Should you switch to a Wi-Fi 7 mesh router? My home testing reveals what got better (and what didn't)

Tenda BE5100 3-Pack Mesh Wi-Fi System

pros and cons

Pros

• Makes mesh Wi-Fi casual to acceptable up
• App offers pro-grade features, specified arsenic diagnostics
• Excellent hardware with Wi-Fi 7 enactment for a fraction of the terms of immoderate systems.

Cons

• Units consciousness a spot inexpensive and "plasticky."
• Spare outer units retail for $100 each.

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There's thing much frustrating than sitting connected your sofa oregon astatine your table and noticing a limited Wi-Fi signal. I don't cognize astir you, but I've been seen with my telephone successful my outstretched arm, doing thing that looks similar a weird yoga pose, trying to get a amended signal. 

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Back successful the day, the solution I'd instrumentality backmost onto would beryllium to acceptable up a repeater oregon hook up different Wi-Fi router to dispersed the signal. Not a large solution due to the fact that it didn't let for a creaseless handover betwixt the antithetic routers. I besides dabbled with Wi-Fi extenders of each sorts. 

Yeah, they were mostly a discarded of money. Even the ones that worked didn't enactment each that well. The extenders often made a bully net transportation bad, and a mediocre transportation terrible.

But determination wasn't overmuch of an alternate because, backmost then, I didn't person a Tenda BE5100 3-pack Mesh Wi-Fi System.

The mesh advantage

Mesh Wi-Fi brings the aged thought of Wi-Fi extenders into the modern age. You person a main unit, and past satellites that you dot astir the place. They each stock the aforesaid Wi-Fi name, and the handoff betwixt the antithetic satellites arsenic you determination from country to country is creaseless and seamless. 

One occupation is that galore of the mesh systems that I've tested are expensive. Some units person been $500 oregon more. They're bully systems for sure, damn good, but that's a batch of wealth to enactment down.

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This outgo is wherefore I've been connected the lookout for prime mesh systems that don't outgo the earth. And this is precisely what the BE5100 (also called the ME6 Pro) offers. You get 3 units, each packed with 5 interior antennas and 5 autarkic high-power FEMs (Front-End Modules), offering super-fast connectivity susceptible of handling broadband speeds up to 2,000 Mbps and Wi-Fi speeds of 688 Mbps astatine 2.4 GHz and 4,323 Mbps astatine 5 GHz. 

And yes, for those who similar to beryllium astatine the cutting edge, this strategy is Wi-Fi 7 compatible, truthful you're future-proofed. For those with galore devices astatine home, specified arsenic modern households that person embraced the Internet of Things, immoderate web you physique utilizing the BE5100 tin grip implicit 160 devices.

Yes, determination are Ethernet ports connected the backmost of the satellites.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET

Not a numbers person? You tin remainder assured that this capableness is much than capable for dozens of devices to watercourse videos, marque video calls, backmost up files to NAS boxes, and doomscroll endless feline videos. 

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The mean location oregon tiny bureau setup would beryllium hard-pressed to saturate this network.  

Blanket coverage

The 3 units are capable to flood an country of 6,600 quadrate feet, which is simply a beauteous large home. I've tested this setup successful an aged chromatic location with walls up to 3 feet thick, and the 3 units could broad the full two-story location with fantabulous net access, which the inexpensive router bundled with the broadband bundle failed astatine miserably. 

The Tenda app offers a batch of powerfulness and power implicit the web you create. 

Screenshot by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET

One drawback with galore mesh systems is that they tin beryllium analyzable to acceptable up, and it's not agelong earlier they commencement asking you astir things similar IP addresses. While a tiny magnitude of setup is required with the BE5100, the Tenda app (iOS/Android) guides you done the process, making it a reasonably swift process. And if you messiness up, you tin ever commencement again. 

Also: Traditional Wi-Fi router vs. mesh: How to determine betwixt the 2 fashionable networking options

Once you acceptable up 1 portion arsenic your main unit, meshing the others is simply a lawsuit of pressing the mesh fastener for a fewer seconds and utilizing the app to adhd the outer to the network.

NFC and diagnostics

Another chill small diagnostic of this strategy is that the kit comes with a tiny self-adhesive NFC tag. Once you've acceptable up a network, you tin usage the Tenda app to constitute the web details to the tag, making it casual for others to link to the network. I don't retrieve different router app having this feature.

A sidenote here, though -- the app doesn't write-protect the tag (this is truthful you tin rewrite it astatine a aboriginal day if the web settings change), truthful idiosyncratic with sick intent could messiness with the tag and rewrite it. My proposal would beryllium to use an app to password-protect the tag successful a concern mounting to forestall unauthorized changes. 

The writable NFC tag is simply a bully touch.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET

Another diagnostic of the strategy that I admit a batch is the app's diagnostics. For those times erstwhile something's broken, this diagnostic ever delivers. I threw immoderate simulated errors astatine the network, and it picked them up and offered fixes.  

Performance-wise, the portion was adjacent to what I expected. My bureau broadband is simply a decent 150 Mbps fibre line, but that's thing for a strategy similar this. So I had to bring retired the large guns -- my Starlink dish. When acceptable up properly, this crockery tin execute download speeds of 400 to 500 Mbps. 

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This is lone a 4th of the 2,000 Mbps that the BE5100 tin handle, but it's a decent load. The strategy had nary problems handling this bandwidth and did a bully occupation of distributing it among the network's devices. 

I loaded the web utilizing 4K video streams from some Netflix and YouTube. I was capable to get a twelve streams moving simultaneously (my MacBook Pro was a champ astatine handling 8 streams earlier Chrome's RAM usage went crazy), and I estimation I could person had different fractional a twelve streams going.

I past decided to spot however the Wi-Fi would grip dense usage, truthful I pushed arsenic overmuch information arsenic I could crossed the trial web I acceptable up, by moving information to and from 2 of my Ugreen DH4300 4-bay NAS boxes and a Ugreen DXP8800 Plus. 

The DH4300 tin lone grip astir 300 Mbps per network, which is conscionable inheritance noise, but the DXP8800 Plus is precise susceptible and tin grip a monolithic 20,000 Mbps crossed its 2 gigabit Ethernet ports. The Wi-Fi web had nary occupation moving a 30GB trial record successful nether 100 seconds. I was thoroughly impressed with the results.

ZDNET's buying advice

After investigating the router strategy astatine my home, I'm not definite I tin spell backmost to accepted Wi-Fi 6 routers. The velocity quality is noticeable, particularly successful my enactment of work. But I tin besides accidental that astir households apt don't request this level of hardware and bandwidth -- not now, astatine least.

Normally priced astatine $220, the Tenda BE5100 3-Pack Mesh Wi-Fi System is competitively priced. Right now, there's a woody connected astatine Amazon wherever you tin prime up a three-pack strategy for $190. 

If you've got a smaller abstraction to screen with signal, there's a 2-pack connected connection for $140, bully for up to 4,600 quadrate feet. If you don't request 3 units, there's nary constituent paying for them (but if you request to adhd another, that'll beryllium $100, truthful don't marque the incorrect choice).