Google Wifi AC1200 Dual-Band Mesh Wi-Fi Router - White

This is truly an excellent solution if you have a multi-level dwelling and need to get both signal strength and speed delivered to every corner of your residence. I have a traditional 3 level home with a basement, 1st, and 2nd floors. For about 7 years, I was forced to have TWO cable modems to get every part of my home to have access to very high speed (50+MBPs). I used a 150 MBPs cable modem on the first floor that covered the 1st and 2nd floors. I used a separate 54 MBPs cable modem for the basement. The reason for this excessive cost was that we had 3 kids in college taking college classes at a public university near our home needing very high speed and reliable internet connectivity for their many assignments, projects, class videos, etc. My son also played XBox live. Additionally, I have Netflix, Roku, and Apple TV. All of the preceding TVs, computers, iMacs, iPhones, IPads, PCs were working with ZERO BUFFERING under my 2-Cable Modem setup. This summer my kids left home to pursue careers. So I wanted to get rid of the basement cable modem if possible. However, not having high speed access in the basement would mean relocating frequently used TVs and computers to the 1st or 2nd floor. Due to the layout of our house no signal strength extending device had really worked. So I was very skeptical when I saw this Google Home WiFi package with 3 pods. I had not done any research on this, but decided that I needed to take a leap of faith on the Google Brand and bought it. They work beautifully!!!! I have 130 MBPS speed everywhere in the house (using only the 150 MBPs cable modem on the 1st floor). Also Google has you download their Google Wifi App which is outstanding in managing the setup as well as TESTING THE INTERNET SPEED IN EVERY PART OF OUR HOME. The Google Wifi app is very user-friendly, simple to use and INVALUABLE. I returned the basement modem and saved myself $75 a month in cable Modem charges. ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have an Internet Phone like Vonage, you will need another ROUTER like Cisco, Apple's Airport, Netgear, etc. the 3 Pods are identical having one Ethernet input and one output, besides the power jack input. I connected the cable modem to the Input of one Google Pod with the Google provided Ethernet cable. Then used my own Ethernet cable to connect the Output from the preceding Pod to the Input of my Apple Airport Router. I connected my Vonage device to the back of Airport which has 4 ports to connect. Everything is working same or better than before. I did not want to write a review till I had had time to check the reliability of the Google Wifi setup. After using it continuously for 3 weeks with over 10 connected devices, I have had no disruptions or deterioration in Wifi qualify. Hence I am pleased to write this review.

This is my first encounter with a Wifi-Mesh type router and it has been a great experience. The best thing about this router is its awesome Wifi coverage area, followed by its elegant and pleasing exterior design, all executed in a very simple and easy-to-use software setup. Never before in and outside of my home did I experience such great and consistent Wifi coverage and speed. With one router inside my bedroom next to the cable modem, one router placed inside another bedroom, and the third router placed inside the living room close to the kitchen, my whole home is blanketed in strong, even, consistent, and fast Wifi. With my previous router, the Asus RT-AC86U, my Wifi speed would slow down when I'm outside sitting on my front porch. The 5GHz frequency was barely usable there so I would switch to the 2.4GHz band to do anything meaningful. With the Google Wifi mesh setup, there is no place where I don't get fast and reliable coverage. Just wow. Even the packaging was a delight - the clean, white rectangular box and the three round & well-crafted routers you see once you flip open the package. They are eye-pleasing and for a household like mine where pretty much almost all of the furniture are white, these routers blend in very well. Another aspect of the router experience that is worth mentioning is how simple it was to set up the router using the Google Wifi app. It guides you through each of the steps and they are very easy to follow along and execute. Upon opening the app, the user is greeted with a visual diagram that succinctly & clearly displays the number of your Wifi points and the number of devices that are connected to the network. Tapping the "Wifi points" option takes you to a screen that tells you where each of your Wifi points are located in the house. From this screen, you can tap on the Settings icon where you can perform the following tasks: check for new firmware updates & update firmware, restart the network, perform a factory reset, and control the brightness of each Wifi access point. Tapping on the "Devices" option takes you to a screen that shows you the names and number of devices connected to the network. When you tap a device in this screen, you're given the option to change the name of each device and also to view its current real-time network activity. Other nifty & useful features include Guest Wifi and Family W-Fi Pause. With the Family Wi-Fi Pause, one can pause Internet service to certain devices. If there is one thing I miss from my old router that I wish these Google Wifi routers supported is the option to connect my external USB hard drive to the router to setup my own network drive that I can access from anywhere with an app. Frankly, I never really used this option very much so its absence here is not critical for me and not a deciding factor against Google Wifi. With that said, I'm very, very pleased with this router & I highly recommend it to anyone.

I have mixed feelings on this product. Upon opening the box, I was impressed with the packaging layout. There were no instructions except for a single square card. "Plug in" pretty much. It's not rocket science, but a little pamphlet about the features available would have been nice. The first unit paired up with my wifi network and the BT on my phone; however, it would not connect to the network and establish itself as a new SSID (which is what you SHOULD do - make this SSID different than your router SSID for the main purpose of helping your devices not have as high a battery drain and also so it won't confuse the devices using the network - it happens with identical SSIDs). So I skipped that unit and tried another unit. That one passed and became my primary. I then used the app to connect the 2nd unit, and then I tried to connect the original faulty unit as another wireless access point. The app crashed every single time I tried to add. It's strange that this did not happen when I hooked up the 1st two devices. I used a different phone and was able to get the 3rd one online. So my network was up and working. I found that my 5GHz devices were only connecting at the 2.4GHz frequencies. When running a speed test, they were only getting about 70% of the allotted bandwidth available. I called tech support about this, and they said that was normal... and that it would switch to 5GHz when necessary. Seems to me that if you're running a SPEED test, it would allow the fastest tunnel possible to that device. It did not. However, video-heavy apps will probably force that to a 5GHz channel when needed. You can check to see what a device's frequency is in the app. Next, my main quirk with the system is the fact that they can ALL 3 be wired at once and provide a better signal overall - since they wouldn't be getting signals from the primary (which is normally the only wired access point). However, once all 3 were connected (1 wired, 2 wireless), I connected the final 2 "child" units via ethernet, to my network. Since my house is ethernetted throughout, this was a piece of cake. Everything stayed online. Everything seemed to be working. THEN, the next morning, I leave for work and about 10 hours after installation, my AT&T U-Verse service (TV and internet) start acting flaky. TVs are pixelating, and the internet is showing little to no response. I checked one of the "child" devices, and it had turned RED. The primary and other child looked ok. Keep in mind that all 3 are wired right now. I immediately unplugged all 3 devices, reset the entire U-Verse network (TV's, everything is on ethernet, not COAX), and all was fixed. The Google WiFi system somehow screwed everything up with one failed unit, and I'm not sure why. Since then I hooked up the single primary unit, and made the child units wireless for now - since then, I have not had any issues. However, I'd like to wire them back up in order to get full bandwidth from each point rather than feeding both children through the primary. One great thing about these little units is that you can control the brightness of the white light in the middle of each device via the app. They can be quite bright all the way to completely OFF, which in my case was great because it sits in a dimly-lit basement "man-cave" next to the TV where you don't really want a lot of glare or bright light while watching movies, etc. So that's a great feature. Each light on each device can be individually set. Speed levels seemed to be great when all 3 were wired (before the chaos), and with only the primary wired, they are about 10% slower due to the distance between the children and the primary. The "red" unit came back up as white when everything was plugged back in, so I'm not sure what caused it to go into that state. Google support was unable to determine what caused that as well. If it happens again after wiring all 3 to ethernet, I will be forced to go wireless with the children. One other great feature that I have not utilized yet is the additional ethernet extender port on the bottom of each unit. If you need a wired ethernet connection, there is a port you can use to hook something up via ethernet even though the unit itself is wireless to that point. That's a great feature but I have not had the need to use it since all of my locations have ethernet already. Having said all this, I would likely buy again, but just be aware of possible issues if you decide to hardwire each unit due to the size of the house and trying to cover more space.

Large box! It was easy to setup using the Google wifi app (make sure you download it before!). I setup the 3 points in 3 areas of my house. One on the living room (main one connected to my comcast modem), the 2nd on a main hallway that connects to my rooms and the 3rd one on the room the farthest from the main one. I get full solid bars on all my devices connected! Some pros and cons for ease TLDR: PROS: +Very sleek looking, the light can be dimmed on each point. +Easy to setup, recognized my comcast modem right away. +Each point has an ethernet port so you can connect devices to them via wire (I have my PS4 and PC on a couple of them, since the PS4's wifi sucks). +You can manage all your network and points easily with the Google wifi app, even remotely as long as you have data on your phone or tablet (can be ios or android). +You can setup family hours and turn off the internet, or limit it (in example, dinner time, kids homework time etc). CONS: -Not IPv6 capable. I have emailed Google about them enabling this, will update when they response, but being 2016 should be a standard. -Lacks some power options for power users, like setting a DMZ etc (same, I have emailed Google about this). -I wish it had a web interface, to be honest I have not explored this much, but if it may be a feature, its very hidden as there is no mention of it anywhere.

We moved from a single router with extender to the Google WiFi mesh system. So much better. It was easy to connect and start running. The app interface is the best. It displays internet speed between the modem and router, connectivity strength to the satellite units, and connectivity speeds to each device. We run 20ish devices simultaneously and they all receive the signal they need to function well.

I recently converted from a dual band wifi router with tri-stream technology to the new Google Wifi system in an attempt to expand our wifi access throughout the house. For reference, our house a single story, 4br, 2200 sq ft. but we are moving to a two story, 3400 sq ft house and needed the extra wifi range. With our last router we were able to get high speed dual band wifi in most of our single story house without any wifi extenders. After the relatively simple installation with only having to reset everything once to get it to set up correctly, the Google Wifi uses any one of the "round pods", as I now refer to them, as your main hardlined modem access point. With the three pack, you can place the other two pods anywhere throughout your house/area that the main pod can reach which uses the main wifi signal and extends the range, similar to a wifi extender. One thing that I have noticed with Google wifi is they've seemed to perfect the wifi extension with their mesh technology allowing any of your devices (cell phones, tablets, etc.) to travel with you throughout the area with no wifi disruption. The Google Wifi app is very easy to use and has many handy features including speed testing, prioritizing internet to one area and monitoring connected devices including parental control. The pods are very unique and aesthetically appealing as most people would not notice their purpose placed throughout the house since they are not what recent wifi access points/extenders look like. Besides the lack of colors to choose from, the only downfall I have noticed thus far is the lack of Ethernet ports to hardline devices to the pods. Each pod only has one ethernet in for your modem and one out so you will have to rely heavily on the wifi signal when, in some cases, your only or better option is to have a hardline connection for internet. I would suggest using a different router set up if you need more hardline connections.

I have spent literally many, many hundreds of dollars trying to get Wi-Fi to work in our 3,900 sq. ft. home since we moved in 11 years ago. My kids would taunt me and complain the Wi-Fi wasn’t working in the basement, their bedrooms, it was unstable, works slow, doesn’t work at all. I tried different routers (antennae, no antennae), upgraded my modem, moved the location several times. The last thing I tried was an expensive combo modem/router that was over $200! I had the cable company put in all new coax from the box to our hookup. I replaced the cable inside the house. I tried 4-5 different extenders. They were fussy, hard to work with, worked and then stopped working- especially when I was out of town traveling. (The kids describe themselves as computer experts but were helpless on the Wi-Fi issue). So I tried Google Wi-Fi. I bought them a couple weeks before Christmas, but didn’t set the time aside to set them up until the 23rd. I actually bought the 3 pack and a separate additional 4th unit that I assumed I would need for the bedrooms upstairs. It took me 10 minutes to set them all up. Soooo easy! The speed is incredible- my cellular is 25 MBS, the WoW internet I buy is 60 MBS. But I consistently get almost 70 MBS wirelessly throughout my entire house. (I don’t know why or how that’s possible as a speed test on a wired laptop goes right to 60 MBS as advertised. I put one in the 1st Floor Office at one end of the house where the cable comes in the house, another also on the 1st floor at the other end of the house in the family room and the 3rd in the basement. I checked the upstairs just to make sure I needed the 4th unit which I assumed I would need and had fully planned on installing. Luckily I did a Speed test before opening the 4th unit. It was as fast as the entire rest of the house. I kept the 4th unit unopened for another week just to be sure. It’s now been over 2 weeks and I am a VERY happy camper! My wife just shrugged when I put in the latest system. BUT, last night she commented that whatever I did, the internet is lightning fast- which is exactly what the Google Wi-Fi ap told me when I did a test- see the photo I added to my review. My oldest son said the Internet speed is nutz! My second son commented that the Wi-Fi is now “sick!” (Apparently that is high praise). It has been rock solid, its fast as I could ever have hoped for and I couldn’t be happier. I know there are similar mesh type products, but I tried Google based on the reviews. You know I'm happy as this is the first time I took time out of my life to review anything, ever! I recommend it to anybody and wish Google Wi-Fi existed when we first moved in. A really great product that actually over deliver as far as I'm concerned!

I have been using the Netgear Nighthawk C7000 for a little over a year and my internet is very unstable, more when using WiFi. Talked to a sales associate at my local Bestbuy (Mousa?, sorry if I got the name wrong, great guy, deserves a raise and a promotion!) and he recommended this after explaining my WiFi issues. After switching to Google WiFi, I'm averaging 225mbps download, 11mbps upload, and 9ms ping on WiFi. Much improved compared to 15-25mbps download, 2-4mbps upload, and 80-100ms ping just using the C7000. I completely turned off the WiFi radios on the C7000 and am just using it for the modem aspect, which is a great modem for the price (also purchased at Bestbuy).