An Easy, Imperfect, 6E Upgrade

In October 2022, Google launched the Nest Wifi Pro, a Wi-Fi 6E mesh system with cutting-edge specs and a smooth, trendy look. It’s the successor to the Nest Wifi launched in 2019, and it joins Google’s rising assortment of sensible residence gadgetry sporting a seamless person expertise.

My expertise utilizing a trio of Nest Wifi Professional nodes was principally seamless, however there had been some quirks and bizarre conduct that irritated me, and the simplified controls wouldn’t let me take the reins to repair that conduct. That mentioned, if you happen to’re not excited by tweaking router settings and simply need to improve to a Wi-Fi 6E mesh expertise with none fuss, the Nest Wifi Professional does have loads to supply at an affordable worth.

{Hardware} and Design: Egg-scellent

While you get the Nest Wifi Professional, you should purchase a single unit, however two- and three-packs can be found as effectively. Every unit or “node” is concerning the measurement of a giant hand, an identical apart from shade, and kind of resembles a big, oblong-shaped egg.

That’s a part of the type the Nest Wifi Professional fashions itself on, one in all curved corners and lightweight, delicate colours that you just’ll see in different trendy Google sensible residence merchandise just like the Pixel Watch and Nest Doorbell. The Wifi Professional nodes, specifically, are supposed to mix into your decor. In my case, it does match the inside of my residence fairly effectively, although not a lot of the black-and-grey utilitarian type of a lot of the gear I’ve in my workplace proper now. I a minimum of appreciated the Professional’s look higher than the “darkish Bionicle” look of one thing just like the ASUS ROG Rapture or the recycle bin vibe of the ZenWifi mesh system.

Every Professional node has one WLAN/LAN port and one single LAN port, and since they’re an identical, you can also make any node your main router and the remainder a toddler node. In the event you’re shopping for just one node, although, you’ve acquired just one Ethernet port to make use of. You received’t thoughts if you happen to don’t make use of wired connections a lot, however I choose to every time doable, so I’d discover a single unit fairly limiting.

In fact, if I wished to get inventive, I might add Ethernet ports with a switch. Competing 6E mesh routers just like the Linksys Hydra Pro, although, supply me a minimum of 4 instances the variety of ports a single Professional node would.

You’ll additionally see in Google’s promotion of the Nest Wifi Professional that it capabilities as a Thread border router. Not having any “Built on Thread” tech, I wasn’t in a position to check that performance. Even so, it didn’t appear that urgent since Matter appears to be in a sad state of affairs proper now anyway.

Setup: Very Easy

Organising the Nest Wifi Professional requires the Google Residence app (for Android or iPhone). I first tried it on a cellphone and not using a mobile information connection, like I’d arrange networks on different routers, however that didn’t work. I switched to a cellphone with a knowledge connection, and from there, setup was (principally) a breeze.

I did hit a wall after I by accident linked my modem to the LAN port on the primary node as an alternative of the WLAN port. That made the Google Residence app throw a obscure error message after I tried to provoke the setup.

The issue was, after all, my fault, however I want the error message had instructed checking the connection within the first place. That might have saved me a whole lot of pointless troubleshooting. So once you’re establishing the Nest Wifi Professional, study from my mistake and be sure you plug your modem cable into the node’s WLAN port, which is the lefthand one with a globe image above it.

Controls: Perhaps Too Easy

The Nest Wifi Professional places comfort and ease of use forward of every part else. All controls are managed by the smartphone app. Sadly, you don’t get a lot in the way in which of customization and fine-tuning. That’s all automated, and also you most likely received’t be capable to set up third-party router firmware like DD-WRT both.

In the event you’re already a Google/Nest router person, you’re most likely used to this. Critiques of the Nest Wifi Professional’s predecessors had been essential of the shortage of controls. In the event you’re coming from a standard router setup and are used to having advantageous management over all kinds of networking minutia, you may discover the Google Residence expertise restrictive.

As is commonly the case with tech, you are likely to need extra freedom and management of your gadgets, however gadget freedom tends to deliver complexity and duty that you could be not need to cope with. Google needs to avoid wasting you from that complexity and duty with a simplified expertise, shunning fine-grained controls with area of interest functions.

You possibly can nonetheless do some fundamental administrative duties, like port forwarding, booting unwanted wireless devices, and prioritizing particular gadgets. If that’s all you want, you then’re most likely the perfect Nest Wifi Professional proprietor. As somebody whose job it’s to tinker with tech, I choose to have these further knobs and perhaps not use them than to not have them in any respect.

Efficiency: I’ve Seen Higher

Virtually talking, my expertise with the Nest Wifi Professional’s pace was usually good, a minimum of with all three nodes linked. I used to be in a position to stream VR games from my PC to my Meta Quest 2 headset within the subsequent room over Air Link and, on the similar time, wirelessly cast my PC’s desktop to my Roku TV, all with moderately low latency.

Even when I wasn’t glad with the pace, I might simply arrange a wired backhaul to maximise the Wi-Fi efficiency, due to the Ethernet ports on every pod within the Nest Wifi Professional system. The shortage of Ethernet ports on the unique Nest Wifi extenders made that unattainable prior to now, so there’s a particular enchancment there.

That mentioned, whereas the sensible expertise was good, I did discover utilizing the Speedtest by Ookla app on my cellphone I wasn’t reaching fairly the identical wi-fi speeds I might utilizing different routers. The Netgear RAXE300, for instance, let me attain practically the total 1Gbps speeds my plan helps beneath optimum circumstances. After I recreated these circumstances (standing proper subsequent to the primary node) I used to be maxing out at virtually three-quarters the pace, round 750Mbps (although the Google Residence app’s personal pace check would report nearer to 850Mbps).

That’s technically more than enough for most activities, and I also needs to level out that the RAXE300 will run you twice the value as a single Nest Wifi Professional node. It’s nonetheless a noteworthy distinction, although, and one thing that would probably create an issue in a bigger family with extra gadgets.

It’s further unusual when you think about the very fact the ISP I’m utilizing is Google Fiber, the modem and router I’m utilizing are each Google merchandise, and the cellphone I’m testing with is a Google Pixel 6. You’d suppose a pure Google model chain would imply an optimized expertise, however I really acquired higher outcomes with a competitor’s router within the combine.

Protection: Some Bizarre Frequency Shenanigans

Talking of the 6Ghz frequency, the Nest Wifi Professional additionally appeared usually afraid of placing my Wi-Fi 6E-capable gadgets on the 6Ghz band within the first place. That’s regarding as a result of that 6Ghz frequency is without doubt one of the main promoting factors of a 6E upgrade.

What would usually occur is I’d activate a wi-fi gadget, like my Pixel 6, and within the cellphone’s community settings, I’d discover I used to be on the 5Ghz band even when I linked in the identical room as a type of nodes. I might often “drive” my approach onto the 6Ghz band by disconnecting and reconnecting to the community, however that felt like an annoying and pointless further step in having fun with the quickest speeds doable. Sometimes, I’d additionally get the other conduct, the place on booting the cellphone, I’d be on the 6Ghz band instantly, but when I moved out of vary, I might by no means get again on it till I rebooted once more.

Each 6E routers I’ve beforehand used would join me to the 6Ghz band robotically every time the sign was respectable. Even when that hadn’t been the case, these different routers additionally gave me a minimum of one approach to drive myself onto the 6Ghz community completely. For instance, I might break up the bands into separate entry factors and set my cellphone to choose the 6Ghz-exclusive community.

That is the place the Nest Wifi Professional’s lack of management comes again into focus: I couldn’t discover any such setting within the Google Residence app. That left me caught both being content material with the 5Ghz community or utilizing a hacky workaround each time I wished to maneuver up. I attempted contacting a Google consultant about the issue, however on the time of writing, I’ve nonetheless not heard again.

Ought to You Purchase the Google Nest Wifi Professional?

The Nest Wifi Pro is designed from the bottom as much as be a set-and-forget system. You flip a node on, title and safe your community, activate any further commonplace options you need, and also you’re good to go. A couple of different tweaks can be found within the Google Residence app, however the Nest Wifi Professional takes management of every part else. You’ll admire that in order for you a Wi-Fi community that “simply works.”

Even so, saying it “simply works” doesn’t really feel proper, contemplating how the nodes appeared intent on conserving me off the 6Ghz band, and I had no energy to work round the issue. With out an enormous variety of wi-fi gadgets to attach, you most likely received’t be affected by one thing like that, however it made Nest Wifi Professional my least favourite 6E router I’ve tried.

In the event you just like the tasteful aesthetic and simply need an reasonably priced, easy mesh setup you possibly can set and neglect, go for the Wifi Professional. If you would like full management over your Wi-Fi 6E community and have a couple of extra bucks to spend, look elsewhere.