Maybe you shouldn’t take WiFi advice from me
Sunday, I set up a new wireless router at home–the second time I’ve done that in less than two years. I am not proud of that fact, even if the most recent WiFi router cost us nothing and even knocked $5 a month off our broadband bill.
That cost savings–the product of a June 2024 Verizon Fios pricing revamp that I took embarrassingly long to capitalize on–would have been motivation enough to take that company up on its offer of a zero-cost WiFi 6E Verizon Router. But I was also tired of seeing wireless reception in my home office flicker in and out.
That was a problem I’d hoped to solve with my December 2023 purchase of a Synology WRX560 WiFi 6 router, which itself was an attempt to fix reception problems that had persisted after I’d bought an Asus RT-AX3000 in April of 2020. That, in turn, was a response to the pandemic overloading an older Asus router that I’d somehow kept in service since 2012.
But the bandwidth that makes its way to the Mac mini and other computers in my home workspace, about the farthest point in our small, old house from the router behind the living-room TV, remains a tiny fraction of our 300 Mbps fiber-optic connection. Even if the latest wireless link seems slightly less likely to glitch out during a Zoom call.
I tried dusting off the 2012-vintage Asus model that I’d somehow kept around to set it up as a wireless bridge that would pick up my WiFi with (presumably) better antennas than whatever Apple has tucked inside the Mac mini and then relay it to that computer via Ethernet. But that option, apparently unavailable on the Synology router, has only yielded a modest improvement… which means that everybody who has been telling me all along to set up a mesh WiFi network should go ahead and laugh at my unwillingness to take their advice.
In my defense, our house still seems too small to require a mesh network. But there must be enough plaster walls with enough metal inside them between downstairs and upstairs to bog down reception this badly.
While I research my options–inconveniently enough, Wirecutter and PCMag don’t recommend the same sets of mesh routers–I have appreciated the opportunity to inspect the WiFi experience Verizon provides for its customers.
Overall: not bad. The router could use a fourth Ethernet port, but the companion Verizon Home app does a lot to simplify network management by surfacing more detailed identifications of devices on the network than Synology’s DS router app could. Verizon’s app also requires fewer taps to rename those gadgets (but not change their icon), group them by room, and apply time limits.
And then the app clearly identifies problem performers by adding a red “Weak signal” label to devices with poor connectivity. One consistent example: this Mac.
#AsusRouter #Ethernet #Fios #FiosRouter #meshNetwork #meshWiFi #SynologyRouter #SynologyWRX560 #verizon #VerizonHomeApp #WiFi #WiFi #WiFi6 #WiFi6E #wirelessBridge
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