Should you switch to a Wi-Fi 7 Mesh router? My home test shows what has become better (and what is not).

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There's nothing more frustrating than having a limited Wi-Fi signal sitting on a couch or at a desk. I don't know what you think, but someone saw me stretch out my arm, hold my cell phone, do something that looks like weird yoga, and try to get a better signal.

In the past, my solution was to set up a repeater or connect another Wi-Fi router to transmit the signal. This is not a good solution because it does not allow smooth switching between routers. I've tried every Wi-Fi extension.

Yeah, they're mostly wasted money. Even those that work are not working well. Extensioners often make good Internet connections bad, and mediocre connections bad.

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Grid advantage

Mesh Wi-Fi brought the old Wi-Fi extension concept to modernity. You have a major unit, and then you're a satellite scattered over this place. They all share the same Wi-Fi name, and when you move from one room to another, the switch between different satellites is smooth and seamless.

One problem is that many of the grid systems I've tested are expensive. Some units have a price of $500 or more. They are indeed good systems, very good, but they require a lot of money.

That's why I've been looking for quality grids that don't cost the planet. This is what BE5100 (also known as ME6 Pro) offers. You can get three units, each equipped with five internal antennas and five independent high power FEM (front-end modules), which provide hypervelocity connections that can handle broadband speeds up to 2,000 Mbps and Wi-Fi speeds up to 2.4 GHz 688 Mbps and 4,323 Mbps below 5 GHz.

Aren't you a digital? You can rest assured that this is enough to allow dozens of devices to transmit videos in stream, make video calls, backup files to NAS boxes and rolling endless cat videos.

It is difficult to saturate the network with regular family or small office setting.

Blanket coverage

The three units are sufficient to inundate 6,600 square feet, a considerable residence. I tested the set-up in a three-foot-long old stone house, three units that could cover the entire two-storey house and provide good Internet access, while cheap routers tied to a broadband set failed.

A disadvantage of many web-based systems is that their settings may be complex and they will soon start asking you questions about IP addresses. Although BE5100 requires a small setup, the entanglement application (iOSI'm sorry.Android) will guide you through the process and make it a pretty fast process. If you screw up, you can start over anytime.

When a device is installed as a major device, other equipment can be gridded for only a few seconds with a grid button and an application to add a satellite to the network.

NFC and Diagnosis

Another cool little feature of the system is that the package is equipped with a small self-adhesive NFC label. When you set up a network, you can use a tumble application to tag the details of the network so that others can easily connect to the network. I don't remember any of the other router applications.

There is, however, a note here — this application does not write to protect the label (so that if the network settings change, you can rewrite it later), so a malicious person may mess with the label and rewrite it. My proposal is to use the application for password protection of tags in the business environment to prevent unauthorized changes.

Another feature of the system that I appreciate very much is the diagnostic of applications. This function can always help when something fails. I threw some simulation errors into the network, which it would receive and provide for repair.

In terms of performance, the device is close to my expectations. My office broadband is a good 150 Mbps fibre-optic line, but that's nothing for a system like this. So I had to take out the big gun -- my chain antenna. If set correctly, the disk can achieve a download speed of 400 to 500 Mbps.

It's just that Be5100 can handle a quarter of 2,000 Mbps, but it's a good load. The system does not have any problems with the bandwidth and has done well in allocating bandwidth between network equipment.

I used a 4K video streaming network from Netflix and YouTube. I was able to run 12 streams at the same time (before Chrome's RAM used crazy, my MacBook Pro was the champion of the eight) and I guess I could run six more.

And then I decided to look at Wi-Fi how to handle the large amount of use, so I pushed as much data as possible on the test network I set up by transferring data between two Ugreen DH 4300 4 slots of NAS boxes and one Ugreen DXP8800 Plus.

DH4300 Each network can handle only about 300 Mbps, which is just background noise, but the DXP8800 Plus is very powerful and can process 20,000 Mbps big data through its two gigabytes and ethophone ports. The Wi-Fi network has no problems with the 30GB test file in 100 seconds. I was impressed.

ZDNET purchase proposal

After testing my home's router system, I'm not sure if I can go back to the traditional Wi-Fi 6 router. The difference in speed is obvious, especially in my work. But I can also say that most households may not need this level of hardware and bandwidth — at least not now.

The Wi-Fi system, a networked Tenda BE5100 3, is usually sold at a competitive price of $220. This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011.AmazonYou can buy three systems at $190.

If you need less space to cover the signal, you can choose 2 packages for $140 for space within 4,600 square feet. If you do not need three units, you do not need to pay for them (but if you need to add another unit, $100 is required, so do not make the wrong choice).