Top positive review
13 people found this helpful
Google Wifi - Easy Setup, Fast Wifi, Everything I Wanted!
By William Todd Word on Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2017
Google Wifi Review TL;DR version: 48 hours in and I’m absolutely amazed. True to form and other reviews, these things just work, are rock solid, and fast. Very happy with the purchase. The longer version for those interested…. Background: A while back I got gigabit speed internet here at home. The speed is amazing on my wired iMac, but wifi through my Apple AirPort routers (1x AirPort Extreme, 3x AirPort Expresses acting as repeaters) was leaving something to be desired. Comcast had given me a big Netgear Nighthawk monstrosity as part of the gigabit package and when I tried it out vs. the AirPorts the difference was night and day - the Nighthawk wifi network was multiple times faster than the AirPort network. Come to find out my trusty AirPort network didn't support the newest, latest, greatest wifi standards so simply wasn't as fast as the Nighthawk. And Apple has apparently decided to get out of the router game. The Problem: To take advantage of the greater speed, I reconfigured my network to support both the higher speed Nighthawk wifi and the lower speed AirPort network. Why keep both? Because the single nighthawk didn't have enough range to cover my three story, 4,500 sq.ft. house (and the now hard-wired 1,000 sq. ft. guest house) while the multiple AirPort expresses did. So now I had two completely different wifi networks running at two different speeds covering different parts of the house. Not ideal, especially now that I'm more reliant on wifi for my iPhone (T-Mobile's signal in the house isn't great, so my wife and I have been using the really excellent wifi calling feature.) The Solution: Today I replaced ALL my routers with four Google Wifi units. The primary wired into the Comcast modem in the office (downstairs), one for the Master Bedroom (2nd level, mesh), one for the guest bedroom (kind of a separate split level thing off to the side, also mesh), and one for the Guest House (hard wired to Ethernet run from the main house). The primary unit connects to a gigabit switch that then connects to several wired devices. The Verdict: Only two days in, but so far I'm thrilled. The Google Wifi units form a mesh network that seems to cover my entire house in strong wifi. I haven’t found anywhere in my oddly shaped and sized house that i’m not getting flawless wifi. Some places are “faster” than others, but even in the “worst” spots I’m still getting at least 40Mbps which I’m not going to complain about. At best, I’m getting 200+Mbps, which definitely isn’t full gigabit but is leagues better than I could get from the AirPorts and on par with the best I’d ever gotten from the Nighthawk… while covering both houses with a single, uninterrupted network with great signal in every room. Setup was stupid simple and completely done from the iPhone app. Haven’t had a chance to really play with all of the cool features (internet pause, etc.), but the core functionality is fantastic. I was slightly concerned about functionality since it’s a Google device and we’re all-in on Apple gear (3x Macs, 2x iPhones, 4x iPads, etc.), but almost everything has worked flawlessly (the only glitch was, ironically, with the now Google-owned Nest Thermostats I have - the trick is to reset the network settings on the Nests and re-enter the new wifi info). Every device, wired or wireless, has worked beautifully and the speed is phenomenal. (As a note and as a point of comparison, I had been a pre-orderer for the Luma mesh wifi system and had briefly tried that out when it finally shipped. I had been greatly looking forward to it and was so disappointed when the units finally arrived. Setup was a nightmare - the stations couldn’t find each other requiring starting over, but then I entered a slightly different name during the process and then it tried to set up two networks, the coverage was bad, and on and on… The Google Wifi units are everything I had hoped the Luma system would be and more.) Downsides: Honestly, none that I can really tell so far. I’ve long since given up on caring about being able to tweak every little power user setting in a router, so the options offered by the Google Wifi app more than take care of my needs. It was a little confusing when I hooked up the Guest House unit (wired into Ethernet) as a wifi point because it asked me to unplug the ethernet during configuration but then didn’t really give me any guidance, but it still flawlessly added the unit to the existing mesh network (but now with ethernet backhaul). Placement in my house was a little bit of a pain, but that’s just my house being weird - since you just have to plug in wherever there’s a power outlet it’s about as painless as it can be. Final Thoughts: If anything changes or something wonky happens I’ll update this, but otherwise I wholeheartedly recommend Google Wifi. Buy it you’ll love it!
Top critical review
48 people found this helpful
Good coverage. TERRIBLE configurability.
By David Stein on Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2017
I purchased this networking gear to replace an Apple AirPort network that I've used to provide a mesh network service for a few years. After blowing a weekend configuring it, I'm packing it all up and shipping it back to Amazon for a refund. In short - network signal strength is great, but the configuration options are ABSURDLY bad. If you want any measure of control over your network, this system will drive you insane. === Problem #1: It cannot operate as a mesh network in bridge mode. My LAN has some devices running through a high-grade switch, and some devices that connect wirelessly. I want all of these devices on the same network, with the switch acting as the DHCP server and assigning IP addresses. If that's what you want, Google WiFi is not for you. The main selling-point of Google WiFi is its ability to operate as a mesh. In order to do so, you are required to run it in Network Address Translation (NAT) mode - in which it assigns all of its devices to its own private subnet, and represents all of them on the WAN side with a single IP address. That means that a wireless device and a wired device cannot talk to each other, because they are not on the same subnet. They cannot even *see* each other. If you want your devices in the same subnet, you have to position the Google WiFi primary AP as the primary node in the network *and* allow it to operate as the DHCP server. The alternative is to configure it in bridge mode - at which point you lose 100% of the mesh capabilities of the kit... which is the main selling point of Google WiFi. This is an unreasonable requirement. Other network devices, like the Netgear Orbi system, can operate as a mesh in bridge mode. No idea why this is a requirement. === Problem #2: NAT is totally unconfigurable. Okay, so you're going to bite the bullet and configure it as your NAT server. Want to configure its NAT capabilities? You're in for a nasty surprise. Google WiFi's NAT service is hard-coded to use 192.168.86.x. There is no way to reconfigure it: it is locked to that subnet. There is no way to set the DHCP address range for the private LAN. There is no way to set the DHCP range for the guest LAN. There is no way to configure lease durations. There is no way even to specify the IP address for Google WiFi itself. The DHCP server basically has one setting: ON. This is an absurdly primitive DHCP server. It gives you no flexibility of any kind: it's Google WiFi's way, or the highway. === Problem #3: The only way to configure Google WiFi is through an intensely crude mobile app. Nearly every router in the world has an HTTP configuration page. Connect a device (wired or wireless), open a browser, enter the IP address of the router, enter a username and password - you get pages and pages of configuration options. Google WiFi? lolno. Even if you can determine its IP address, the APs don't even respond to HTTP requests. Instead, the sole way to configure Google WiFi is through a mobile app... and the mobile app is *extremely* crude. For instance: If you want to configure the WAN settings, you have to unplug the Ethernet cables, configure the device, *hope* that the app can push the new settings back to the AP (hint: it sometimes fails), and then reconnect your Ethernet. Why in the world would you need to do that? You can configure the DHCP server to assign IP addresses to specific devices. You do that by selecting the name of a device that's currently connected, and then giving it an IP. What if you want to configure DHCP for a device that's not connected via WiFi? You can't. End of story. What if you want to configure DHCP for a device that's connected via Ethernet? Particularly through a switch? You can't. End of story. What if you have multiple devices have the same name (like: "Amazon Echo?") They all show up as "Amazon Echo." What if you want to find out the MAC addresses of the individual devices, so you can make deliberate assignments? You can't: IT DOESN'T SHOW YOU THE MAC ADDRESSES. It only shows you the name. End of story. What if you want to assign a distinctive name to a particular device that's calling itself something like "unnamed device?" You can't. End of story. Tons of limitations like these become apparent as you try to configure the router. The app is cute, aesthetically pleasing, and utterly horrid at doing its job. It's amateurish and missing some really, really basic features. === In short: This router kit is like Fisher-Price WiFi. It's like Baby's First WiFi Network. If you want to plug it in and turn it on, it *might* work well for you. If you want to configure it in any meaningful way, you're going to spend hours struggling in vain to find options that *really should* be in there somewhere. Spoiler Alert: They aren't. Don't buy this junk. They are a terrible value proposition. There are a dozen other sources and brands of mesh networking gear - there's no good reason to shackle yourself to hardware that you cannot configure.
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