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We had 3 nodes in the house, the original Velop system that worked overall fairly well with (about 70 devices) but speeds were less then desirable. Nothing bad or anything but with the increase in streaming devices and wanting to upgrade looked around a bit at the various options. Having been using Linksys products for many many many years, looked at the newest MX series and based on reviews, had too many concerns about compatibility with some of the older devices, (mixed mode may not work), etc....So looked at these and they are much better priced and could get 2 - 3 packs (total of 6) and truly blanket the house. With the 3 nodes we had it was barely reaching the back and front of the house and nodes had to be in one or two particular spots, otherwise they wouldn't connect. Considered adding nodes, but since ours were first gen and given the cost, this package seemed to be the best option for the money.
Since it was almost an identical swap, screen grabbed all the settings from the original velop, manual dns servers, dyndns, port forwarding, all the individual wifi rules, all those little things that you might forget about....and proceeded to switch everything over using the same network name (hoping that everything would just work). Started up and configured the main node (it is acting as the router) and the internet was only down for only about 10 minutes while everything was setup to provide the basic wifi. Worked like a charm. That single node seemed to blanket the house really well, even the furthest bedroom that was always problematic could get a signal.
Wondering if I might have regretted buying 6 of them.....speed testing the wifi proved that this wasn't a mistake.
Proceeded to setup 2 nodes downstairs and then 2 more nodes upstairs. Turns out this was a good thing. Testing the wifi upstairs with only router, there was definitely a speed impact. Also found that the wifi adapter on the computer in that room was a bit older so just used the wired connection to the node and worked great, no more having to worry about where the node is in the room either.
Thought I was done and then found out that a laptop downstairs couldn't see the new network....was going what the heck??!?!?!?! So grabbed a usb wifi adapter and after a little research, some chipsets did not play well with the newer wifi6 stuff....downloaded the new driver from intel (released oct 2020 -to fix this problem).....super! Can see the network and get the same high speed connection there as well.
Spent another 25-35 min putting in the settings from the old system so that all the 'stuff' we have still works, all total (w/o the laptop wifi issue) less than 2hours to setup 5 nodes. Yup only 5...still have the 6th, but haven't figured out where to even put it...the signals are so strong everywhere now, even the garage, that don't see a need. That said, paying for 6 and only using 5...still less expensive than buying the newer mx stuff.
If you don't need bleeding edge tech, but want something that's new enough and just works, these are really great and honestly easier to setup than the original Velop, as those were first gen tech. They have only been running for less than 24 hours but hopefully they will provide many years of service, as the original Velop has done.
| Wireless Type | 802.11ax |
|---|---|
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 1 |