- Hey everybody, you are watching "WhistleOut TV"
to get a review on this bad boy,
the ARRIS SURFboard mAX 6600 Wi-Fi Mesh system
for Wi-Fi 6.
Today, I am going to be unboxing this bad boy for you
and we'll be telling you about the setup
and showing you how to set up your own system.
Then we'll be doing a quick review
and let you know how the system is working for me so far
I've been using it for two weeks,
and honestly, it's pretty awesome.
(upbeat music)
And if you've noticed my background is pretty blank
that's because I recently moved,
but I am in the process of getting an awesome set
set up behind me.
So, be sure to like this video
and subscribe and turn the notifications
so you don't miss any more content from me
and so you can see my awesome new background
once they get here (laughing) .
But enough of that,
let's jump into the review of this Mesh system for Wi-Fi 6
and honestly, Oh, it is amazing.
But the first let's get to the basics
We're talking cost.
Now, the product I was sent to test out
came with two routers
or you can choose to buy just one router.
Now I recommend if you're in a big house
maybe bigger than a thousand square feet,
you probably might wanna get two routers,
just to be safe to make sure it covers the whole space.
But the system I got the two routers
it costs $400 on ARRIS' website
or you can buy just a single router for $250 on either site.
Now the better deal for me
is getting the $400 pack on ARRIS.
So just keep that in mind,
if you're maybe wanting to stretch your Wi-Fi signal
a little bit farther than it normally would go.
So what is this system?
What does it do?
Well, it is a Mesh system
which is better than any other Wi-Fi system,
it's just smarter and it helps create
a more seamless transition for Wi-Fi
in every corner of your house.
Now, the two routers I got at ARRIS,
it can spread Wi-Fi to up to 5,500 square feet
inside and outside.
So, this is great for bigger homes
or my home is 2200 square feet
and honestly, one of these wouldn't be enough
we definitely you need two because it's a town home
it's three stories high.
So just getting the signal up is the problem we've faced
and getting two routers solved that problem fully.
So, just so you know, that's my experience
three floors, (murmurs) square feet
I recommend two routers,
And just in general, I think I'd recommend two routers.
Even if you have a small space, just to make sure
that every corner of your house is covered with Wi-Fi.
Now, the other key to this Mesh system
is one is, meshed that's why it's kind of expensive
and the other thing is
that it is Wi-Fi 6 capable, which is awesome.
Wi-Fi 6 is somewhat new and last few years,
Wi-Fi 60 is the new wifi coming out
but we don't have to worry about that right now,
just right now, we are talking Wi-Fi 6.
Now WiFi 6 is the newest generation of Wi-Fi
kind of like 4G and 5G, except it's Wi-Fi 5,
Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 60 so on and so on until we all die.
(laughing)
But Wi-Fi 6 basically is capable
of delivering much faster speeds, but it's not just speeds.
The really impressive thing about Wi-Fi 6
is how effective it is and how much time
and energy it saves getting a signal
to every corner of your house,
it saves battery on your devices
and it's just all around...
It's just a better system than Wi-Fi 5.
And if you wanna learn more about Wi-Fi 6,
I have a video about it up here
that you can check it out, up here.
It's up here
it's definitely up here.
You can check out more about Wi-Fi 6 and 60 up here.
Now, if you're worried that you don't have Wi-Fi 6,
don't worry about it.
Wi-Fi 6 is backwards capable
so it connects to all devices, even if it's not Wi-Fi 6.
So don't even worry your little self there.
Okay, now that I've given you a little bit of background
on the routers themselves, let's get into the setup.
And then the experience I have had using the system,
and if I recommend it or not.
Honestly, the setup was incredibly easy,
like stupid, easy your first grader could do it.
It is very, very simple.
And the reason why it's so simple
is that ARRIS has you download an app with this Mesh system
and it literally walks you through
step by step, by step, what you should do.
And the whole process
of getting my wifi set up took honestly, five minutes.
It did not take much time at all.
And if you feel anxious,
if you're technically challenged like I used to be,
setting up a whole system might feel daunting.
But with this app,
it literally walks you through step by step.
We're showing you some pictures of it on screen right now
about how specific these instructions are,
and how simple ARRIS makes it to set the system up.
So, if we're talking ease of setup here,
I'm gonna give it a 10 out of 10.
We're gonna give it five stars
I don't know the rating system I'm gonna use here.
Let's go...
Let's go with stars.
We're gonna do stars
this is five out of five stars,
ease of set up for this system is awesome.
And now that we're rating things
let's rate the look of these bad boys.
These are attractive,
they are cute,
they are sexy as far as modems and routers go.
So, I'm also giving the look of these five out of five,
they also have a fun blue line on the bottom
which stays lit up, but adds some color to your room
if you like that, I love color.
So yeah, definitely, definitely a five out of five
for the look of these guys.
The other thing I really enjoy about them
is the functionality of these.
So, if they are standing right...
Straight up there is a hole in the back of the stand
where the wires can go in and out.
So you don't have to lay it on its side or anything
It's perfectly capable of housing wires really nicely
so they can just slide in and out perfectly,
So the functionality of these and the look altogether
that's all around the five.
So as far as the general setup goes
with step-by-step instructions on the app
it is very easy, super straightforward and awesome.
But there are a few things you do need extra
to have a successful setup.
Most of the things come in the box like the routers,
the power doctors and the ethernet cable.
And maybe you're wondering why do I need an ethernet cable?
Well, the thing here
is that the system is just a router set,
It doesn't come with a modem.
And for Wi-Fi to properly work you need a modem and router,
or a modem router combo.
These are just the routers.
So you are able to keep your current gateway
or modem router in your home,
and you just have to connect the Mesh system
to your current router or to your current modem,
you use that via the ether net cable.
So, those are just a few things you need
to have a successful setup.
And I will put...
Give a tip for you here when you are setting up
your routers initially,
when you're connecting the ethernet cable
from the ARRIS router to your current modem or gateway
whatever you are using,
just make sure you connect it
into the ethernet port in your current gateway,
and then you just need to connect it
into the WAN port on the ARRIS router.
I made the mistake of connecting it into the LAN
the Local Area Network port,
it is to go into the WAN, the Wide Area Network port.
And so if you do that, you won't run into any problems.
If you connected into the LAN the process won't finish
and you'll be stuck hanging out for five minutes
while you figure out what the heck you messed up.
So, just don't miss that.
Just connect to the ethernet cable from your gateway
into the ARRIS router WAN port.
(bright upbeat music)
And really that's it
that's the end of the setup, then you're done.
The only thing is just right away
the system is not going to be working well (laughing) .
Right away, me and my house and my roommates
we saw much slower speeds than we initially had before,
but then we waited 15 minutes
and the system kind of got acquainted
with the space of the house, I think.
And then after we waited for about 15, 20 minutes
our speeds were impeccable,
they were awesome and now we're getting coverage
all over the house where we were not before.
And when you're setting up the second router
or the satellites,
to help extend your coverage even more
that just needs to be within 15 to 30 feet
of the original router.
So, it can't be like two floors up
it needs to be within a floor to connect
and to successfully send Wi-Fi everywhere else.
It's just make sure
that your distance isn't too far away from the original one.
And then you just need to follow the instructions
on the app once again,
it's really simple, like to do is,
say you wanna add a satellite,
and then we'll add the satellite
give it 15 minutes and we'll be up and running
and you will have more Wi-Fi
than you ever thought possible in all corners of your house.
Just to put this into perspective for you
and how well this router mesh system is working
for our house,
we have Cox Cable Internet
and because of the wiring in our home
we have to have the modem in the garage for now
the gateways in the garage.
The main garage floor level room was getting perfect Wi-Fi.
We paid for a 500 Mbps plan,
they were getting 500 down and 10 up
which is exactly what we paid for it.
The middle floor was a little less strong
we were probably cutting that in half to a third
so we were probably experiencing 250 to 150 Mbps speeds.
And then we came to the third floor, which is my space.
I couldn't even scroll the internet
without it having to buffer anything.
So my Slack Channels weren't loading,
my email wasn't loading, nothing was loading.
So, when we added in the second satellite
and we started up the ARRIS mesh system,
I was getting awesome speeds.
It is not uncommon for me to get 400 to 500 Mbps up here
with 8 to 10 Mbps downloads speeds on the third floor,
which is 40 feet up from the garage.
So, the mesh system definitely improved
the Cox gateway a million times over.
The other thing I love is just the Wi-Fi 6.
There's not many devices in my home that use Wi-Fi 6
but my roommate has a Wi-Fi 6 capable computer
he just built and a Wi-Fi 6 capable cell phone.
And when he connected to the Wi-Fi 6
he got a notification saying
"You are now connected to Wi-Fi 6."
And that just means improved speed.
His theoretical speeds could reach 9.6 gigabits per second
which is how fast Wi-Fi 6 can go.
Wi-Fi 5 theoretical speeds are like 3.5 gigabits per second,
so, he just has great opportunity for fast internet here
if we had that fast (murmurs).
The other awesome thing about this mesh system
is that the two routers have a one gigabit back channel.
So they are constantly communicating with each other
through a back channel that doesn't interfere
with the bandwidth that we are using outside of that.
So, it just makes it more resourceful,
makes it so...
Those guys are communicating,
making sure our devices in the real world
are getting the best possible experience,
possible and the best data speeds possible.
One other thing that's pretty awesome about this mesh system
is that you can set up a guest network,
and it's really easy and simple to do.
And when people are on this guest network,
it doesn't super blow up your own bandwidth.
So it kind of separates them
it makes two separate networks.
If you don't like someone,
just give them the guests network
and it will be a little bit slower (laughing) .
Another really awesome thing about this mesh system
is that it connects with your smart speakers.
So, if you go through the process
of connecting your smart speakers to the Metro system,
you can tell someone,
"Hey, connect Janet's phone to the internet."
Or "Hey, Alexa connects Dan's phone to the guest network."
And it will do it automatically.
So it has the potential to create a really smart atmosphere
inside your home, which is pretty impressive.
And the last thing that I love,
love love love about this mesh system
is the ease of the app,
and how you can see the inner workings
of the network in your home.
So the app really allows you to do...
It allows you to do speed tests,
it allows you to see how good your internet is
coming from the provider into your home
and then from your home disperse to all the devices
you can see all that information really simply laid out
it is pretty amazing.
If you have a larger home
or you're not sure where to place these routers,
the app also gives you tips and tricks
on where exactly in your house to place the routers,
which is great if you're not technically advanced
like many of us here on this channel.
So, this app really helps everybody
get the best experience possible with these routers.
And lastly,
this is a thing that I really love a nice feature
is that it's easy to see which devices
are connected to which router or which satellite.
So, sometimes I can see
that my phone when I'm on third floor is connected
to the router and the garage, which doesn't make any sense.
So I kind of just turn my Wi-Fi on and off
and it reconnects to the closer router.
And that brings me into my frustrations (Sherri laughing) .
Here's my top frustration.
Sherri's top frustration with ARRIS system.
I wish I could force connect my devices to be connected
to a specific router on a specific network.
Theoretically, my devices should be connecting
to the strongest signal,
whether it's 2.55 or whatever it may be.
My devices should be connecting to the strongest signal
in the house but I often find it
that my computer will sometimes randomly connect
to the 2.5 gigahertz network
to the routers two floors below me
instead of the five gigahertz network
on the router, one floor below me.
And there's not a way to force connect that
to make that happen.
And the way to get around that
is you just have to turn your Wi-Fi off and then on again
and it should connect to the better signal.
But sometimes I do find that it doesn't connect
to the strongest signal and that can be frustrating.
The other frustrating thing is
that it is not a modem router combo.
You do have to physically connect the mesh system
to your current modem
or your current gateway for it to work.
It's not the biggest deal,
but it can be a little confusing especially...
Oh this is my third frustration,
we need to turn your gateway into bridge mode.
So, my gateway from Cox, we had to turn it into bridge mode.
so it wouldn't have two competing Wi-Fi networks
into my home.
So I had to log on,
I had to Google how to turn your gateway into a bridge mode.
And then that gave me pre explicit instructions
on how to do that and ended up being fairly simple,
but just the task and trying to figure that out
became stressful to me.
So, turning your gateway or turning your modem
into bridge mode to allow the internet to flow through
to the mesh system,
that was a little frustrating.
But, what can you do?
First World problems, am I right?
Okay, that's it.
This has been the unboxing,
this has been the review some tips and tricks,
things I like and things I didn't like
about the ARRIS SURFboard mAX 6600 Wi-Fi 6 Mesh System
I'm super souped
I Just said that with one breath and correctly (laughing)
I highly recommend if you're on the fence
about getting this product,
I highly recommend that you do.
I don't have any links or (laughing)
anything to save you money,
but I will the links in the description
that will take you to the ARRIS site,
which gives you the best possible deal
Amazon is too expensive
so go buy it directly from ARRIS.
Now I'll be sure to do another review, another update
if something drastic changes or something awesome happens
with this system, but for now,
I just really like it.
And I hope you liked this video
if you did give it a thumbs up for me.
I'm Sherri Riggs
thanks for watching this "WhistleOut TV".
Shout out to ARRIS for giving us the product to test out.
(bright upbeat music)