices at once.

Also, it could not handle a wireless download or YouTube videos whilst streaming anything – immediately the streaming would freeze. Plugged in old router, again we could all stream (SD), watch YouTube, browse, download, upload.

Like I said, I’m sending this back. I think I’ll just buy another of my old router. My old router is a TP-Link N300 and although I sometimes have to reset it and it does need a WiFi extender to cover our whole home — it works fine for us.

My ISP is providing 100Mbps. I was using a 100Mbps fast ethernet backplane in the house. I was getting a speedtest. net of about 70Mbps. I converted everything over to gigabit ethernet and am now up to about 120Mbps.

This router is the first coming into the house, connected directly to the cable modem and then forking off to subnets. I tried the 802. 11ac and actually got 110Mbps, but only on devices which support 802.

11ac. Most of my devices do not (roku boxes, cell phones, tablets, etc. ) On those I got about 25Mbps. Very pleased with performance. Setup through the network interface was very straight forward. Setup through the app was too limited for my purposes.

If you worried about TP Link, only had one router die after two years of continues service, I suspect that bad surge protector, and bad surge may have caused its demise, but it was running 24/7; so routers have to take a lot of abuse in 24/7 environment.

With 15 years experience in networking, mostly SOHO, and home users; I have used other brands, from well known to not so well known, and TP Link does outperform them in my opinion hands down. G was ok wireless in 2005, (I used wired); 2008 moved to Gigalan wired and Cat 6;been there ever since.

N came to town and saved us from connecting wireless of only 20 ft. in some cases. AC has changed the playing field, finally; wireless that is as strong, maybe stronger than wire. I like TP for pricing and reliability.

Works and doesn’t drop signal, no restarts, only upgraded firmware first time out of box, set it and forget it cause it works. Setting privacy, passwords, renaming it and other features, easy and nice to see.

(if you are new to wireless world, you have to set privacy and passwords to keep neighbor boy from using your bandwidth) or not if you prefer to “hotspot” its users choice. Range, AC has got the range for ya, at roughly 1/2 mile; at 2 bars yeah that’s your range, no joke.

Walls, levels, line of sight issues; of the past, this router says “what issues”, haven’t experienced no drop signals and couple of times that has happened wasn’t due to router, its laptop overheating, being older model.

Other devices was singing along no problem. You wonder how many devices? I’m using 7 on my network, one being a server, and couple added smartphones that guests show up with, all running at same time, and no one noticeing any bandwidth of the others including major download, i’m using heavy cable internet, 70mbps input to Gigalan output.

I don’t use any fancy routing tables or rules, don’t use guest account, I just give password to those that need it, my password I use is simple (five digit name/number) you don’t have to encrypted these things for soho or home use, just change the default to something only you will know.

Always change the default if using wireless, is a must do.

Setup was pretty straightforward and typical of a router. Once modem and router were powered up (in this order), access to the web based gui was as easy as navigating to 192. 168. 0. 1 and logging in.

The gui worked well, was quick and did not require too many reboots in order to save settings. The gui is not as helpful or as user friendly as other routers I have used recently, however it worked and perhaps a firmware upgrade will improve its feature list.

I did notice that I was not able to manually choose bandwidth mode of the 5. 0ghz band, however during testing I noticed that I was able to connect to it at 80mhz without issue. The router I currently use is a first generation draft Asus AC 1750 router and I was keen to test this second generation router against it using a laptop and Asus AC53 usb client.

I always setup my router to use channels 6 (2. 4ghz) and 153 (5. 0ghz), disable wps and enable WPA2 with AES encryption. My laptop sits in my office which is currently 65ft from the router and has two walls between.

I use Totusofts Lanspeed software to send packets of data across my LAN to and from wired computers as well as to and from the laptop wirelessly. I have a full gigabit hardwired network in my office and when using the testing the TP-Link router over Ethernet, Lanspeed recorded maximum speed of 811mbps write and 345mbps read, the Asus router returned a maximum speed of 808mbps write and 516mbps read.

The TP-Link router was actually the faster router at 2. 4ghz, which surprised me as the ASUS supports beamforming. The TP-Link showed speeds of 70. 36mbps write and 112mbps read and at the same location the Asus returned speeds of 61.

56mbps write and 94. 03mbps read. At 5. 0ghz the results were reversed with the Asus router showing faster speeds overall and a better range. I was able to return speeds of 102mbps write and 235. 51mbps read using the TP-Link router at 65ft which is an excellent result, even if beaten by the Asus router.

I have to keep telling myself that this router is half the price of my original AC router and performs just as well. This router is fast, looks great, was reliable in testing, comes with 2 year warranty, 24/7 tech support and is cheap.

I really see no reason for people not to upgrade to AC now that routers like this exist. Recommended.

Have not used the tech support that was advertised on the box but having 24/7 support is very useful for any product. The connotation “AC 1200” typically refers to the total added max speeds of the 2.

4 Ghz an 5 Ghz bands. So in this case 300 Mbps 2. 4 Ghz + 867 Mbps 5 Ghz = 1167 Mbps total speed rounded up = 1200. Unfortunately most consumers who are unfamiliar with routers make this mistake and think that this speed of 1200 Mbps is available through 1 single connection.

However that is not the case primarily due to speed split over two bands and being that the advertised speed is the theoretical maximum which is never reached. Client devices primarily those being USB 2.

0 connected to PCs and laptops will suffer from a speed limitation on the 5 Ghz band. USB 2. 0 caps out at 480 Mbps theoretical speed thus limiting the 867 Mbps data connection between the client and the router.

A USB 3. 0 client remedies this issue since the link between USB 3. 0 and the PC is 5 Gbps (5000 Mbps). The C5 may utilize beamforming which enhances the signal acquisition and maintenance via directional transmission and reduced interference.

Extremely handy to have especially when using the 5 Ghz band. Speaking of 5 Ghz, it being a a higher frequency is subject to lower range compared to 2. 4 Ghz. The reason is that higher frequencies have trouble penetrating walls and other barriers and range significantly decreases when connecting from another floor of a building.

That was primarily the case with older routers utilizing 802. 11 N via Ghz. However 802. 11 AC increases the range to the inclusion of beamforming which is mentioned above. Overall a solid router which gets the job done and I would definitely recommend this router.

I don’t often write reviews but I’m so thrilled with this product I felt I should. I ordered it on a Sunday and it arrived on a Wednesday. The set up is easy! You download the app on your phone (as you need to use cell data until you have one canister set up).

The app has very simple instructions. You plug the first canister into an electrical socket and into your modem using a cord provided and set a password. That’s it! You now have internet back. You then take the second canister into another room (with your phone) plug it into an outlet, turn it on and then use your phone to connect it.

Repeat for the 3rd canister. You will now have internet throughout your home. The hardest part is signing all your devices into the new network but you’d have to do this with any new router or system.

We are currently experiencing wifi speeds similar to hardwire. We have cogeco and are getting over 100mbps throughout the house that used to have many dead spots. The best part, in my opinion, is the parental controls.

You are able to assign devices to family members and set time limits or bedtime hours and the app will shut off the internet to these devices. For example you can shut internet to the Xbox and iPad for one child but still let them watch Netflix on the smart tv.

I was able to even pause one child’s internet until they finished their homework!! This is only day 3 but I highly recommend this system. I was worried I should have purchased a more expensive system but so far so good!!!.

One of the interesting characteristics about this mesh system is that it’s actually beneficial if you don’t know how these kinds of devices work. Those who have experience with networks and routers will find this mesh system somewhat hard to grok.

So, when installing it, it’s best to dumb yourself down and just follow instructions and not overanalyze why. Otherwise you will likely follow the same sequence I hdi, which was to set up the mesh, have it not work for reasons I honestly cannot fathom, then reset the whole system and start again.

The second time through it seems to make more sense (in its own odd way). I was eventually able to make the system work. The hardest part was getting it to work with an Amazon Smart Thermostat. So my advice is this; if you are unlucky you may have to spend a significant amount of time ironing out all the kinks.

That said, with sufficient patience I was able to make it work with my entire complement of wireless devices. Price is right too. Overall, I am quite pleased.

Don’t buy a Linksys Velop if you want product support from Linksys! I bought two Linksys Velop 5300 mesh WiFi whole home routers and had them installed in November 2020 to improve WiFi speed and coverage in my home.

While speed was initially great throughout the home, it soon deteriorated. We have 1 gigabyte cable service from Comcast, but after a few days the connection speed thru the Velop would deteriorate to as low as 2 Mbps (on an iPhone capable of download speeds of >500 Mbps)! Linksys’ app that monitors and manages the Velops suggests that if you have slow speeds, you should reset the Velops, and they conveniently include a reset feature in the app (that should tell you something about how often you can expect to have to reset them! ☹️).

Resetting the Velops did bring the speed back up to what you would expect—for a few days, but little did I know that I would have to reset them at least once a week to cure the speed deterioration! After returning from the holidays, and with the speed deterioration problem continuing, I finally got tired of resetting the Velops and contacted Linksys technical support.

I sat through two separate, and lengthy (c. 1+ hours each) sessions with Linksys “level 1” and “level 2” technical support agents who confirmed, but could not fix, the problem with my Velops. Then, rather than offering to replace the defective Velops, Linksys’ level 2 support agent said he was escalating my case to Linksys’ “level 3” technical support personnel.

That was in early April. The level 2 support agent said I’d be contacted by the level 3 support team within 24 to 48 hours. I gave them my cell phone number to contact me as expeditiously as possible, as the level 2 agent had instructed me to disconnect one of the two Velop nodes, so it was completely nonfunctional.

I wasn’t happy, but figured I could wait another day or two. Well, it has now been FIVE WEEKS since I first contacted Linksys about the defective Velops, and A MONTH since Linksys referred my case to the black hole that they call their “level 3 support.

” I have yet to receive a call from Linksys’ level 3 “support” personnel. I finally got fed up waiting for support, and contacted Linksys’ customer “service” to ask for a return materials authorization and a refund for the defective Velops which Linksys failed to fix or replace in FIVE WEEKS (and counting).

Linksys has refused to authorize a refund. DON’T BUY LINKSYS ROUTERS — if they ship you defective ones like they did with me, THEY WON’T GIVE YOU TIMELY SUPPORT OR TIMELY REPLACEMENT UNITS, and they won’t refund your money.

I will never buy a Linksys product again.

Stable and quick. work with Velop mesh. Some good functions on interface but not for power users. Great coverage

I have an existing Linksys Router with multiple remote boosters and was interested in moving to a true mesh network. This system had high expectations to meet as we have a farm and run wifi cameras out in the barn and horse arena.

The current configuration gets the job done usually but the camera out by the arena loses wifi strength for large points in time. I recently setup a Netgear Nighthawk Mesh Wifi 6 in the main house and that was very seamless and great improved the reliability and speed of internet through the house – I was expecting a similar experience with the Linksys.

It’s been two weeks and I’ve finally gotten Linksys’s mesh setup. The setup was supposed to be simple and easy. But I found pain in every attempt. I was disappointed that the only setup documentation in the package was a business card telling me to download an app, no QR code so I had to take on faith that I picked the right one.

The app continually failed to load the router. My thinking was that the web admin portal would be a valid way of working however when you login to 192. 168. 1. 1 all you get is a referral to use the app: There is ZERO option except to use an app wizard to set this up.

Once I finally got the router recognized by the app and got started with the process I found the process was overly step by step where I could’ve setup the network in 5 minutes each individual step took multiple minutes and to get both the router and the additional node setup took well over 30 minutes, and that’s after I finally got the app to recognize the router.

Once I got everything setup the speeds were impressive and while the WiFi by the arena is not perfect I no longer get Nest notifications that the camera is out (so outages are brief and far more reliable).

In the end, after the bad setup days you do get great WiFi over a broad coverage area. I do goback to that Netgear Nighthawk Mesh that I have in the house though. If I had the choice of one, this that I have in the barn or the one in the house, I would buy the Netgear over again over this.

It’s not bad, and in time I’m sure it will be great but the setup did really leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Bought this as a replacement for my old Cisco router, which was getting pretty long in the tooth. I subscribed to a VPN service about 6 months ago, and had intermittent issues with internet connectivity.

I thought a new router would correct it. It didn’t. After digging into all the help sections and forums, found that the VPN service will not work reliably with a router that does not have native (firmware) OpenVPN client (not server) capability.

So I’m looking at purchasing another compatible router.

Excellent router that’s easy to set up. I had it working properly in 20 minutes. It’s used primarily for streaming content to no less than 3 TV’s throughout my home. The perfomance of the router has been flawless.

I highly recommend this router.

The A6 router has separate antennas for 2. 4 and 5G bands, offering a higher quality to the dual-band connections. It also supports the use of the one-mesh extender that TPLink has. Great deal for a dual-band router.

Was a little dubious about getting this, but some of the other reviews convinced me to give it a go, and I’m glad I did. Had tried range extenders in different rooms but it never made much difference.

Easy to set up – download the app on your phone, it walks you through it step by step. Note – there is an option that comes up during the setup – enable IPTV/VLAN – if you have fibre then you must enable this, and then there is a drop down menu from which you can select ‘New Zealand – UFB’ – select this and you will be good to go.

Then just place the other two units where you need them in your house, and the system will automatically find them, connect them and get them up and running. We’ve been able to move the Playstation back to a bedroom instead of having it in the living room on ethernet cable, and have had multiple users on games, streaming services etc at the same time with no lag or buffering.

If this is what you want for your house and you need something that is a breeze to set up (no network skills at all needed) then I fully recommend this product.

I installed 2 Deco X20 units in my house, each in a separate floor. Units are operating as Access Points, directly conncted to a TP Link Archer A9 router (Wifi is disabled) as well as using wired backhaul, so overall connection speed is no issue.

Alas, although having relativly strong 5Ghz WiFi signal in most rooms, devices tend to stick with the slower 2. 4Ghz WiFi band. The Deco App have no option to set signal treshold to decide when to move a device from one band to another, resulting with a way lower WiFi speed.

Occasionally i am able to switch from 2. 4Ghz if i restart devices WiFi (android phone) several times when very near one of the units. This is somewhat disapointing as it is a degragation compared to previously using a non-mesh Wifi solution.

I get great 270mbps WiFi speeds which is now consistent throughout my entire home and is always connected no matter where I move. Lan speeds have greatly improved my and now a solid 900-970mbps where before was under 800mbps.

Even get a decent signal in front and rear gardens. The TP-Link app is also very useful and much better then other top brands I’ve used I can monitor who’s actively connected to my home network and get notifications away from home if something new has been added.

I like that you can monitor Wired/WiFi ports and show up/down speeds for each device. Can rename the devices too. The only negative thing I can think off is that you can’t change the WiFi channels or set it’s speed but this maybe device dependent or future update may fix this.

Many LTE routers include the ability to utilise modern 4G networks, they typically do not include a key feature being carrier aggregation. However the TP-Link Archer MR600 includes the feature which allows for several mobile frequencies to be used for incoming traffic, resulting in a high speed and very responsive to various demands.

Once the MR600 is setup using the TP-Link Tether application on an Android or iOS mobile device then the router seamlessly determines the best mobile frequencies to be used, thus providing optimal connectivity and throughput/ Overall, the MR600 is highly recommended as an excellent 4G+ LTE router.

Excellent 4G Router for small business. 4G speeds are as expected for the locations tested. Can be configured as a 4G failover for an NBN connection although the default is for 4G only. Configuration change location in the firmware is not obvious but internet searching found the setting location.

I have used many different routers over the years. Google WiFi is hands down the best “router”I have ever used. I Don’t have a huge house but there is a couple of dead zones in my house. I have had Wi-Fi extenders.

It is so easy to connect and start it up with easy instructions. After installing Google wifi, my internet speed throughout my house increased and the wifi is stronger and more stable. No more complaints from hubby while gaming.

It is not too expensive and worth investing. More Information ———————— * Includes 3 Google WiFi routers * Wi-Fi 5 with AC1200 (1,200 Mbps) router enhances your WiFi signal to support up to 200 connected devices and multiple 4K streaming videos * Expandable design allows you to connect extra Wi-Fi points to cover larger homes, thicker walls, and narrow layouts(additional points sold separately) * Simple set-up in the Google Home app lets you connect and manage devices and access parental controls for your kids * Automatic updates provide new features and keep the network safe and secure.

Got 2 of these routers as part of Google Fiber subscription. Routers/AP supports WiFi Mesh technology, so signal should reach any corner of your home, up to 1900sqft. For my home 1100sqft even one of these works perfectly.

Setup was easy-breezy, using Google Home mobile app. Although, router lacks advanced settings like wifi mode and channel selection, for average casual user this shouldn’t cause discomfort. Design-wise it looks cozy, so you can leave it on the surface, you can even cotrol LED intensity what is well thought for dark environment.

I been paying for charter internet and speed wasnt great even though I was paying for it. Had a tech notion come out and he confirmed my reasons why it wasnt working as fast as it should be. the router.

Their router ran well for 1 level home but at having just moved into a 2 level condo the reach suffered upstairs. So I did some researching and stumbled on mesh routers that handled 2. 5 and 5 ghz networks, but are more on the bit pricey.

Luckily i found one on eBay to test it out and it wouldnt hurt my wallet too much. So far its been great the speed is at maximum and reaches the upstairs easily since its 1,200 sf this 1 mesh point is enough but I could add a second point later if we add more smart home devices which is great because we could move to a larger home and this system would hopefully not be absolute.

Highly recommend it, set up was easy and integrates with other google products.