Top

The Best Wi-Fi Mesh-Networking Systems

A mesh network extends Wi-Fi to all corners of your home by using multiple plug-in boxes generically called mesh nodes or extenders. These nodes pass and repeat Wi-Fi around signal-blocking materials such as masonry walls or metal doors, or bring Wi-Fi service to parts of your home that are out of range of a single standalone router.

What’s the difference between a regular Wi-Fi router and a mesh router?

A regular or standalone router sends data packets (streaming videos, music, Slack messages, etc.) from a central location in your home to all your wired (Ethernet) and wireless (Wi-Fi) devices.

A mesh network is usually a system of two to four boxes—usually sold together—that work together to relay the Wi-Fi signal around your house or business. Those boxes might be called mesh routers, mesh extenders, satellites, or nodes, depending on the manufacturer.

You’d want to use a mesh network if the Wi-Fi signals from a single router are too weak to reach all the corners of your home.

What’s the difference between a standard Wi-Fi extender and a mesh network?

A Wi-Fi extender, or signal booster, is a relatively simple device that receives Wi-Fi signals from your router, and then repeats them to a laptop, tablet, streaming box, or other device in a dead zone in your home, and vice versa.

Extenders are best used when you have a small area in your home that doesn’t receive a good connection to your standalone router.

If you have several dead zones in your home and are willing to spend more money to ensure the speed and quality of the Wi-Fi signal in those dead zones, a mesh network is a better solution.

Here are a few terms that describe the various parts of a mesh network:

Router or base unit: This is the device you set up first. It connects to your home’s internet (via an Ethernet connection to a cable modem or the gateway router) and broadcasts Wi-Fi.

Mesh node or satellite: These are the devices that connect back to your router (or another node) to extend that network and provide a more reliable Wi-Fi connection over a greater area. Most systems come with one or two of them. Sometimes they are physically identical to the base unit, sometimes they aren’t.

Access point: An access point provides a Wi-Fi connection to your devices but passes all its data back to the main router via an Ethernet cable to be sorted. If Ethernet is an option in your home, you should use wired access points rather than wireless mesh.

Wi-Fi range extender: Wi-Fi range extenders (also known as Wi-Fi signal boosters) are less expensive than mesh nodes but are also slower and less capable. A range extender will generally create a second network name (SSID) when you set it up.

SSID or network name: An SSID is the fancy term for a Wi-Fi network’s name.

Bands and channels: A dual-band mesh system communicates with devices on two sets of radio frequencies (aka bands), 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, while a tri-band system has an extra 5 GHz (or 6 GHz) band that can help with communication between the router and satellites.

2.4 GHz versus 5 GHz versus 6 GHz: The 2.4 GHz band is slower but is compatible with more devices and can reach farther and through walls better. The 5 GHz band is faster but has a shorter range. And 6 GHz is potentially even faster but may have an even shorter range.

Dedicated backhaul: Dedicated wireless backhaul is a wireless band that serves only the communication between the router and its nodes, not the connection to computers, phones, or other devices. Some mesh networks can use Ethernet wires as a backhaul, which is even faster.

Wi-Fi 6 (aka 802.11ax): The 802.11ax protocol, also known as Wi-Fi 6, will replace the current 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) protocol over the next year or two the same way 802.11ac replaced 802.11n nearly a decade ago.

Some improvements will help with overall speed, but we’re most interested in improvements like MU-MIMO and OFDMA—clunky acronyms that ultimately should make Wi-Fi better at managing busy home networks full of computers, phones, streaming boxes, smart devices, and the like.

These technologies tout new capabilities to help avoid interference in dense areas where neighboring networks fight one another. Wi-Fi 6E is an extension of Wi-Fi 6 technology, using the 6 GHz radio bands mentioned above.

Wi-Fi 7 (aka 802.11be) is the newest of the Wi-Fi technologies. Like Wi-Fi 6E, it uses the 6 GHz radio band in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio bands. Wi-Fi 7 promises to improve throughput and bandwidth by widening the radio channels (320 MHz channels), more efficiently packing those channels with data (4K QAM), allowing connections on two separate channels simultaneously (MLO), and being able to transfer data in unused portions of an otherwise congested channel (Multi-RU puncturing). We’ll of course test these claims when Wi-Fi 7 laptops become available, but suffice to say Wi-Fi 7 is engineered to increase speeds and function efficiently in an increasingly crowded wireless environment.