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Wi-Fi mesh systems are ideal for users with little or no technical knowledge. They can be installed in minutes and typically come with a user-friendly mobile app that walks you through the installation process with easy-to-follow illustrated instructions. And their prices are coming down, too. As a rule, we’re happy with anything over 120Mbits/sec (15MB/sec). To put that into context, Netflix recommends a connection speed of at least 5Mbits/sec for HD streaming and 25Mbits/sec for 4K video. A good, solid Wi-Fi network should easily be fast enough to cope with multiple simultaneous high-resolution video streams.
Most mesh Wi-Fi kits come with a smartphone app – for both Android and iOS – that walks you through the setup process. You can then continue to use the smartphone app to monitor and manage your mesh system. A web portal is sometimes available too, but it may not expose all of the available settings. Modem: The vast majority of providers combine their modems and routers so you won’t have two separate devices. In short, a modem is the device which actually connects your network to the internet. Modem is a portmanteau of the words ‘modulator’ and ‘demodulator’. It turns one signal into another signal. For example, it turns digital data of a computer into the analogue signal of a telephone line. This is why you used to have to connect your internet to the phone line. Whereas range extenders communicate with the router via the 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio bands, most Wi-Fi system satellites use mesh technology to talk to the router, and to each other. Each node serves as a hop point for other nodes in the system, which helps the nodes farthest from the router to deliver a strong Wi-Fi signal as they talk to other nodes and don't rely on one-to-one communications with the router. One of the reasons why I liked the Deco best was because of these extra controls. TP Link have found the right balance between offering a wide range of content and making it simple enough to find everything you need. The app is easy to use and never cluttered.Please configure the DHCP server on the extender if the IP of the extender is any following three cases.
Normally, we have 3 connection status: Disconnected/Connecting/Connected. When it says Disconnected, proceed with Part 4; Connecting, Part 5; Connected, Part 6. To test network performance, we use a laptop equipped with an Intel Wi-Fi 6 network card supporting 2×2 MIMO. We connect this laptop to the extended network, then take it to various areas of the home and copy a standard set of files to and from a NAS appliance, connected by Ethernet to the main router. By measuring the average read and write speeds, and comparing them to those achieved when connecting directly to the router, we can measure how each extender helps Wi-Fi range and performance. It’s very easy to use as well, with setup managed by the superb TP-Link Tether mobile app, which provides access to all the settings you might need.The Magic 2 kit beats the old Magic 1 kit we had in this slot by giving you two high-speed 867Mbits/sec Wi-Fi streams for little more than the price of one, which comes in handy if you’re trying to network two or more devices. Advanced users will appreciate the companion app that shows connection diagnostics, so you can work out where to locate the plugs for the best performance. The web portal, meanwhile, lets you manage your wireless configuration, set up a guest network and apply an operating schedule so that (for example) the extended network is only available during office hours. The newer Wi-Fi 6 kits will give you even more performance if you have Wi-Fi 6 devices, but if not this is a great solution. Other things we liked about the system include the fact that there are four Gigabit Ethernet ports on each unit and that these are located on the rear rather than on the base of the units, making them easier to access. There are basic parental controls here, too, however we didn’t like the way the web interface was laid out. The bigger brother of the lovable RE505X is another compact, plug-in Wi-Fi 6 extender, but with the speeds boosted to meet the AX3000 spec. Similar to its cheaper sibling, this model is easy to set up and configure using TP-Link’s Tether app, and it supports OneMesh technology for seamless roaming around the house. If you have a compatible TP-Link router, it can even set up the RE700X while in this mode. Still, they work just fine and are just as simple to set up as the rest of the mesh networks on here (though the app is weird and doesn’t seem to have been written by someone with a great grasp of English.)
If the extender has advanced features, we’ll also factor these into our review; we’ll thoroughly explore the configuration portal to see how responsive and user-friendly it is, and, if the unit has an Ethernet port, we may test network performance over a wired connection. On the face of it, it’s business as usual. Setup is no different to the other mesh networks I’ve already described and the app is easy to use and offers you a lot of control over your WiFi. In theory you could hook up a chain of WiFi repeaters to be able to extend your signal to the ends of the Earth. In practice if you use more than one, you’ll probably lose so much signal between the two that the exercise would be pointless.
The tagline TP Link are using for the Deco mesh system is ‘paint your home in Wi-Fi’, which is a pretty fair assessment of the technology. Want to paint an extra room in WiFi? Buy another node. Wish you hadn’t painted the kid’s room in WiFi? Take the node away. There are two types of Wi-Fi range extenders: desktop and plug-in. Most desktop extenders look just like a wireless router and are typically equipped with external adjustable antennas, multiple LAN ports for connecting to devices like TVs and gaming consoles, and USB ports for attaching to peripherals such as storage drivesand printers.
However, if you mean boosting the speed of your WiFi, there might not be a lot you can do. Manually changing your WiFi channel or paying for a better tariff from your ISP might help. Different parts of the country get different WiFi speeds and that’s usually just down to infrastructure and whether they’ve got round to installing fibre optic cabling in the area. How far do wireless extenders reach? What really sets the Tenda Nova MW6 apart is its low price. True, the BT Whole Home kit costs a similar amount, but it only functions as an extender, whereas the MW6 is a fully standalone system. That makes it a terrifically cost-effective option if you’re looking to replace an underperforming router and extend your Wi-Fi coverage at the same time.The Deco X20 is a dual-band system supporting 2×2 MIMO, which helps to keep the costs down, but since WiFi 6 is designed to share bandwidth more efficiently across multiple connections, this shouldn’t be a huge problem. Physical connectivity is a tad limited. Each node has only a pair of network ports, there’s no USB sharing, or even a WPS button. For the price, though, the TP-Link Deco X20 is a great system with plenty of features and fast enough speeds for daily life. None of this is particularly unique to TP Link. Most of the mesh networks I tested can do the same or similar things, but TP Link wins in terms of ease-of-use and accessibility.
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