We just finished testing this ourselves and I agree with the authors assertions that it is not the top performer in it’s class (that would be the Eero Pro line) it is certainly the most accessible for newer/less network savvy users and more importantly brings the considerable benefits of mesh networking to a broader audience.
And I think many more users especially home ones that might not consider it otherwise could significantly benefit from it such as my brother who when he actually started counting devices after his current router died found his family had and actively used over a dozen devices, throughout the house.
Just curious, what speeds were you getting? From the article,
Yet, compared to the WiFi module in my office, which is connected via Ethernet to my modem, I saw my speed jump from around 120 Mbps to an average of 240 Mbps.
which seems incredibly low even compared to WiFi 5:
(Tom’s Hardware)
And compared to WiFi 6E routers, the AXE11000 access point can do 20x the throughput:
Ultra-Fast Wi-Fi 6E Speeds: Simultaneous 4804 Mbps on 6 GHz, 4804 Mbps on 5 GHz, and 1148 Mbps on 2.4 GHz for 10.8 Gbps WiFi speeds, bringing more bandwidth, faster speeds, near-zero latency and eliminates interference.†
Something’s gotta be wrong here, right? (Did they mean megabytes per second?)
We didn’t hit the claimed 5.4 Gbps but did see speeds in the 4.8 Gbps range for a single client (with a 10Gbps source connection)
That being said mesh networks as a whole prioritize overall consistency and reliability in client connections over raw speed. If you want that, and only have a few client systems, one of the new WIFI 6e gaming optimized routers will give you better speeds at the expense of coverage/range
BTW If someone is looking for a more performant option than the Nest WIFI pro, there’s this, albeit with significant tradeoffs in simplicity and ease of use.
