Nest WiFi Professional overview: Google’s WiFi 6E mesh is extra approachable than the remaining

Google’s pitch for its personal mesh networking merchandise has been to concentrate on intelligent trade-offs to maintain the associated fee down, making it accessible to the lots. The Nest WiFi Professional, the corporate’s newest flagship, builds upon that current (and successful) formulation with the addition of WiFi 6E. A part of its attraction is the Google model, plus the promise of standard free software program updates and tight integrations with a lot of the world’s sensible house gamers. In a head-to-head race, the Nest WiFi Professional might be bested by loads of its rivals, however Google’s user-friendliness means it’s the default possibility for just about everybody.

{Hardware}

As I mentioned in our essential mesh WiFi purchaser’s information, I’ve been utilizing Google’s first-generation model for years, and likewise reviewed the second-generation Nest WiFi, so I really feel like that is my turf. The Nest WiFi Professional is Google’s first to harness WiFi 6/6E, which was irritatingly omitted from the final mannequin on value grounds. Due to this, they will’t combine along with your current Google / Nest WiFi {hardware}, which means that any improve would require you to begin recent.

By way of appears, the Professionals are ovoid bumps that stand taller than their predecessors and demand more room. ‘Spherical again, you’ll discover the jack for the barrel energy cable and two ethernet ports which Google says “assist 1 Gbps wired speeds per router.” Inside, it packs a Cortex A35 dual-core 64-bit ARM CPU paired with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of storage like its predecessor. It’s obtainable in 4 colours: Snow, Linen, Fog and Lemongrass.

The Nest WiFi Professional doesn’t reserve a piece of its spectrum for devoted backhaul. As an alternative, it dynamically shunts site visitors across the obtainable area for optimum efficiency, which is able to primarily happen on the 6GHz band, since loads of gadgets in our houses don’t have the elements essential to entry it. Google provides that utilizing 6GHz as backhaul frees up plenty of area within the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, bettering efficiency for all the opposite gadgets on the community.

One attention-grabbing tweak from the final mannequin is that you could’t get the Professional with a built-in sensible speaker. That is good, since I by no means preferred the concept of getting a speaker inside my WiFi equipment. However I’ll concede that I did like with the ability to use Spotify Join on the unique Nest WiFi in my kitchen with out shopping for one other speaker.

Set up

Since it is a Google product, count on the Nest WiFi Professional to be comparatively straightforward to put in via your telephone — for a lot of the course of. When you, like me on this occasion, already had a Google mesh in place, you may must manufacturing facility reset, wipe and deactivate every part. As soon as achieved, you’ll be able to simply join the primary node to your modem with an ethernet cable (equipped) and let the app do the remaining for you.

The Google House app will nearly immediately discover the brand new product ready to be put in and get you began. It took me ten minutes to get the primary one working, and that included an unrelated subject with my cable modem that pressured me to restart. It took one other ten minutes to put in the opposite nodes, however all I needed to do was scan the QR code and comply with the on-screen directions.

The app doesn’t provide any recommendation about optimum node placement or figuring out potential weak spots. Google’s web site gives the inventory line that you need to put a node midway between the first and wherever in your house you want WiFi. That’s wonderful, however I think novice customers would possibly admire extra steering, particularly in the event that they’re fighting structural points that imply adjoining rooms aren’t getting a superb sign.

Efficiency

I don’t have many WiFi 6E-compatible gadgets at house, and there was a good distance between the closest node and my workplace, so I did not have excessive hopes that switching to the brand new system would ship nice good points. But, in comparison with the WiFi module in my workplace, which is related through Ethernet to my modem, I noticed my velocity bounce from round 120 Mbps to a mean of 240 Mbps.

The one place the place the Nest WiFi Professional’s connection was something apart from eye-wateringly quick was in my infamous again bed room. The room, surrounded by Victorian (and fashionable) plumbing, was beforehand barren territory for my older system, however it was now joined up right here. And whereas speeds fell to 63 Mbps, I by no means noticed a dropout or stutter in efficiency. In reality, WiFi efficiency in that room is greater than ample to work and take video calls.

Regardless of the less modules, connectivity was secure and I by no means observed a drop after I ran between rooms. Armed with all of the gadgets I might muster, me and my children scuttled round the home strolling to the furthest factors of the home watching loads of streamed video, and none reported a difficulty. My common velocity exams shook down to shut to 250 Mbps, and the connection was easy sufficient for my functions.

Extra options

The Nest WiFi Professional helps Matter and Thread, so you’ll be able to management your sensible house from the Google House app. After I opened the app after putting in the brand new {hardware}, it requested if I needed to connect with my Philips Hue and iRobot merchandise. You’ll nonetheless must have your Hue Bridge related, nonetheless, so that you’re not saving a plug in your Ethernet change. That’s unlucky in comparison with, say, some Eero fashions which have built-in Zigbee models that can help you ditch the bridge solely. However when you’re all-in on Google’s Assistant you then’ll profit from having every part connected inside one app.

A key promoting level of Google’s community merchandise is the promise to maintain them updated with software program and safety updates. The corporate has rolled out pretty common updates over the past seven years and there’s no indication but that it’s going to cease. I’ve been pretty proud of the work achieved for my first-generation Google WiFi pucks. If I do have a priority, it’s that Google typically axes merchandise not lengthy after launch, so that you do run the chance of investing within the firm just for its impatience to get the higher of it.

App and controls

I most popular when you would management your Google WiFi via the standalone app, however lately it’s all rolled into the corporate’s House app. That’s nice as a one-stop store for any appropriate sensible house devices you may need, however it’s much less complete. When managing your community, you’ll be able to have a look at per-device site visitors, set precedence entry (or pause connection to) any machine on the community. You’ll additionally be capable of run velocity and mesh connection exams to make sure that your community efficiency is perfect.

A few of these options aren’t customary on different routers, and a few it’s essential to pay additional to entry. Others could give you a superb deal extra, too. When you’re searching for extra fine-grain management, you most likely gained’t discover it on the Nest. As a lot as Google calls this a “Professional” router, it’s extra to gesture towards being extra premium, moderately than for precise professionals. There’s no entry to among the harder-core settings or browser-based controls web page for energy customers. As an alternative, this can be a locked-down, curated expertise for individuals who need their WiFi to work with out a lot .

For parental controls, you’ll be able to arrange teams throughout the Household WiFi menu to pause a number of gadgets directly. You can too schedule entry occasions, a function that a number of different mesh merchandise count on you to pay to make use of. And whereas there’s no particular option to filter particular person web sites, you’ll be able to designate some {hardware} to be routed through Google’s SafeSearch to dam a broad swathe of content material on-line. What this technique lacks is any fine-grain management for involved mother and father or the flexibility to watch a particular machine’s searching historical past. However I’ve at all times been of the opinion that overzealous parenting simply creates children who study at a younger age to cover what they’ve been as much as.

Wrap-up

What Google’s WiFi merchandise have at all times provided is a reasonably acceptable mix of energy, worth and efficiency. You gained’t be entering into the nitty-gritty elements of working a community, however you’re additionally not paying an enormous amount of money. It ought to attraction to individuals who actually don’t need to fear about doing rather more than working the odd velocity take a look at and rapidly establishing a visitor community with none stress. One thing just like the TP-Hyperlink XE75 would possibly run quicker and provide extra options, however for this worth, Google’s remained true to its ethos of creating the precise compromises.