Google Wifi (mesh network) review

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DaveE
Posts: 1421
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 7:19 pm

Google Wifi (mesh network) review

Post by DaveE »

I've been pondering a mesh network for a while now, friends who have them, swear by them, so I thought I'd look into them.

The two favourites for me were the BT one and Google Wifi.

The BT ones seem good value (3 units for about £170), but the "discs" are quite big and ungainly looking IMO.

By comparison, the Google ones look a lot nicer (IMO), they're more expensive (2 units is about £160 on special offer at Curry's, a third has cost me an extra £94 - total of £254, you could have a 4th BT unit for that price). A nice touch though is that the Google ones are USB-C powered, so I could run them from a multi-USB charger, rather than having to have a dedicated mains plug.

Setup is a doddle (the Google Wifi app is very nice and simple). They're certainly not feature rich, but they have the basics that 99% of people would want.

The range/signal between units is very good - full strength connection through multiple brick walls and from ground to first floor in our Victorian house.

Having "whole home" wifi that's a single SSID/password is a real bonus (we had a couple of repeaters, but these are different SSIDs which can become a bit fiddly with mobile devices like phones/iPads etc).

All in all, highly recommended - as a concept (mesh networks) and the Google Wifi product itself
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Jobbo
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Re: Google Wifi (mesh network) review

Post by Jobbo »

I bought the Google Wifi twin pack, but it still wouldn't cover the whole house. However, I liked it so I bought another twin pack which gives me decent coverage throughout the house and outside on the patio. If I'd realised I was going to spend quite so much I'd have probably got the discounted BT Whole Home, but I don't particularly like BT so in a sense, I'm lucky I ended up spending double the amount :lol:

Dead easy to set up, reliable and the nodes look nice enough, though they're fairly big so you need to be cunning to hide them. And I'm getting full speed out of the network everywhere, faster than I had expected from Google's own specs, so no complaints.
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unzippy
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Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 11:02 pm

Re: Google Wifi (mesh network) review

Post by unzippy »

Jobbo wrote: Mon Sep 03, 2018 5:03 pm but it still wouldn't cover the whole house.
#humblebrag ;)
The Evo forum really is a shadow of its former self. I remember when the internet was for the elite and now they seem to let any spastic on

IaFG Down Under Division
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