Many home Wi-Fi setups<\/a> suck for countless reasons, which makes it frustrating when everyone in your household needs a reliable connection for the most important things. Be it a work video call, an online class or simply balancing the family budget online, we all need a good home Wi-Fi connection to get things done. If yours isn\u2019t up to pair, maybe it\u2019s because the hardware your ISP gave you isn\u2019t great, or your walls aren\u2019t friendly to wireless signals. Or perhaps the signals from your all-in-one wireless modem and router just can\u2019t reach everywhere from its spot in a far corner of your house.<\/p>\n This is where mesh Wi-Fi routers can come in handy. It\u2019s these maladies that mesh systems deal with as a distributed set of smaller Wi-Fi nodes that are spread around your home, pushing internet into every corner. Mesh routers aren\u2019t new, and we\u2019ve reviewed plenty, but now we have a one-stop shop for everything you need to know in order to find the best buy for you. After testing a number of systems for connection consistency, dead zones, available parental controls, general ease of use and more, we’ve collected our top picks for the best mesh Wi-Fi systems you can get today.<\/p>\n Wi-Fi is governed by the International Standard IEEE 802.11<\/a>, and every few years the standards evolve. Until 2018, routers were sold under their IEEE designation, leaving consumers to deal with the word soup of products labeled 802.11 b\/a\/g\/n\/ac et cetera. Mercifully, wiser heads opted to rebrand the standards with numbers: Wi-Fi 4, Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6. We\u2019re presently between two Wi-Fi generations, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, which relates to the frequencies the standard uses. Wi-Fi 6 covers routers which operate on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, while the latter means it can also use the 6GHz band.<\/p>\n Each Wi-Fi band has tradeoffs, because the slower radio frequencies have greater range but less speed. 2.4GHz signals will travel a long way in your home but aren\u2019t quick, while 6GHz is blisteringly fast, but can be defeated by a sturdy brick wall. A lot of Wi-Fi-enabled gear, like a lot of smart home products<\/a>, only use 2.4GHz because the range is better and it\u2019s a lot cheaper. But it means that the band is also overcrowded and slow.<\/p>\n Linksys\u2019 CEO Jonathan Bettino<\/a> told Engadget why mesh systems are an \u201cadvancement in Wi-Fi technology\u201d over buying a single point router. With one transmitter, the signal can degrade the further away from the router you go, or the local environment isn\u2019t ideal. \u201cYou can have a small [home], but there\u2019s thick walls […] or things in the way that just interfere with your wireless signal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Historically, the solution to a home\u2019s Wi-Fi dead zone was to buy a Wi-Fi Range Extender<\/a> but Bettino said the hardware has both a \u201cterrible user experience\u201d and one of the highest return rates of any consumer electronics product. Mesh Wi-Fi, by comparison, offers \u201cmultiple nodes that can be placed anywhere in your home,\u201d says Bettino, resulting in \u201cubiquitous Wi-Fi\u201d that feels as if you have a \u201crouter in every room.\u201d<\/p>\n Having a \u201crouter in every room\u201d is the biggest selling point for mesh Wi-Fi given how reliant we all are on the internet. Each node is in constant contact with each other, broadcasting a single, seamless network to all of your devices. There\u2019s no separate network for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, just a single name that you connect to.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a pretty good time to buy a mesh Wi-Fi system, since Wi-Fi 6E represents a fairly significant leap in the technology. Matt MacPherson, Cisco\u2019s Chief Technology Officer for Wireless<\/a>, said that Wi-Fi 6E is a substantial \u201cinflection point\u201d and can take advantage of a much broader chunk of the wireless spectrum than its predecessors. \u201cIf you\u2019re using that spectrum with a Wi-Fi 6 [device],\u201d he said, \u201cyou\u2019re going to get significant gains [in speed.]\u201d<\/p>\n MacPherson added that Wi-Fi 6E will likely \u201ccarry you for a long time,\u201d thanks to the fact that its \u201ctop throughputs now typically exceed what people can actually connect their home to.\u201d In short, with a top theoretical per-stream speed of 1.2 Gbps, Wi-Fi 6E is fast enough to outrun all but the fastest internet connection. (You may also see talk of Wi-Fi 7 devices, some of which have been released already<\/a> before the standard is officially launched next year. Given that it will take a generation for all of the devices in your home to be compatible with Wi-Fi 7, it\u2019s not worth thinking about this for several years yet.)<\/p>\n Every mesh product will boast of its theoretical broadcast range in square feet, as well as its theoretical top speed. Given there are so many factors outside of the manufacturer\u2019s control, these numbers don\u2019t really mean much in the real world. Your internet provider\u2019s real speed, the construction materials and layout of your home, amongst other things, will all affect your Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth saying that raw speed isn\u2019t everything, and that for most normal users, you probably need a lot less than you\u2019re paying for. Netflix recommends<\/a> a minimum speed of just 15 Mbps to stream a 4K video to a single device. Naturally, that\u2019s just for one connection, so you\u2019ll need some more capacity if you\u2019ve got other devices all running at the same time. As cool as it is to say you\u2019ve got 100, 200 or 500 Mbps download speed, factors like latency and reliability are way more crucial.<\/p>\n Mesh Wi-Fi systems work by connecting every hardware node to a single wireless network, letting them all communicate with each other. Imagine four people in a busy, noisy restaurant all trying to order their dinner from a weary staff member, all at once. Now imagine, while this is going on, that four more people at that same table are also trying to tell a funny anecdote. It\u2019s no surprise that it might take a long while for the right information to reach its intended destination.<\/p>\n To combat this, higher-end mesh systems offer dedicated wireless backhaul; a slice of the spectrum for node-to-node communication. So rather than everyone talking at once in the same space, the conversations are essentially separated, reducing the invisible clutter in the air. Because there\u2019s less confusing cross-chatter, everything moves faster, offering a significant performance boost to those systems.<\/p>\nWi-Fi<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What to look for<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Range and speed<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Backhaul<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Connectivity<\/strong><\/h3>\n