Linksys - Velop Pro 6E

I got a Linksys recently that was on sale on BestBuy - and admittedly, they had a lot of stuff on sale , but I liked a particular Linksys- and it's been *amazing* so far. I have Hi-Split Symmetrical 1Gig Fiber, and I myself got a 6E system rather than a WiFi 7 - I get it, the 7 is "better" - not only do I not have the internet speed/capacity to use it (and I'm not likely to anytime soon) - none of my hardware at home ... none of our computers, tablets, or phones, could even take advantage of it IF we DID , which we do not ... so to me, a Good Deal on a Good Deal was a good deal. I would avoid TPLink lol - they've been in the news for SpyPhone'ing for China and could even be banned next year.

Hey bruv- So here is the exact name I cut & pasted from Best Buy's website (and look- I am NOT AT *ALL* married to Best Buy or some sort of fan - it just HAPPENED that they had a good product at a great closeout price, when I needed it, and so I bought from Best Buy. You might do better with Amazon or Walmart or your Friendly Local Neighborhood Electronics Store, of course- YMMV.) Linksys - Velop Pro 6E AXE5400 Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6E System - White - Now I did get a great deal - it was on Closeout Sale (at the time, late-October of last year) - instead of being $399, it was $239. I jumped on it. BUT SOMETHING HAS BEEN UP because afterwards, almost all Linksys Mesh Router systems were gone from Best Buy's website, and there was a point where they were all gone. Right now there are two - and they are both 3-node system (part of the entire reason to get a Mesh WiFi system is, you can buy a Single Node system if - for example - it's just you, you have a small apartment-type of place, and one will cover you ... or you can add a second, and move it to a different location, or like me you have 3, and have the entire house covered etc.) Right now - I am seeing Linksys mesh systems on Best Buy - and they're both on great sales, both 3-node systems, but both are WiFi 6 (rather than 6E, like I got, or WiFi 7, the top of the line technology) - I have no idea why, because to the best of my knowledge, it's not like Linksys is going out of the Router Business etc. It seems like a ton of Linksys Mesh Router systems are now either WiFi 6 (the old shit) or the most-expensive WiFi 7 (I didn't get a WiFi 7 system - among other reasons like I mentioned- was that the cheapest one was like $575 at the time, and it was actually NOT AS GOOD as the system I got as far as "coverage", it just would be better in the WiFi 7 categories (like capable of 100Gig or some shit that I'll never have, and instead of having 200? or so devices connected [like my 6E system can ahndle) it's like 1,600 or so. I honestly doubt I'm ever gonna have 1,600 motherfuckers at my house connected to my network at the same time. Unlikely lol. I do seem to see, a lot of the Linksys routers on Amazon are what I would call "the old school" style- a router/modem-looking device, with 1, 2, or 4 antennas sticking up... but to me, that's not really a Mesh Router - a Mesh Router is where you have multiple nodes that you can move around , and they communicate on a specific radio frequency, and if you want to move one into your living room because you are having a party etc. and will have more people there, you can etc. Anyway TLDR- I Am a big Linksys fan and I LOVE the system I got - but it's as if, they seemingly stopped making them or some shit? I dunno. Hope my rambling helped... too much caffeine this morning, not even sense lol.

I had plume pods which worked really well but they had a device limit and I far exceeded that. I tried obi for about 4 days and had nothing but problems then I went to the Linksys 6e (wired backhaul) setup which worked well for a while until one day it didn’t. I even reset everything and HomeKit devices were still dropping. The worst part is that I invested so much time and money into everything. Now i dropped about 1300 on my unifi setup which worked well is slowly expanding and costing even more haha. I’m done with AP’s (3 U6E) cameras are up next but I need to upgrade my 16 lite switch to a pro switch due to power consumption. I’ll slowly be adding 4 more cameras and possibly a doorbell

I have a Linksys tri band mesh system (older but meets our needs) and I don't notice any roaming issues, I can walk from the front of the property to the back on a wifi sip phone and not notice and interruption, and I do know I have to cross three AP's to do that, two wired and one wireless back haul

In 220 sqm, you shouldn't need more than 3 nodes, unless you want more coverage outside, but with too many as you've already experience, they will sometime fight for the best signal, even more so when they are just wifi based. If you can get more Cat6 installed, the location of the router (primary node) becomes irrelevant since they will all share the same exact signal with the same bandwidth so you should be able to test it now and confirm better coverage. If you have baseboards, they make 1/4 round that has channels in them where you can hide the Cat 6, and if that's not an option there are some manufacturers who make flat cables. As for me personally, both system have been challenging but that is more related to my own person situation than the hardware. The Linksys Velop system started out great, but as my need for IoT devices grew, the system struggled a bit. I came to find out well after the fact, the nodes which I thought I set up as wired, someone defaulted back to wireless which impact my bandwidth for devices connected to it. I ended up giving them to my inlaws since the coverage at their home sucked and they have been working perfectly since. I moved over to the Night Hawk system on the recommendation of a friend who has their gaming router and overall it has been really good. It took a lot of additional setup and tweaking to get it up and running at full capacity. The biggest challenge I had (again my own issue, not product issue), was I forgot how many of my IoT devices only run off 2.4 gHz. The Night Hawk system (unlike the Velop) has a default SSID that combines the 2.4 and 5 gHz bands. The Velop had these automatically separate with different SSID's. Due to this, some of my IoT devices had trouble connecting and I regularly lost their signal. (see Ring Cameras, smart switches/outlets, etc) so this meant I had to reconfigure my network with customized networks. But on the Nighthawk system this works differently than I was used to. The main 2.4/5 ghz network will always remain, so I had to create a custom standalone 2.4ghz network and then reconnect all my IoT devices to that. This was a tedious effort, but again, this was my fault, not the hardware/software. Since I have finally got all of that figured out, its run flawlessly. I have a 1GB fiber line. If the device is hardwired, I will get 850 Mbps (up and down) on average (www.speedtest.net). On a wireless device it will vary from 100Mbps to 500Mbps which is dependent on how much bandwidth is being used at any give time. The coverage is better than the Velop overall. I have a few friends who have the Orbi systems and swear by them. Since I run a lot of wired, I wanted some more raw high performance in certain locations. (Night Hawk lets you prioritize devices better IMO) I both game and run a home theater server so I stream not only from the net, but also across the network from that service to 4 different locations in the house. Even if they are all running at the same time, the wired connection means they don't bog down and don't impact the wireless bandwidth that is remaining. The Orbi overperforms with wifi only based stuff and provides a stable network across a larger area. From what I understand the setup is also easier on the Orbi. If and when my night hawk system dies, I will seriously consider and Orbi system but thats not going to be for quite a long time.

I had a TP-Link BE85 setup before this and returned it because of constant disconnects which is a known issue with them. I felt like their speeds were higher than Eero but the disconnects and the complexity of three separate SSID’s versus a single one made Eero a better choice. Prior to that, I owned an AMPLIFI Alien setup that I really liked. One of my units started having issues and needed replaced after several years. AMPLIFI has decided not to continue supporting the Alien product anymore so that was stuck on WiFi 6. Before the AMPLIFI setup I owned a Linksys Velop system and it was absolute trash. I don’t think there is a such thing as a perfect mesh system because if there was I would have bought it. That being said, I am sharing the same frustrations as you with the recent firmware updates.

We recently moved into a new home and now have gigabit internet. I have tried two different systems so far: the Linksys Velop system with two points. I would only get the speed I pay for in the room the router is in, but as soon as I go into the next room, it drops to around 200 mbps. Upstairs, it drops even further, even with the second point, unless you are hardwired into the second point. I am currently using the Nest Wifi router with four points, but I now only get a maximum speed of 500 Mbps downstairs and 150 Mbps upstairs, even with two points upstairs. Unfortunately, the Nest points don't have Ethernet, so I can't check that speed.The house is 1,328 sq ft. I just need a system that gets my speeds better for both downstairs and upstairs, as it is needed in both areas.

Installed Deco x68s at my place, x55s at in laws, x55 pros at friends, and Linksys Velops at other friends, all hardwired, rock solid and roaming works flawlessly. All of them having 20-30+ clients.

I use a pretty old Linksys Velop with 4 nodes, the only upgrade was running wired backhaul from all the nodes via unmanaged netgear switch. Not had the system very long 6 months, arc ultra 2 era300 2 era100 and a sub 4. Not had any network connection issues yet.

Got 7 velop nodes all wired backhaul. Able to provide seemless internet in all 7 apartment units. 1 for each apartment. All my nodes are bought second hand in FB marketplace at barely 30% of the original price. 😁

I have a similar house and tried Linksys Velop and Asus ZenWifi AX mesh options. Neither were terribly reliable. In the end I ran a couple of Ethernet cables and now have two InstantOn AP22 access points which provide great coverage and have been rock solid.