By the end, I ran 120 speed tests for each system - two separate sets of 15 tests each in the morning, daytime and evening hours to give me the most accurate averages possible for each system, plus two more sets of 15 speed tests with just the router working on its own.Īgain, Nest did well, but in this real-world environment, it was much closer. So, I took each system home, set them each up on my network, and then ran lots and lots of speed tests in five different spots around my house. Specifically, I wanted to get a good sense of how these mesh routers performed when used as intended in an actual home setting. Most of them also cost $200-$400 more than Nest Wifi costs, although the Netgear Nighthawk system actually costs less than Nest Wifi.īut again, we've got more tests to look at. Each of them supports Wi-Fi 6, which explains the higher top transfer speeds. That meant we had more testing to do.Īnd then there are the systems to the left of Nest Wifi in that chart. At long ranges like that, these multipoint systems expect to be routing your traffic through a second device. Don't be too quick to write Eero off, though. Eero, on the other hand, offers three identical devices, any one of which can serve as the system's router. It's an interesting disparity, especially given that Nest and Netgear each feature designated routers that are distinct from the range extenders. That's a solid number for a single mesh device, but speeds fell off considerably at medium and long range. Meanwhile, a single Eero was able to transfer data at just under 500Mbps at close range. That gave it a faster overall average across all three distances that we tested. With top measured speeds of 612Mbps, the standalone Nest Wifi Router wasn't quite as fast at the Netgear Orbi AC1200 router was at close range, but it was noticeably faster in the medium- and long-range tests. Nest did well in this test - and better than any other Wi-Fi 5 mesh router we've tested to date. And, by running our speed tests at multiple distances, we get a look at each router's range, too. That shows us how fast each router can transfer data without any of the extra variables that you get when you're pulling data from the cloud. Then, we use a second laptop connected to the router's wireless network to download data from the MacBook. For this test, we wire each system's router to a MacBook Pro that we use as a local server. We started by taking a look at each system's top transfer speeds. Meanwhile, a single Eero's top speeds plummeted at distances greater than 30 feet. When testing a single device from each system, the Netgear Orbi was the fastest at close range, but the Nest Wifi router performed better at a distance, which gave it the best overall average in this top speed test.
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