Is Mesh the Answer?

 When I bought my previous router in 2019, Mesh and Wi-Fi 6 were all the rage. I got a router with neither technology. I wasn't sure if any of my peripheral devices supported Wi-Fi 6, and I had previously done fine with traditional routers, so didn't think Mesh was needed. Plus routers with these technologies cost more. I went with the traditional wi-fi router and it has worked fine until a few months ago, when it did what routers tend to do - drop signal. I typically get 4-5 years out my routers before signals start to drop. This time it happened before 3 years had gone by. Streaming issues in the basement is what we experienced this time. I'm using a range extender because of previous issues in the basement, which seemed to help temporarily. But it got to the point where we were rebooting the range extender, then rebooting the router, and trying to connect to one of the 6 networks that now existed in our house, that I thought it was time to upgrade our router.

In this age of wireless devices and streaming, the home router is one of the most important pieces of tech in your home. With this being said, you want to get a good one. However, they are very difficult to research. Despite being somewhat intelligent about home tech, even I have a hard time understanding the difference between them. Reviews can be deceiving because someone can give a router a bad review simply because they couldn't get it hooked up, which may or may not be the routers fault. 

With all of this confusion surrounding routers, I did what I typically do in these situations. I bought one that was middle of the road on price, and one that generally got favorable reviews. I decided to get a Mesh system this time. Our house isn't huge, but it is spread over 3 levels and the basement is a common struggle for consistent streaming. Our main router is on the main level, so I was thinking that routers aren't great at broadcasting below their location. I don't actually know that for sure, but it makes sense to have a device broadcasting the network as close as possible to where it is needed. The system I got has three nodes, one for each level of the house. It was simple to set up and I like that I only have one network to connect to now, instead of multiple that existed with my previous router which caused confusion, mostly for the internet of things.

It's impossible to judge how well a router is working after only a few days of use, because all new routers are going to work well. I can say that I have fiber optic and pay for 100 Mbps down. Previously when doing internet speed tests on my PS4 & 5, I would get around 30 Mbps. When I tested this with my new Mesh system, I got 85 Mbps. Quite an improvement! The real judge of success will be how the system performs over the long haul, however. I'm hoping to get more than 3 years out of this system.