Tenda Nova MW3-3 Mesh WiFi System - Up to 3500 sq.ft. Whole Home Coverage, WiFi Router and Extender Replacement, AC1200 Mesh Router for Wireless Internet, Works with Alexa, Parental Controls, 3-pack

Product Information

TP Link's nodes are handsome devices: small disks about an inch tall and 4.5 inches across. You know they're on thanks to tiny LED on top which is, thankfully, not too bright (so they won't keep you awake in bed). The primary unit it working normally. On secondary units, this indicates a good connection to the primary unit. Solid yellow The downside of these speeds is that they involve a design that looks more like a small router with a separate power supply. However, this gives you more flexibility than a plug-in unit, helping you to get a better signal, while you can also use this repeater as a Wi-Fi access point. And, just like the Repeater 3000, it’s as simple as anything to set up. The WiFi 6 Repeater 5400 will be overkill for many people, but if you must get a high-speed connection to a distant corner of the house, nothing else out there comes close.

It’s a similar case with a powerline adapter. Yes, it should be able to carry the signal for as long as it’s on the same powerline but ultimately you’ll lose it if you stretch it too far. Speaking of smart homes. One of the bonus features of the new Nest WiFi is that each of them have a microphone and speaker built in, so you’ve got a Google Nest smart speaker and a WiFi extender all in one. They can play music really quite well and answer any questions you might have about who is playing Wendy Torrance in The Shining or how much pasta you need to feed a group of four. Plus, you can even say “Hey Google, what’s my internet speed?” to learn immediately.

The primary unit has connected to the internet. For secondary units, this means that it has successfully connected to the primary unit. Blinking fast TP Link's Deco range acts as a perfect mid-range point between the unnecessarily pricey Google WiFi and the cheap-but-missing-functionality of the the Nova range However, if you mean boosting the speed of your WiFi, there might not be a lot you can do. Manually changing your WiFi channel or paying for a better tariff from your ISP might help. Different parts of the country get different WiFi speeds and that’s usually just down to infrastructure and whether they’ve got round to installing fibre optic cabling in the area. How far do wireless extenders reach? Also, I found the range on each individual node left something to be desired compared to the competitors.

To test network performance, we use a laptop equipped with an Intel Wi-Fi 6 network card supporting 2×2 MIMO. We connect this laptop to the extended network, then take it to various areas of the home and copy a standard set of files to and from a NAS appliance, connected by Ethernet to the main router. By measuring the average read and write speeds, and comparing them to those achieved when connecting directly to the router, we can measure how each extender helps Wi-Fi range and performance. The Magic 2 kit beats the old Magic 1 kit we had in this slot by giving you two high-speed 867Mbits/sec Wi-Fi streams for little more than the price of one, which comes in handy if you’re trying to network two or more devices. Advanced users will appreciate the companion app that shows connection diagnostics, so you can work out where to locate the plugs for the best performance. The web portal, meanwhile, lets you manage your wireless configuration, set up a guest network and apply an operating schedule so that (for example) the extended network is only available during office hours. The newer Wi-Fi 6 kits will give you even more performance if you have Wi-Fi 6 devices, but if not this is a great solution.

For several reasons, I wasn’t expecting the Nova MW3 to deliver exceptional performance. For one, its 5GHz radios claim a fairly modest maximum data rate of 867Mbits/sec, which is half the speed of the units in the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi system. On the face of it, it's business as usual. Setup is no different to the other mesh networks I've already described and the app is easy to use and offers you a lot of control over your WiFi. I'm still not sure what these 'legs' are for, especially considering none of the other devices seem to need them However, the design isn't great. The nodes are much bigger than Google's cylinders or TP Link Deco's disks. The light is also a lot brighter than the others. You can change this in the settings, but it's annoying that it comes as default. It illuminated my bedroom to a point where I feared it would harm my chances of getting to sleep. (Admittedly, I'm someone who requires total darkness to nod off.) BT's mesh network system would have been at the top of this list had the company made a few tiny tweaks

ISP: Short for internet service provider. This is the person you pay (usually monthly) to deliver internet to your home. In the UK, brands like BT, Virgin, and Sky Broadband. Network: A group of computing devices which are linked together to share data. This can be via wired media such as cables or via wireless media such as WiFi. Still, they work just fine and are just as simple to set up as the rest of the mesh networks on here (though the app is weird and doesn't seem to have been written by someone with a great grasp of English.)

Up until recently, most extenders and Powerline kits only went as far as the Wi-Fi 5 standard, but we’re seeing a growing number that go faster with Wi-Fi 6 support. If you only have a Wi-Fi 5 router, you can save some cash by partnering it with a Wi-Fi 5 extender, but the newer models may give you a faster connection between the extender and devices that support Wi-Fi 6. What’s more, there’s an argument that buying one of these makes more sense if you plan to upgrade your network in the future. What’s the difference between a repeater and a powerline extender? Read more: The best laptops for students and best external hard drives Frequently asked questions about WiFi extenders Do wireless extenders work? Fibre optic: You know those lights you can get which look like a fountain of thin wires which light up at the end? That’s fibre optic cabling. Essentially, data can be transferred via a fibre optic cable via light. Fibre optic internet is better than normal wiring as it is immune to electromagnetic interference and there’s less signal loss along the way. You also shouldn’t need a line rental if you have fibre optic broadband.