NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — These days nothing perhaps is more annoying than having a WiFi dead zone in your home. So what do you do? Jennifer Kraus has the answer!
Chris Patterson and his family spent years struggling with their WiFi.
“The router for our house is on one side of the house, while most of the time we’re on the other side of the house. It was kind of getting hard to use the WiFi without being in the living room,” Patterson said.
But that all changed when they got a mesh network.
“It changed the WiFi completely—all of a sudden now it worked everywhere in the house,” he said.
What’s the magic of a mesh router?
It’s actually pretty simple: mesh networks use several routers together to spread the WiFi signal throughout your home and around obstacles.
“Some common items include a fish tank, a big metal refrigerator, and the pipes in your home," Nicholas De Leon said. "These can all sort of block the WiFi signal and prevent you from getting a decent connection.”
Consumer Reports tests routers for what matters most: how fast they send a WiFi signal from several distances and data privacy and security.
These mesh networks from Linksys and TP-Link aced all of Consumer Reports distance tests. They can be set up using an app and have automatic firmware updates to help protect you and your data online.
They both support WiFi 6. But even a mesh network that uses the older WiFi 5 may feel like an upgrade from your old router. And it’ll save you some money.
“Everything is backwards compatible. So, if you buy a brand new iPhone today, which has the latest WiFi chip in there, it's gonna work fine with the WiFi 5 router,” De Leon said.
Like the Google Nest WiFi. Consumer Reports experts say it’s great for small or medium-sized houses. It also has automatic firmware updates and can be set up using an app.
It’s what Chris has in his home. And now he says there’s no going back.
Want to spend even less money? Consumer Reports says a WiFi extender can be useful in some situations, especially if you have just one dead spot in your home. They can cost $50 or less.
