What's happening YouTube. Josh Teder here from 6 Months Later and today
we'll be taking a look at the Google Wi-Fi home mesh router. Now this is a
router we previously reviewed in a video six months ago, so in this video we'll be
doing our in-depth six months later review of the Google Wi-Fi router. We'll
be taking a look at what makes this router such a great router for any home
big or small, how it improves upon and solves a lot of problems that have
plagued users with Wi-Fi routers for years, and we'll take a look at how its
held up after six months of use. This is 6 Months Later.
Wi-Fi can be a tricky issue in a lot of households and apartments. For houses,
people typically find that their Wi-Fi router struggles to pump out enough
signal to cover their entire home with full Wi-Fi signal strength. In apartments
you have the opposite problem, there are so many routers in such close proximity
to each other that it causes a ton of interference issues and thus reduces the
effectiveness of an individual Wi-Fi router. The Google Wi-Fi home mesh
routers aim to solve these huge problems in consumer Wi-Fi and much more. I got my
Google Wi-Fi router six months ago after sadly my Apple Airport extreme fried in
a lightning storm, so I was already coming from a pretty decent router with
great performance it was great for my residence at least and it served me well.
So when I plugged in my Google Wi-Fi route, I really didn't notice that big
of a performance boost or anything since both routers were very good. However as I
started to use the Google Wi-Fi router more, I just noticed how much better of a
router it actually was even compared to what I had before. For example, here's one
issue that it solved right off the bat for me. With my Apple router, I had an
interference issue with my PlayStation 4 controller when I had a headset hooked
into the controller. When I plugged in and started using the Google Wi-Fi, this
issue was solved immediately, likely due to one of the best features of the
Google Wi-Fi router which is channel optimization. With channel optimization,
the Google Wi-Fi will scan the environment it's in to see what Wi-Fi
channels are currently in use, as well as measure other sources of congestion and
interference. It will then select the best channel for your Wi-Fi devices to
be on this is great for apartment dwellers with all those routers in close
proximity to each other and lots of sources of interference for Wi-Fi
routers. And it's also great for other situations like playing a ps4 with a
headset plugged into the controller. The best part about this feature, with the
Google Wi-Fi router, is it does it automatically, you don't even have to
about it. That's actually a really good way to think about what living with a
Google Wi-Fi mesh network is like Google just takes care of everything for you
you don't even have to think about it. The way they accomplish this is through
good hardware and great software. Especially with the Google Wi-Fi app,
which is very good. The Google Wi-Fi app has tons of features. For example, it will
let you know if your Wi-Fi network is offline or online in the Google Wi-Fi
app, whether you're at home or away on travel you'll always be able to see the
status of your network. The Google Wi-Fi app also allows you to see the devices
currently on your Wi-Fi network, which is pretty cool you can tap into the devices
and actually see how much data each device is downloading and uploading on
your network. Another great feature of the Google Wi-Fi router app is it allows
you to control the brightness of the LED in the Wi-Fi point itself so if you put
your router for example behind your TV like I do and don't want that LED
blinding you while you're trying to watch a movie you can just go into the
Wi-Fi point settings, within the Google Wi-Fi app, and adjust the brightness of
the LED. Now if you're the type of person that forgets your Wi-Fi password or
never really has it accessible to give to your friends and family well the
Google Wi-Fi has you covered there as well. Your Google Wi-Fi network password
is always accessible within the app and it's easy to share to friends and family
over a variety of communication methods like texting email Facebook messenger
etc. Another great feature of the app is that you can prioritize specific devices
on your Wi-Fi network to give them more bandwidth. I still can't believe how easy
it is to do that and a lot of other things within this app which is great
news if you're the type of person who isn't necessarily technical and
especially doesn't want to futz around with all of the settings of a router and
just wants the thing to work and you get great performance and everything just
works really well. Now this is definitely the case for my parents who I gifted a
three-pack of the Google Wi-Fi routers to for Christmas.
My parents were previously using and ISP router and modem which in my
opinion is a big no-no if you actually want good home Wi-Fi. When we set up the
Google Wi-Fi mesh network, they were astounded at the difference it
made between what they had previously and what they now have with the Google
Wi-Fi mesh network. Not only could they get signal at the opposite end of their
house, they now get full bars. In the computer room upstairs they were lucky
before to get maybe 20 or 30 Mbps down now they easily get over 100. The
internet speed they were paying for has not changed that stayed consistent, it is
the Wi-Fi performance that has changed significantly for them. Now one thing my
dad really liked about the Google Wi-Fi routers was how easy it was to set up
one router and then add in the Wi-Fi points to create a mesh network and it's
always a good thing when you get your parents a tech gift that they can
actually set up themselves because it's not overly complex and I give all that
credit to Google. One nice thing that the app does when you set up an additional
Wi-Fi point is it will actually tell you if the Wi-Fi point you're setting up is
in a good location in your residence and will receive a strong signal from the
main router. Now when you have a Google Wi-Fi mesh network made up of multiple
Wi-Fi points, what happens is the Wi-Fi device you're using will just simply
connect to the closest Wi-Fi point to it and the Google Wi-Fis, they all do this
automatically. Again, you never have to think about it. Having multiple Wi-Fi
points makes a huge difference I have to in my residence because I needed one
next to the window so it could pump out enough Wi-Fi signal to my garage across
the street. I have a Wi-Fi enabled garage door opener that simply just wasn't
getting enough Wi-Fi signal from the one router I had. But luckily the second
Google Wi-Fi point I added to my network fixed that problem immediately. Moving on,
let's talk about some more great features with this router. One of my
personal favorites is the Google Wi-Fi app allows you to see and manage
multiple Google Wi-Fi networks. This is great if you're in my scenario and
you've gifted the Google Wi-Fi router to your parents so
you can go in and see the status of their network and manage it if need be.
Or it's also great if you have multiple homes, you can just go in and manage each
home's network and switch in between the two. Now the Google Wi-Fi app has great
admin controls as well. Within a Google Wi-Fi network there are two types of
admins: an owner and a manager. An owner of a Google Wi-Fi network can see the
status of the network change any settings they'd like as well as they can
add remove or factory reset Wi-Fi points. A manager of a Google Wi-Fi network can
only see the status and change the settings. They cannot do anything to add
or remove Wi-Fi points or set anything back to a factory reset.
Another great feature that I like about the Google Wi-Fi app is not only can you
test the Wi-Fi speed from the router to your device, you can also test the
internet speed coming into your home to the router as well as test the strength
of the entire mesh network. Now one feature of the Google Wi-Fi that parents
absolutely love and kids probably hate, but will engineer their way around it
anyways, is called family Wi-Fi. Now with family Wi-Fi, what you can do is you can
group all of your kids devices that are on the Wi-Fi network together within the
family Wi-Fi feature in the Google Wi-Fi app, you can group your kids devices
together and then schedule pauses for the Wi-Fi going out to these devices at
specified times, like during bedtime or during dinner. You can also pause the
Wi-Fi to your kids devices at any point in time in case you need to take Wi-Fi
away as punishment or for a timeout and you can of course block adult web sites
to any of your kids devices with this feature. Creating the guest Wi-Fi network
is also incredibly simple with the Google Wi-Fi. All you have to do is
decide what you want to name the guest network and the password for the guest
network and then that's it, Google just takes care of the rest and you don't
have to worry about remembering the password to your guest Wi-Fi because it
is kept in the app as well. Now after six months of using the Google Wi-Fi home
mesh routers, I can't say that I've had any
problems at all with them. I've never even had to reboot any of my Wi-Fi
points even once. Now if you're looking at getting to Google Wi-Fi and are kind
of struggling to figure out exactly do I go with the one pack or do I get the
three pack, here's what I would recommend. If you have anything over a thousand
square feet, I'd at least look at the three pack but you don't necessarily
have to get it. If you've got anything over 2,000 square feet I definitely get
the 3 pack at that point, even if it's still a little bit overkill. One is
probably not going to do it at 2,000 square feet depending on where you
actually place the router and where the coax cable is coming into your home.
Now your mileage is going to vary here and the materials used to construct your
home and the type of floor plan you have, that is all going to contribute to how
many Wi-Fi points may be necessary for your residence. So, for example, if you
have a house that has a very open floor plan, you may not need all three Wi-Fi
points in your mesh network. But if you have a house that doesn't have an open
floor plan has a ton of rooms lots of walls hallways no open spaces in
a basement, you're likely going to need the three Wi-Fi points. Overall I can't
recommend the Google Wi-Fi home mesh routers enough. They're simple to use, they
have one of the best designed apps I've ever seen,
they have great performance, give your entire residence full Wi-Fi coverage, and
make managing a Wi-Fi network as simple as it should be. The Google Wi-Fi home
mesh routers start with a single router configuration at a $129
US dollars and the three pack goes for $299 US dollars. Thanks so much for
watching this review. If you liked this video, be sure to give us a thumbs up and
subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more videos like this one. Also be
sure to leave a comment below if you have any questions at all about the
Google Wi-Fi routers, and if you already own a Google Wi-Fi router, let me know
what you think of it. Thanks again for watching.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder.