Rabeea Malik

Google Wi-Fi Router Review Mesh networking seems to be the fashionable home tech of 2017. Google Wifi router arrived a bit late as other impressive products such as Linksys Velop, Netgear Orbi, and the home-grown Whole Home kit have already marked the spot, though, better late than never. As it turns out, Google may have churned out the best Wi-Fi mesh system to date and crafted a system that provides more mesh units than competitors for far less management and focus on system. If you want to extend fast internet to every corner of your home, then the Google Wifi router is the best device to do it. It requires two things: an internet connected Android or iOS device such as a phone or a tablet and a Google account which is absolutely free to get. Unlike most routers, the Google Wifi router doesn’t feature web-based interface and it can only be set up and controlled by the new Google Wifi mobile application. Once set up, it will stay connected to Google all the time and each time you want to manage it, it will log into your Google account. According to Google, the Google Wifi router doesn’t collect any user activity data regarding the sites you are visiting. It only appears to collect network, hardware or app related information, by default. You can also turn this off in the Privacy section of the settings. For Google wifi router, you will need a constant internet connection that may be deal-breaker for some. All home mesh Wi-Fi systems using several satellites to extend the Wi-Fi signal don’t demand a connection to the vendor in order to work such as the Eero requires while the Netgear Orbi doesn’t. And most home routers don’t require this at all. This is not something most people will care about because being connected all the time carry on regular updates which prevents device from being hacked. In the end, it all depends on the personal preference, but if you are cool with this setup. The Google Wifi router balances the ease-of-use, performance and price best. Price and availability: Google doesn’t ask for a lot of money for what it has to offer. Google Wifi costs $299 for a set of three units which includes one primary Wifi Point that you can hook up to the modem or gateway and the other two secondary Wifi Points. In the UK, Google Wifi is available with a two unit set at the cost of £229. You can have a single Wifi unit for $129 but what’s the point in having just one since it doesn’t offer any better coverage than an 802.11ac router. The mesh-system benefit comes in having two or more. Google promises that three Google Wifi Points can cover up to 4,500 square feet in a home. Of course, Google Wifi is not alone. At the end of 2016 and the start of 2017, a clutch of similar systems appear probably sparked by Google’s entrance into the market. The Netgear Orbi appeared first, at £369, and then came BT Whole Home Wi-Fi at £300 and the Linksys Velop at £300 for two nodes and £500 for three. Google offers more units for less cost than any competitor and the Google Wifi looks pretty good in terms of value. Design: Each Google Wifi router is small. With a diameter of 4.1 inches and a height of 2.7 inches, it can be easily hidden on a shelf or a window sill. It is tiny as compared to the Netgear Orbi’s 8.9 inch tall base station and is more on par with the 3.9 inch cube router of Ubiquiti Network’s AmpliFi HD. Similar to the AmpliFi HD, each Google Wifi has an LED ring to show its status. You can turn off the LED or even dim it. It glows bluish-white when things are fine, but it changes to amber if internet connection severs. However, it lacks the 1.6 inch touch screen that AmpliFi HD has or the ability to act as a visual network monitor or a clock. Features and Setup: Google Wifi router doesn’t look quite as impressive as its key rival, but that doesn’t mean it is detrimental. Where the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi units are 4×4 stream, tri-band routers each and offer connection speeds of up to 1,733 MB/s on each 5GHz network, the Google Wi-Fi Points are merely 2×2 stream, dual-band units that are capable of connecting at up to 1,200MB/s across a single 5GHz band. Each Google Wifi unit comes with a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports that are built into a cavity in the base to attach to your existing network or to attach wired devices, though, it is better than the single port of the BT unit. Power is supplied using a USB Type-C power adapter. The setup of the Google Wifi is as sublime as its hardware design. The first step includes the downloading of the Google Wifi app on your phone or tablet which navigates you through the setup process step by step. The Google Wifi router doesn’t have built-in modem here, so you have to attach it to an existing router or modem via supplied Ethernet cable. When done that and also run through the rest of setup in the app which is available for both iOS and Android, you are taken through the steps to add extra units, and this is also pretty straightforward. That is all for a setup. You might have to disable Wi-Fi on the existing router to interference to a minimum or restart it to complete the setup. Otherwise you can leave the system to its own devices. The unit will automatically download and install firmware updates, so you don’t need to keep check on this. And since Google Wifi is designed to automatically adapt to the surrounding network environment, you don’t need to keep check on that. Google Wifi router does this via a dedicated sensing radio that scans the surrounding wireless environments and find out which channels are least congested and also hop from one to another to maintain a consistently strong signal. Google Wifi also uses machine learning in the cloud to improve over time. Hashed and secured information about different wireless signals, interference and congestion is sent to Google’s server about in your local area and then a schedule is calculated and sent back to the system. By doing this, Google Wifi proactively switches channels based on the time of the day and day of the week. It is clever but Google Wifi is also a mesh networking system and uses a host of other tricks within the home to make sure your devices maintain a strong network signal. The Google Wifi router features band steering which is used to seamlessly switch client devices between 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks, depending on the signal strength. Many 802.11ac wave 2 routers use this technique. Client steering is another important feature that Google Wifi router has. It is used to make sure that each device is connected to the unit with the strongest signal. Client steering enables Google Wifi to disconnect a device from one node gently and then encourage it to reconnect to another node with a stronger signal. Normally, devices hold on to a signal until it disconnects or user forces this by switching Wi-Fi off and then on again. Therefore, client steering is not only an important feature but it also works very well. Built around 2×2 MIMO technology, the Google Wifi system offers a theoretical maximum performance of 1.2Gbps. Arranged around each device’s circumference is an array of five antennas (one Bluetooth and four Wi-Fi). Its coverage and reliability is great. Each Google Wifi unit is rated to cover 1,500 square feet which is more than enough for small houses and most apartments. Theoretically, three Google Wifi routers can cover a 4,500 square feet home. And to cover extra real estate, you can connect up to four satellites resulting in five broadband points in total. When units are acting as extenders rather than routers, you can use both Ethernet port to connect local devices of to connect directly to the router unit, in case you have enough cable to hardwire the nodes. And if you have a combination modem/router, you will have to disable its router functions to use Google Wifi. Google Wifi doesn’t feature a USB 2.0 port to hook it up to a storage drive or a local printer. If you use such a device, you will need to trade up to a networked one. You can set any of the Google Wifi unit as a router in a mesh-system configuration, because each Google Wifi unit is physically identical. Google Wifi is also backward-compatible with the OnHub, Google’s earlier router, therefore one or more Google Wifi units can be added as a node for extending an OnHub’s range. App: Unlike most routers and wireless systems, you can’t administer Google Wifi router using a browser, instead you can do this using the app. This could be a but annoying as the app forces you to sign into Google account before you can use it, as not everyone has a Google account and also this is not fair in case you just want to plug in and connect to the internet in a hurry. But fortunately, this app is a pretty good one and provides you plenty of useful, accessible features and also a bunch of more advanced things for those who want to tinker. It also includes both a 0800 telephone number and an email address for technical support. This is something that few of its rivals offer. The app initially uses Bluetooth to connect smartphone or tablet to the Google Wifi units. This allows the app to configure each Wi-Fi point quickly. The app offers simply superb parental controls. The controls allow you to block individual devices manually as well as enable you to apply a schedule to each one or even groups of devices, and this is a technique which Google calls labeling. The app takes the legwork out of setting the schedules by offering a couple of preset schedules: bedtime and homework. You can either customize these or set up your own. The app also contains a couple of network-monitoring tools for you to keep an eye on the system’s performance as a whole. It is split into three sections: device connections, the mesh between nodes and speed tests for your internet connection. It displays your entire home network in an understandable layout. You can utilize the app to quickly prioritize the broadband connection to any particular device, and also to pause the internet to one or a group of devices. By using this you can find out the Wifi Point to which a particular client is connected and you can also customize a few network settings that Google Wifi offers such as IP reservation, guest network and port forwarding. All this can be done via a few taps on the screen of your phone or tablet. You can also prioritize bandwidth to one device at a time and control smart home devices, all from within this app. This is, by far the most elegant and complete suite of control settings from a mesh-network system, despite its lack of toggles and dropdown boxes. Performance: Google Wifi router provides as impressive performance as Netgear Orbi, if not better. It draws the absolute most from your Wi-Fi service. You can stream 4K videos throughout the house very well. Wi-Fi mesh systems like Google Wifi, they focus so much about coverage than about throughput, but this product delivers regardless. Google Wifi’s traffic prioritization feature ensures that your gaming session gets more of that crucial bandwidth than other devices that are using Facebook or streaming HD videos. In addition, the network automatically repairs itself if one or more of the Wifi Point are accidently unplugged or lose power otherwise. Google Wifi operates its mesh system over Wi-Fi bands 2.4 GHz and 5GHz over the 802.11s mesh protocol in spite of Netgear Orbi’s tri-band system that communicates over a second 5GHz band. But that doesn’t create a terrible difference between either’s performance. Orbi offers slightly faster download speeds in MB/s on the 2.4 GHz band over the Google Wifi, but that could also be an anomaly. Coverage for the price that Google Wifi offers is its true benefit over others. It gives you equal amounts of coverage in pure square footage compared to competing systems with fewer units. But the versatility it provides in having more units in terms of shoring up dead spots can’t be ignored. Ideal Use case: Make sure your current internet setup is ready for Google Wifi, before you decide to get it. Ideally, you will want to use the Google Wifi router as the sole router in the house connected directly to your broadband modem. If you own a router already, replace it with Google Wifi router and if you have a combo box including a modem and a Wi-Fi router in a single package, return the box and get the modem only. When you connect Google Wifi router to an existing router and use the internet that way, there are some advanced features such as port-forwarding that will not work. And also devices connected to the Wifi as well as those connected to the network of the original router will not be able to communicate with each other, for instance, you might not be able to beam your phone screen to a Chromecast or an Apple TV. In this case, make sure all of your devices are connected to Google Wifi. Google Wifi can also be used in bridge mode, letting devices connected to it to be part of the existing network. In this case, however, all of the features that make it unique and cool would be disabled. Caption for Savvy users: At the thought of setting up a router, if you break out in hives, skip this section, as this one is for those who feel at home with terms like “DDNS” and “port forwarding”. Google Wifi comes with two shortcomings making it less useful for advanced and savvy users, which are as follows: Limited Customization: One shortcoming is the lack of customization and features. The things you are used to doing with your regular router, Google Wifi will not allow you that. Naming a few: there is no MAC filtering. It also doesn’t support for Dynamic DNS (DDNS) which allows you to map your internet address to an easy to remember name. It is must if you want to run any sort of online service at home, such as remote desktop or VPN server. Also you will not be able to change router’s default IP address to match your existing network’s IP pool. Simply, if you are into doing some deep network setting customization on your routers, then prepare yourself to get frustrated by the simple but shallow options that Google Wifi offers. Mentioning another thing, Google Wifi features just one LAN port, which means if you want to add more wired clients to your home, you will require a switch for that. Signal Loss: Another shortcoming is the signal loss. When you extend a Wi-Fi signal wirelessly, it always results in some 50% signal loss as the extender has to work out two tasks at one, including receiving the Wi-Fi signal from the original router and then rebroadcasting it. If you use two units of Google Wifi, your devices that are connected to the satellite unit will need double the time compared to the devices connected to the main router, in order to receive same amount of data. And this could get even worse if you use three Google Wifi Points. The signal loss will not matter if you want to use the internet since Wi-Fi is much faster than most residential broadband connections. On the other hand, if you want to do heavy duty tasks such as transferring files from one computer to another, or backing up your Mac to a Time Machine server, the Google Wifi is not the best choice. If your internet speed is faster than 200Mbps and want to use that at full speed, then don’t use Google Wifi or any other wireless Wi-Fi systems. Do’s and don’ts for getting Google Wifi: If your internet speed is slower than 250Mbps and you find your residential connections are slower than half of that, give Google Wifi a try. If you don’t want to do tricky things to set up your router and to understand weird networking terms and on the other hand, you are also planning to stream movies along with doing other normal internet stuff and want to bring internet to each nook and corner of your large home, Google Wifi will not disappoint you. Thumb up to its price alone, which makes it easy to recommend over other home mesh systems. Contrary to above, if you want to customize your router deeply or don’t want your home to get connected to Google at all times and also you have a lot of wired clients such as desktop computers, servers and so on, keep a distance from Google Wifi. Similarly, as mentioned earlier, if you have ultrafast internet speeds 200Mbps or faster and need fast local network speed, be careful what you wish for, in the case of Google Wifi, as signal loss might cause you to compromise full internet speed at far corners. If you find yourself somewhere in the second category, don’t lose your heart as there are other options to consider, such as Netgear Orbi which will give you speed and customization at one place, albeit at a higher price, or Asus RT-AC88U, a regular router that will give you more network ports. Verdict: Google Wifi is not designed to be used alone, and why use it alone when it offers much more than that. It is designed as a mesh system and it is very good at that. Google Wifi is incredibly easy to use and set up. Its app is also brilliant, offering the right amount of balance between ease of use and the control over advanced features.