Should You Switch to a Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router? My home test shows what worked better (and what didn’t)

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There’s nothing more frustrating than sitting on your couch or at your desk and seeing a limited Wi-Fi signal. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seen holding my phone out in my arm, doing something that looks like a weird yoga pose, and trying to get a better signal.

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Previously, the solution I considered would be to install a repeater or connect another Wi-Fi router to spread the signal. This is not a great solution as it does not allow smooth handover between different routers. I also worked on all types of Wi-Fi extenders.

Yes, they were mostly a waste of money. Even those who were working did not do that good a job. Extenders often turn a good internet connection into a bad one and a mediocre one into a bad one.

But there was no choice, because at that time I had no choice Tenda BE5100 3-Pack Mesh Wi-Fi System.

benefit of mesh

Mesh Wi-Fi brings the old idea of ​​the Wi-Fi extender into the modern age. You have a main unit, and then there are satellites that tell you about that location. They all share the same Wi-Fi name, and the handoff between different satellites is smooth and seamless as you move from one room to another.

One problem is that many of the mesh systems I have tested are expensive. There have been some units $500 or more. They’re certainly good systems, very good, but they cost a lot of money.

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It is because of this cost that I have been looking for quality mesh systems that do not cost a lot. And this is exactly what the BE5100 (also known as ME6 Pro) offers. You get three units, each packed with five internal antennas and five independent high-power FEMs (front-end modules), providing super-fast connectivity capable of handling broadband speeds up to 2,000 Mbps and Wi-Fi speeds of 688 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 4,323 Mbps at 5 GHz.

And yes, for those who like to stay on the cutting edge, this system is Wi-Fi 7 compatible, so you’re future-proofed. For those who have multiple devices at home, such as modern families that have embraced the Internet of Things, any network you create using the BE5100 can handle over 160 devices.

Not a number person? You can rest assured that this capacity is more than enough to stream video to dozens of devices, make video calls, back up files to a NAS box, and doomscroll endless cat videos.

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The average home or small office setup will have difficulty saturating this network.

blanket coverage

Three units are enough to flood an area of ​​6,600 square feet, which is a very large house. I’ve tested this setup in an old stone house with walls up to three feet thick, and three units could cover an entire two-story house with excellent Internet access, where the cheap router bundled with the broadband package failed miserably.

One drawback to many mesh systems is that they can be complicated to set up, and it won’t take long before they start asking you for things like an IP address. While a small amount of setup is required with the BE5100, the Tenda app (iOS/Android) guides you through the process, making it a fairly quick process. And if you mess up, you can always start over.

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Once you’ve set up one unit as your main unit, meshing the others is simply a matter of pressing the mesh button for a few seconds and using the app to add the satellite to the network.

NFC and diagnostics

Another nice little feature of this system is that the kit comes with a small self-adhesive NFC tag. Once you’ve set up the network, you can use the Tenda app to write network details on the tag, making it easier for others to connect to the network. I don’t recall any other router app having this feature.

A sidenote here, though – the app does not write-protect the tag (this is so you can rewrite it at a later date if network settings change), so someone with ill intentions could mess with the tag and overwrite it. My advice would be to use an app to password protect tags in a business setting to prevent unauthorized changes.

Another feature of the system that I appreciate very much is the app’s diagnostics. In times when something breaks, this feature always helps. I put some simulated errors on the network, and it caught them and offered fixes.

Performance wise, the unit was close to what I expected. My office broadband is a nice 150Mbps fiber line, but that’s nothing for a system like this. So I had to bring out the big guns – my starlink Cooking. When properly set up, this dish can achieve download speeds of 400 to 500 Mbps.

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This is only a quarter of the 2,000 Mbps that the BE5100 can handle, but it’s a good load. The system had no problems handling this bandwidth and did a good job of distributing it among the devices on the network.

I loaded the network using 4K video streams from both Netflix and YouTube. I was able to play a dozen streams simultaneously (my MacBook Pro was a champ at handling eight streams before Chrome’s RAM usage went crazy), and I estimate I could have played another half-dozen streams.

Then I decided to see how Wi-Fi would handle heavy usage, so I sent as much data as I could to the test network I set up, pulling data from my two networks. Ugreen DH4300 4-Bay NAS boxes and a ugreen dxp8800 plus.

The DH4300 can only handle 300Mbps per network, which is just background noise, but the DXP8800 Plus is very capable and can handle a whopping 20,000Mbps on its two Gigabit Ethernet ports. The Wi-Fi network had no problems transferring a 30GB test file in less than 100 seconds. I was thoroughly impressed with the results.

ZDNET’s shopping advice

After testing the router system at my home, I’m not sure I could go back to a traditional Wi-Fi 6 router. The difference in speed is noticeable, especially at my workplace. But I can also say that most homes probably don’t need this level of hardware and bandwidth – at least not right now.

It usually costs $220 Tenda BE5100 3-Pack Mesh Wi-Fi System Price is competitive. Right now, there’s a deal on Amazon where you can buy a three-pack system for $190.

If you have a small space to cover with a signal, there is a 2-pack on offer for $140Good for up to 4,600 square feet. If you don’t need three units, there’s no point paying for them (but if you need to add another, that would be $100So don’t make a wrong choice).