Ultimate WiFi 7 Mesh Battle! (Speed, Range, & App Test) | NETGEAR, ASUS, EERO, TP-Link

[@landpet]

Product Link(s): TP-Link Deco BE85 (2 Pack): amzn.to/42F8EIw eero Max 7: amzn.to/49mR7Ze TP Link Deco BE95 (2 Pack) : amzn.to/3IEXdIj ASUS ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro (2 pack): amzn.to/3TW35Tq NETGEAR ORBI 970 Series (2 Pack): amzn.to/3S68oja Cat7 Ethernet Cables: amzn.to/3Yf7pxD As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

[@AlwaysLearningStuff]

Having virus protection and every other service most brands charge you for, bundled free with the ASUS is a winner for me. Also having the customisation options with the ASUS is also value you don't get in the others. I've had the XT8's for about 3 years now and they are rock solid. The wireless speed though stops short of the 930mbit t my ISP provides me giving about 750. Will definitely upgrade when the crazy prices settle down on these new units and maybe the BT10 gets my cash when it launches here in Australia but considering the XT8's were 900 bucks at launch I can't see how the Bq16 is $2799. Calm down 🙂

[@TigerClaw305]

I would go with Asus because of the AIMesh, I have 3 routers at home, a RT-AX86U, and two ZenWiFi AX, The RT-AX86U is the main router with the two ZenWiFi AX as the nodes, One of the ZenWiFi AX is connected via wired backhaul, and the second one is through wireless backhaul, The reason why I would go with Asus over the others, Because all there routers support AIMesh, So you can buy the cheapest ASUS Wifi router, and have it set as a node.

[@landpet]

AiMesh is fantastic

[@pauloalves6487]

Nice video! Do you plan on reviewing the Asus ZenWifi BT8 (wifi 7 mesh system)?

[@landpet]

I don't have that one now, maybe in the future. I do have the BT10 though

[@Shootsmith]

I moved away from Orbi when I had to reboot it all the time.

[@RandyMarsh0301]

Same here

[@gary56]

I have never had too reboot my Orbi 970.

[@landpet]

It's been good for a while, initially there were issues.

[@gary56]

@ I love my Orbi 970 it’s been rock solid. They have fixed most problems.

[@TheChriss1301]

Same here, now on Eero Max 7 and 6+ and it works perfect.

[@francocastilloAR]

I would choose the one with Mediatek or Qualcomm hardware for perhaps OpenWrt support. I would rule out the ones with Broadcom.

[@landpet]

OpenWRT does offer a ton of options.

[@francocastilloAR]

@@landpet Yes, but that's another thing I'm talking about. OpenWrt is not supported on Broadcom hardware, at least not on hardware of this level, and that's Broadcom's own fault for not distributing open source drivers.

[@bigrexxx]

You should test how older mesh systems perform with these new Wifi 7 systems? For example, do you get faster speeds if connected to a 6E hub, if the main router is wifi 7? Because for people with existing 6 or 6E system, it might be worth going with the same brand, even if it's not necessarily the best Wifi 7 system, just so they can use their existing units, as wifi hubs, for even better coverage.

[@landpet]

Orbi is not compatible from what I remember. Asus is compatible, eero is compatible and deco is compatible

[@JoeWavy]

Do you recommend a certain one if you’re trying to build a smart home? Does one system connect to more devices than the others? Thanks

[@landpet]

At this level, most of these are more than capable. Eero has matter and thread support if some of your smart home devices require that.

[@ericshufro8150]

Can you comment on mlo link performance? I'm having bad luck with it. Seems slower on the Deco be75 which also seems to have reliability problems at the moment with wired back haul.

[@landpet]

MLO is typically great for wireless backhaul. I haven’t tried the BE75 yet, so I can’t speak to it. I would just say to verify the firmware is the latest version and maybe try restarting everything including your modem. Wait for 2 minutes when you power off the modem then turn it on and when it’s fully on, turn the be75 main router on. When that goes on, turn on any other decos. If it has fast roaming or beam forming enabled, I would temporarily disable those and see if that helps as well.

[@benbouch]

I’ve been trialing TPlink and found stability to be an issue. And since I want wifi throughout my property I need smooth transition to lower freq and solid range.. this usability is subjective but did you note any of this during your range tests? Looking to try asus or orbi next

[@aaronabulon231]

If purchasing the ASUS, the default package comes with one main and one satellite. Does the system allow me to add one or two more satellites to my mesh system, for a total of three more satellites?

[@landpet]

Yes

[@aaronabulon231]

Awesome. Thank you. I dont see the option on your link to purchase just an additional satellite. Can you post that link?

[@BlaqViper]

Is there any additional information about why the iPhone 16 is allowed to call itself WiFi7, yet seem not to support 320mhz channel width?

[@landpet]

That seems to be the main culprit

[@francocastilloAR]

320 MHz is not mandatory to be considered Wi-Fi 7.

[@stickyjoe7296]

What internet provider do u have? Because 5G is crazy I need it

[@landpet]

Frontier fiber

[@stickyjoe7296]

@landpet Damm it's not available for my area😓. Would u know any othere provider that have 5G. I have xfinity rn and AT&T isn't available either

[@TheMainCal]

@@stickyjoe7296 att offers 5g fiber now but in select areas. I have the 1g does what I need to with no issues. 5g is not in my areas but TBH I don’t need it, and just because it’s higher does not make it better. We stream on one tv and laptop always every night, I play wow at max settings, and have one video door bell. The WiFi I have now where we sit due to distance only gives us about 400 to 200 mbps on the asus ax11000 dbm is at about -60 keep in mind. Yes yes I need a mesh but not ready to pull the trigger yet.

[@gonzo33186]

​@stickyjoe7296 you do not need 5G😂😂😂. I'm running 20 devices and I had 500m and no issue with my orbi from 2018. The only reason I went to 1gig is because new employee pricing came out and I was able to double my speed for $3. I could easily add 8 cameras and most likely be fine. The issue is may have at that point is router capacity. I believe my max is between 30-40 devices but again it's a 2018 wifi 5.

[@bhargan]

Any specific mesh that plays the best with an excessive amount of Sonos speakers/subs? I have a total of 32 speakers and have the Orbi 970, but have ran into some issues lately with the Orbi.

[@landpet]

Really? I would think the 970 should handle that, that is a lot of speakers but still would think that the 970 can handle it. That's literally my favorite mesh system lol, you can try the ASUS, I mean everything here is pretty powerful. I'm wondering if it can possibly be Sonos that's not playing along too well. I actually recently bought the Arc Ultra (haven't opened it yet) but I read some reviews of people saying make sure you connect the Arc Ultra via ethernet. That way when the Sonos amp (also bought that) connects to the Arc Ultra via Wi-Fi, it will form a strong connection. People mentioned when the main system is not connected via Ethernet, it may cause issues.

[@blairmacdonald9770]

How do these compare to a router and extender system that supports Mesh ? (ie. TP Link OneMesh or EasyMesh). I can't seem to find much information on that sort of setup.

[@landpet]

In reality, they’re pretty similar since they’re both doing a mesh setup. The difference if we want to call it that would be that these systems are designed as a mesh where the other routers that use EasyMesh are designed as standalone routers that have a feature added to make them a mesh system.

[@blairmacdonald9770]

@@landpet thank you. I like the idea of being able to upgrade my router now, and then add extenders of various types depending on what I need where ... the extenders are also usually much less bulky, and plug directly in an outlet, so no need for mounts etc.

[@4givenoxygenbarez]

13:23 "..hasn't let me down.." did asus, tplink, and eero have let you down?

[@landpet]

No they haven't, I've just ran the Orbi the longest. The others were used for shorter periods of time. Again, all of these are so good, it's genuinely hard to pick a winner.

[@vhol93]

Awesome!

[@landpet]

Thanks!

[@JR007x]

Solid review of all these WiFi 7 routers, thank you! I think you're right, all are good and I knew you'd pick the Orbi for some reason. All-in-all great video!

[@landpet]

Yeah they are all good. It just depends what you're looking for

[@anthman2124]

Great video.

[@randomreader1999]

Why

[@landpet]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Jjsaba2008]

I have 3 deco E85 and to extend my WiFi coverage all I half to do is run a hard Lind to each deco ?

[@landpet]

yes or you can run wireless backhaul. Here is a video that explains the setup process and all the various ways you can setup a be85: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5a3f6mFaLJqr5I

[@jabbasan12]

Great review thank you. I have the Orbi 970 with wired backhaul, with 5Gb fiber. Solid setup, not the cheapest but it gives me the coverage I need.

[@landpet]

Thanks! I have the exact same setup. Well said, not cheap but good

[@DS-un2oi]

@@landpet I have option to use wired backhaul but then I feel like I am wasting the quad band capability. thought?

[@floanubisre2831]

Hi, I wanted to get a new router and maybe you can help me choose - my issue is that I cannot do wired backhaul so it would be all wireless. The first router has to be positioned on the first floor and there are two concrete walls between the second-floor satellite (10 meters distance). But I still want good speed and especially low latency at the second floor where I live for streaming of 8k files and VR stuff - would you still recommend the Deco or rather the Asus? I also watched your video for the ASUS ZenWiFi BT10 which was also impressive - since it is not so price as the pro would it be enough?

[@landpet]

For wireless backhaul performance, the Deco BE95 took the cake but that ASUS BT10 is phenomenal. Especially if you can wire into the wireless backhaul node. I just don't know how well it will do beyond concrete walls. I would try the ASUS, see how well it does since I imagine it costs less but still delivers solid performance.

[@floanubisre2831]

​@@landpetthanks!👍

[@tightertech]

I bought the RBE772 (one mesh, one router unit). It has let me down so much. For example, a random 150mbps cap on the router ethernet ports (rated for 2.5gbps), yet the mesh unit (wireless backhaul) gets 10x that at ~1gbps (I pay for 2.5gbps internet). Any clue as to what this means?

[@baoanprounited]

Its just a random thing right? I also experience that with my DECO BE16000, but with the UPLOAD speed. Not an issue though cuz it went away quickly

[@KingKong-q4x]

I have Spectrum Modem EN2251 and am looking for a mesh system to replace the Spectrum stuff. Which mesh system do you recommend that works well with the Spectrum Modem? Thank you.

[@landpet]

Just about any mesh system should work. Just find out what speeds you need, how big your place is and whether you're running wired or wireless backhaul.

[@KingKong-q4x]

@@landpet Thank you for the quick reply. I'm currently paying for 1 GB, my house is about 2720 sqft single story and will be running wireless. Thank you again.

[@czts4778]

According to your test The Orbi isn’t even the fastest, why did you choose it as your daily router? What is its strongest feature ?

[@landpet]

It's just an all around good router, consistently fast and stable. I've just been using it as my go-to router. Honestly it was hard to pick a winner from this list since they're all really really good. ASUS is another top contender because it offers so many features in addition to good performance. If I was running wireless backhaul, I would pick the Deco BE95. Eero was also super stable, I was just not a fan of it not reach my full 5Gbps speeds at the time even though it came very close only cause all the others did reach it and in some cases slightly exceeded it.

[@legolator]

Alright so I think the answer might be obvious but here goes. I currently have some hand-me-down Cisco APs from work and run a vWLC to manage them, which works fine but I kind of want to simplify my setup and not bring work with me home so much if you get what I'm saying. (yes I am a network engineer, but not a Asus product specialist.) :D I do not want to replace my firewall with anything, but rather just use the routers as access-points. Can I use the Asus as just two units without one of them being the internet router and still have the mesh? I would guess so but no one brings this setup to light in any video, I think most videos mention that "you might have to put your router behind the unbridged modem from your ISP" but I really just want to turn off DHCP on both units, keep them for WiFi 7 Mesh with wired backhaul. So it would be: "my firewall with one interface to my switch" - "both asus routers connected to the switch via patch-panel, routers are not actually connected to the internet but just acting as WiFi 7 mesh Access-points". Basically replacing my cisco ap + vwlc setup with asus. Great video as always, been binging your stuff for the past weeks. One wish would be some more technical videos for specifically the Asus since they seem to be the only ones that allow you to go app-free and do your own thing with them.

[@landpet]

Thanks! And great question. Unfortunately, I don't run the Asus routers that way but I do believe you can run these in access point mode and have them emit the wifi signal. There is an option for them to run in that mode. I imagine it should work. The typical technical questions I get related with Asus is if I can connect them to other Asus routers which the answer is typically a yes as long as they all support AiMesh.

[@gary56]

I use the Orbi 970 and it is rock solid for me. One issue is if I reboot the 970 I notice the Orbi app does not show any of my devices connected to my switch as connected they show disconnected. They are connected because I checked using the web interface. I have to unplug them and plug them back in and they will show up connected in the app. Not a big deal for me.

[@landpet]

What about closing and reopening the app?

[@gary56]

@@landpet I will have to try that next time I reboot it.

[@gary56]

No did not work. By the way there was a new firmware released yesterday for the 970 with quite a few fixes. No problems after updating but those couple of devices hooked to the switch still don’t show up on the app. Have unplug and plug back in and the show up.

[@jackipiegg]

6:16 I don't understand, why is there no multiple clients in any of your videos, especially for 10G routers. E.g, Have 2 or more Wifi 7 clients (phones) and test it at the SAME TIME to saturate the speed.

[@landpet]

My speed tests are on maximum speed possible. The more devices that perform speed tests simultaneously, the speeds will be split up.

[@jackipiegg]

@@landpet No it won't be split up if you use 6ghz on 2 device and 5ghz on 2 devices respectively. [6ghz] ]Device1 & Device2 = 5gbps [5ghz] Device3 & Device4 = 5gbps This will max the 10g port.

[@TheMainCal]

Current router is asus and outside the first like year of crappy firmware every other firm ware has been sold but keep in mind it’s the ax11000. I think the thing that holds me back on net gear is their less than stellar launch due to price of 2300 before discount. My current system works well so I will keep using my ax11000 till a future date but I don’t like Amazon and if your charging me 2300 bucks it need to work perfectly from day one, so I would probably go asus again personally also I hate subscriptions.

[@landpet]

Sounds like ASUS is the choice for you

[@hydrowk12]

I've never understood the mesh routers...how they are different than the usual range extenders?

[@landpet]

they come as a combo set, they typically work better than extenders. It's all setup in the same app and it's designed from the ground up to work with each other. Extenders typically look for a signal to boost if they're on wifi mode where the mesh system knows. They also typically do a better job switching devices. It's just better overall.

[@francocastilloAR]

They are more sophisticated than extenders. They are more "aware" of the local network topology.

[@Zachariahfml]

Can you comment on what has less internet drops I'd appreciate it!

[@landpet]

There all stable from what I’ve seen. I’ve ran the Orbi the longest from the bunch and it’s been solid but I’ve had no issues with the others as well

[@benhaze1010]

At the time I am writing this the BE95 is on sale, cheaper than the B85 and all others by a wide margin, and considering its wireless backhaul performance, is definitely the value leader here.

[@landpet]

Price will definitely sway my decision making

[@TheChriss1301]

Peronally i think the Orbi app is just really bad. Takes a long time to install and several reboots when you change some settings. I also tested Asus and TP-Link before but now i‘m very satisfied with the Eero Max 7 and 6+. They just work great and the app is very responsive.

[@landpet]

I appreciate the feedback, eero does indeed have a good app. I think deco is also very smooth and responsive

[@aaronlee4913]

Eero I guess

[@landpet]

Not a bad guess

[@BrknRidr10317]

The Orbi contstantly disconnects the satellites and clients multiple times a day and is a known problem.

[@landpet]

That has not been my personal experience, I run the Orbi 970 the most often and it's solid. Have you tried updating the firmware and the app? Most importantly the firmware.

[@armypilot1]

I have the 971 & 2-970 satellites. Nothing but problems, constant rebooting. Tech support had to send to engineering because they could not figure out. Latest firmware as of yesterday. Plugged a laptop directly into the back of the router and got 75 mbps then unplugged and went wireless and got 1.2 gigs. Then plugged the laptop directly into the modem and got 1.2 gigs. Ask them how is it possible to have a 10 times faster download speed wirelessly is opposed to wired they could not figure it out. I tested again this morning and magically I have 1.3 gigs. Way too much work and problems with these $2000 ORBI mesh system. I'm gonna take it back and try the BE 95 mesh system

[@calaloco]

@@armypilot1 I bought Orbi BES873 and had the same issue, satellites constant rebooting. I returned. I have now EERO Pro Max 7 and they are very stable.

[@thomasjones862]

Deco be95

[@landpet]

good guess

[@alvianfajar9570]

Windows 11 still can't do WiFi 7 huh? And phone WiFi is still on 1 spatial stream right? That means it will be at least 85% faster than phone if PC can use 2 spatial stream at 320 MHz or am I wrong?

[@landpet]

Computers that can support 4x4 MU MIMO with 320MHz support should be able to go faster

[@alvianfajar9570]

@landpet is there even a client device with 4X4 MIMO though? 🤣

[@francocastilloAR]

@@alvianfajar9570 He doesn't know what he's talking about.

[@elboogy]

Can't decide between eero 7 or BE85. Need strongest range for a 3/4 level home (multiple floors/walls). Which would you recommend that wont keep dropping connection, also not looking for any after subscriptions.

[@francocastilloAR]

Unfair comparison. Some have 4 bands, some only 3.

[@landpet]

These are the top 5 mesh systems in my opinion as of now, so I just compared them. Some are quad band and others are tri band.

[@francocastilloAR]

@@landpet And for that reason they are not comparable. Also, not all of them have the same bands even if they have the same amount. Deco BE95 has 2+5+6+6 GHz vs 2+5+5+6 GHz for the Orbi 970.

[@woofinu]

Is it true that TP-Link now requires that network SSID names have at least 8 characters? That would prevent us from reusing an existing network name (if it's "too short") and make us redo set-up of many home devices. And network names don't need to be secure because they are visible to the public.

[@landpet]

My SSID is less than 8 characters, so I doubt it.

[@woofinu]

@@landpet Thanks. I heard that from someone who got a TP-Link AXE5300 from Costco a few months ago. My SSID is 7 characters so I am afraid of having that problem.

[@woofinu]

@@landpet I misunderstood. The length is for the password, not the SSIG name. And I am not sure if it's a recommendation or requirement.

[@bronco78]

I currently have an Asus Zen WIFI ET8 mesh system and when it is working it works great, but it is consistently having to be rebooted. Sometime 2 or 3 times a day. With all 5 of these devises, it looks like they all have great speeds, but what about reliability? I am currently looking for a new system because I am tired of my current one dropping out all of the time.

[@landpet]

The one I've used the longest is the Orbi 970 and it's very reliable. The others should be reliable as well but I haven't used them for as long as I've used the Orbi.

[@RedSeaTrader]

​@@landpetHave they improved the efficiency the way devices connect to the router or the satellite? Most if not all the time my devices connect to the furthest device. RBK50 are pretty old, but I've had a bad experience to go purchase Orbis again.

[@CrazyFoolHI]

Those routers are way too big

[@landpet]

They're beefy

[@tshaolin971]

Because they run hot with all the waves beamed at them.

[@francocastilloAR]

@@tshaolin971 No. Because of the PROCESSING of those waves.

[@dannyrozados]

Orbi

[@bossanova7462]

Do you have any that a normal person would buy. I don’t know anyone that would spend this much money considering the router that i get for free from Spectrum get very fast speeds for no money 💰

[@landpet]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4OranmKa5ycqaM

[@landpet]

These are my top picks based on budget

[@spikebruno3115]

I have Spectrum Modem EN2251 and am looking for a mesh system to replace the Spectrum stuff. Which mesh system do you recommend that works well with the Spectrum Modem? Thank you.

[@landpet]

Just about any mesh system will work fine with a spectrum modem. You just gotta know what speeds you need it for, how big your place is and whether you're running wires or wireless backhaul.