One of the biggest decisions you’ll make when setting up a home network is choosing whether to go the mesh route or with a standaloneWi-Firouter. I suspect a lot of people have at least a vague sense of why they’d want a mesh system, but then see the prices out there and avoid looking into things further. Why buy a two- or three-pack of routers when one can be expensive enough? And of course, we’ve all been conditioned to think a higher Wi-Fi spec is automatically the most important thing. When you’re at the store, picking up a singleWi-Fi 7router may seem like the wisest move.
I’ve been firmly in the mesh camp for several years, though, first with the Google Nest Wifi, and now theEero Pro 6E. I’m not trying to endorse Amazon or Eero as a brand, or the Pro 6E as a model – I just thought it’d be worth talking about why I’d buy the same system today, even with some high-quality standalone Wi-Fi 7 routers hitting shelves.
Amazon Eero Pro 6E
The Amazon Eero Pro 6E is simple and speedy, covering up to 6,000 sq ft for more than 100 connected devices.
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How I became a mesh Wi-Fi die-hard
Coping with the realities of a full-sized home
When I was an Austin apartment-dweller, Wi-Fi coverage was a non-issue. I’m sure some rooms had better reception than others, but no device ever struggled much, even as I added devices like smart TVs into the mix, and my now-wife moved in. If anything, I was more concerned about internet providers – there was more impact in switching from Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum) to Grande Communications than anything else I was doing on my network. I stuck with standalone routers for a while.
The turning point came when my wife and I bought our first house. Simultaneously, I started testing smart home accessories, and some of these just did not behave as expected. The problematic ones had weak performance, or got kicked off Wi-Fi entirely from time to time. It was driving me up the wall. It’s one thing if your phone temporarily loses Wi-Fi, since it can always connect to cellular. If your doorbell goes down, you might miss an important package – or robbers.
It’s hard to overstate how important mesh tech can be in a multi-floor house.
That’s when I realized our home likely had dead zones, or at least areas that might as well be dead. Enter the Nest Wifi, which ensured that both floors of our house had decent signal. As a bonus, the system’s satellite router doubled as a Google Assistant speaker. Our son absolutely loved messing with this once he became old enough to understand “OK Google” commands (and stopped saying “Gooble”).
It’s hard to overstate how important mesh tech can be in a multi-floor house. There’s just no getting around the signal drop changing floors seems to cause. Some devices may continue to work fine, of course, but anything that’s bandwidth-hungry or on the fringe is probably going to suffer. Certainly, I wouldn’t want to try 4K streaming or online action games if a standalone router was both a floor down and on the opposite side of my house – Wi-Fi wasn’t always perfect on my gaming PC, even when it was several feet away.
The Nest Wifi didn’t fix things completely. As I discovered, because the product was based on Wi-Fi 5, it was periodically kicking devices offline anyway to make space for new connections. The only solution was to upgrade to something with Wi-Fi 6 or 6E, which can tolerate a lot more simultaneous traffic.
When I bought the Eero Pro 6E in 2022, it was ludicrously expensive. It still is, really – a two-pack is $400, and a three-pack is $550. But now my home is completely covered, and the only smart home issues I have are related to specific devices and platforms. Apple HomeKit in particular seems to decide at a whim which devices it will see and when, despite the fact that my wife and I have accumulated multiple Home Hubs in the form of HomePods and Apple TV 4Ks. Amazon Alexa and Google Home do just fine, as do apps like LIFX and Philips Hue.
I bought the Pro 6E with the idea of making my home as bulletproof as possible, and indeed, I can’t see myself upgrading to a new system for a few more years. Each router even acts as a Matter controller and a Thread border device, so there shouldn’t be any concern with expanding my smart home accessories, apart from HomeKit support.
Here’s how I built a Matter smart home
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Are there any downsides to mesh systems versus standalone routers?
It’s not just the price tag
I’ve already addressed the issue of cost, but an adjunct to that is that if you don’t need the extra coverage mesh systems provide, you may be unnecessarily sacrificing performance to find an affordable bundle. The best standalone routers max out a Wi-Fi spec’s bandwidth, and offer a healthy selection of ports, including four or more Ethernet jacks for wired internet access. Each of my Eero routers is limited to a single USB-C port for power, and two Ethernet jacks, only one of which is rated at 2.5Gbps instead of 1Gbps. That’s fine for me – but you might be disappointed if you were looking to use USB drives or printers, or avoid buying a switch to handle multiple devices in the same room.
If you don’t need the extra coverage mesh systems provide, you may be unnecessarily sacrificing performance to find an affordable bundle.
Mesh routers also tend to merge all of their wireless bands (2.4GHz, 5GHz, and/or 6GHz) under a single SSID (network ID). This is preferable in most scenarios, as it allows devices to drift seamlessly from router to router. “Most situations” is the operative term, though – 2.4GHz-only devices can sometimes get lost in the shuffle, especially older smart home accessories. Standalone routers offer the choice of separate SSIDs for different bands, and you might get a more reliable setup if you can force all of your devices onto the bands they’re most suited to. I should note that trouble isn’t guaranteed, it’s just something to be prepared for.
Ultimately, then, how do you know which path to take? I’d suggest apartment dwellers automatically go the standalone route. Beyond that, a mesh system should at least be on your shortlist, since even a bungalow may benefit if its floor plan is wide enough. I also find that except for extreme scenarios like downloading a 50GB PC game, I don’t need the peak bandwidth modern routers have to offer – it’s more important to have a consistently present connection. As far as ports are concerned, Ethernet switches are dirt cheap these days.
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