Best mesh routers for every home
If you’re looking to spread a more reliable Wi-fi signal throughout your entire home, the best thing to do is upgrade to a mesh router. For most homes, our top pick is the Tp-link Deco W7200, a two-piece mesh system that costs about $200. Lots of other excellent mesh routers worth are considering, too, and we’ve spent years testing them out to find the best systems of the bunch.
Why does mesh Wi-fi matter? Broadband use surged during the early days of the pandemic, and that means that the quality of our home internet connections is more important than ever. Between working from home, gaming online, video chatting and streaming shows and movies, there are ample reasons to want a fast, reliable Wi-fi signal throughout the entirety of your home.
With multiple devices spread throughout your home, a mesh router is like a team of routers that can relay your wireless traffic back to the modem better than a traditional router, especially when you’re connecting at range. They’re particularly good fits for large or multistory homes where your Wi-fi network has a lot of ground that it needs to cover, so that you have internet access throughout your space — but they can help boost speeds at range in small- or medium-sized homes, too. Here are three of CNET’S top picks to get the internet into the far corners of your dwelling.
BEST OVERALL:
TP-LINK DECO W7200
For a mesh router upgrade that really feels like an upgrade, you’ll want to look for these things: Wi-fi 6 support and a tri-band design with the usual 2.4 and 5GHZ bands. You’ll also want a second 5GHZ band that the system can use as a dedicated backhaul connection for wireless transmissions between the main router and the satellites. The problem is that tri-band Wi-fi 6 mesh routers like that are typically expensive. Not too long ago, we were commending Asus and Eero for bringing the cost of a two-piece system like that down to around $400 or so.
Now, Tp-link is doing even better and selling the Deco W7200 mesh router, a tri-band Wi-fi 6 system that only costs $233 for a two-pack. That’s an excellent value — and the even better part is it performs like a champ, with fast, stable speeds, decent range and a setup process that’s about as easy as it gets, with satellite extenders that automatically join the mesh as soon as you plug them in. All that makes the Deco W7200 an outstanding value and the first mesh router we’d point people to if they asked for a recommendation.
A GREAT THREE-PIECE SETUP FOR LARGE HOMES: EERO 6 PLUS
Eero was an early pioneer of the mesh networking approach, and in 2019, it got scooped up by Amazon. Then, in 2020, we got two new versions of the Eero mesh router: the Eero 6 and Eero Pro 6, both of which add in support for — you guessed it — Wi-fi 6.
We liked the Eero Pro 6 as an upgrade pick, but the standard Eero 6 wasn’t quite strong enough to be recommended. Flash forward to 2022, and the release of the Eero 6 Plus. With a list price of $299 for a three-pack, it offers the same strong pitch as the Eero 6: a relatively affordable and easy-to-use three-piece Wi-fi 6 mesh setup, complete with a built-in Zigbee radio for connecting things like lights and locks with your network. Best of all, with a faster AX3000 design (up from
AX1800 with the Eero 6) and support for full-width, 160MHZ channels (up from 80MHZ), the performance is significantly improved. With three mesh devices for $299 and range of up to 4,500 square feet, it’s an excellent pick for large homes, where that additional extender will come in handy.
BEST PERFORMANCE: NETGEAR ORBI AX6000
At a retail price of $699 for a two-pack, the AX6000 version of the Netgear Orbi is too expensive to recommend outright — but if you just want one of the fastest mesh routers money can buy, look no further.
With full support for Wi-fi 6 and a second 5GHZ band that serves as a dedicated backhaul connection for the router and its satellites, the powerful system has been downright impressive across multiple years of speed tests, with top wireless speeds of nearly 900Mbps at close range in our lab. That’s one of the fastest numbers we’ve ever seen from a Wi-fi 6 mesh router in that test, and it only fell to 666Mbps at a distance of 75 feet — which is still faster than we saw from the Nest Wifi up close, just 5 feet away.