Review of Google Wifi Roiter and Mesh Technology

5 years ago, the router globe was dominated by names like Netgear, Asus, TP-Link, and Linksys. Google wasn't in the chat, and information technology didn't accept a router bachelor for purchase (or fifty-fifty a existent hardware division, for that matter).

Fast-forward to 2019, and Google lays claim to the top-selling router, thanks to the popularity of its Google Wifi mesh system, which it introduced in 2016. It's even more popular than Eero, which first popularized the idea of a mesh router for better Wi-Fi coverage in a dwelling house.

Now, Google is launching its follow-up: the more powerful and more capable Nest Wifi organization. The Nest Wifi, which is available in a diversity of configurations starting at $169, promises 25 percent better coverage and upwards to twice the speed of the Google Wifi organisation. In addition, the Nest Wifi'due south Points, or secondary units that you lot place around your home to create a mesh system, double every bit Nest Mini voice-activated smart speakers.

I've been testing the $269 kit, which includes the router and a unmarried mesh Indicate, in my roughly 2,000-square-foot, split up-level domicile. Google says this parcel provides as much coverage equally the iii-pack of the Google Wifi, and it'south good for homes up to 3,800 square anxiety and up to 200 continued devices. A $349 option provides a 2nd Signal and tin cover upward to 5,400 foursquare feet and up to 300 devices.

Similar other mesh systems, the Nest Wifi is not a modem, then it needs to be plugged into the modem y'all already have (probable provided past your ISP) to work. For me, that meant plugging into my Verizon Fios connexion, which is a gigabit fiber link. (Unlike Eero and others, Nest Wifi doesn't piece of work in a "bridge" way, which makes setting it upwardly with Fios more convoluted than other routers. For more on getting Nest Wifi to work with a Fios connection, see this post on Verizon's forums.) This connection comes into my abode in the living room on the main floor. I then placed the Point in my home office, a level below where the router is.

This arrangement was sufficient to provide potent Wi-Fi in every role of my home and gave me enough bandwidth to stream 4K video wherever I had a signal. It too handily managed the fifty-plus devices that are connected to my Wi-Fi network at whatever given fourth dimension and didn't have any trouble "hopping" devices from the router to the Signal when I moved about my dwelling house.

The Nest Wifi is designed to be placed out in the open for the best performance.

The Nest Wifi consistently provided faster speeds to my devices than the Google Wifi and similar speeds to what I get from the Eero Pro and Netgear Orbi, provided my devices were continued to the primary router and not the Signal. When connected to the Bespeak, speeds were cut in half, likely due to the Signal's less capable antennas and the lack of a dedicated backhaul channel for the router to communicate to the Point, like the Eero Pro and Orbi systems have. Since my internet service provides gigabit speeds, I however had over 100 megabits of bandwidth for both upload and downloads available no matter where I went in my habitation, but that'south a far cry from the roughly 900 megabits that gets piped into my house. The average home broadband speed in the US is just under 100 megabits, and so most people will be able to take total reward of their ISP'due south service with the Nest Wifi.

In addition to weaker radios, the Bespeak lacks any Ethernet jacks, so y'all can't use Ethernet backhaul to connect it to the router or plug devices directly into the Point where information technology's placed.

But where the Betoken lacks in Wi-Fi capabilities, it makes upwardly for by the fact that pulls double duty as a vocalization-activated smart speaker. Substantially, it's a Nest Mini speaker mashed into an original Google Wifi puck. Information technology sounds very like to the Nest Mini, which isn't a bad thing, and there'southward a glowing band at its base that illuminates white when you speak to it and orangish when the mic is muted. Information technology fifty-fifty has the same touch controls as the Nest Mini for adjusting book or pausing playback. Google intends the Signal to exist placed out in the open, which provides the best wireless and smart speaker performance, so it designed it to look nicer than the typical router. Information technology also comes in three colors — white, pale blueish, or stake pink — while the primary router is but available in white.

The Point is bachelor in three colors and doubles as a vocalism-activated smart speaker.

The Point supports all of the aforementioned vocalization controls for the Google Assistant equally the Nest Mini, just it as well adds a couple of router-specific vocalism commands, such equally running speed tests or pausing connections to groups of devices managed in the Google Home app. If you take a Nest Hub or Hub Max, you tin too run speed tests from in that location or brandish the credentials to a invitee network.

If you lot don't need even so another smart speaker in your habitation or yous prefer Amazon's Repeat, Google is selling a two-pack of the router that doesn't have any Points for $299. This also gives you slightly ameliorate coverage than a router and a Point and provides Ethernet jacks in both places you place the nodes with support for wired backhaul.

As mentioned, the Nest Wifi doesn't have a dedicated wireless backhaul band, instead relying on a traditional ii.4GHz and 5GHz dual-band organisation for both connections between the router and points equally well as connections to devices. Sanjay Noronha, connectivity product lead at Google Nest, says the company decided on this approach because information technology can manage traffic efficiently with software, and information technology doesn't need to add another level of hardware cost and complexity to the mix. But in my experience, a dedicated backhaul ring does provide faster speeds to devices that are connected to mesh points farther away from the main router.

Similarly, the Nest Wifi does not support the newly ratified Wi-Fi six protocol, which is designed to provide more than efficient connections to devices that take Wi-Fi half dozen capabilities. Noronha says supporting Wi-Fi 6 at this stage would take added a lot of price to the system with few benefits for the vast majority of customers since the vast majority of Wi-Fi devices do not support Wi-Fi 6 yet.

Setting up the Nest Wifi requires a Google account and the newly updated Google Home app for iOS or Android. The Home app guides you lot through installing the router, setting upwardly a new Wi-Fi network and countersign, and placing the Point in an optimal location in your dwelling. You can run speed tests through it, come across how many devices are connected to the network and prioritize specific ones, create a guest network, and schedule Wi-Fi breaks for kids' devices on the network. Information technology's also possible to block adult sites on any device.

But if you want to access more than advanced features, such as seeing which node a specific device is connected to or configure port forwarding, yous'll take to apply the sometime Google Wifi app, which has been updated to support the Nest Wifi. Google says it will continue to support both apps until the Google Home app has all of the features currently available in the Wifi app.

Similar the Google Wifi and Eero systems, the Nest Wifi relies on Google's cloud services for features such every bit automatic channel selection, remote network management, identifying connected devices, and providing historical data consumption stats. It'due south possible to disable the cloud connectivity in the Dwelling house app, only Google says the Nest Wifi volition not perform as well without them. The Nest Wifi too uses Google's DNS services by default, simply the company says it does not associate Google Public DNS information with Google Accounts and the DNS provider tin exist changed through the Google Wifi app.

Unlike Eero, the Nest Wifi doesn't have a subscription component for ad blocking, filtering, and other security features.

At that place are no obnoxious antennas sticking out of the Nest Wifi.

At $269, the router and Point two-pack is only slightly more expensive than Eero's new $249 entry-level three-node system, yet it provides as good or better coverage and faster speeds than the Eero. It'south also considerably less expensive than an Eero Pro arrangement or the newer Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers from Linksys or Netgear. That makes the Nest Wifi, like the Google Wifi before it, an enticing value that will likely prove to be very popular. It's not the fastest mesh router organization y'all can go, and if yous have a very fast internet connection in your abode like I practise, you won't exist able to admission virtually of your bandwidth through the Nest Wifi, though few other Wi-Fi routers tin exercise much better at this point.

So for the vast majority of people, the Nest Wifi performs well, looks good, provides some unique features, and doesn't cost a fortune. It seems similar Google has another winning router on its easily.

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Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/4/20946586/google-nest-wifi-review-mesh-router-price-specs-features

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