The newest trend engulfing the wireless industry is the Mesh WiFi networks, which has been around for the past couple of years. Eero, Luma, Google Wifi, and several others having already launched their own systems of routers that aim to simplify home networking by consolidating access points under a single network SSID and letting your WiFi reach more areas of your house without too much headache.
Now Linksys is making its own mark in CES, when it debuted its Velop Whole Home Wi-Fi system. Linksys is the company behind some of the most popular routers in the world. Velop is a system of routers in which each node is a Tri-Band 2×2 802.11ac Wave 2 MU-MIMO router that can also work as range extender or bridge.
Claiming that it has perfected mesh networking to a point where there is no signal degradation between the main router and the other units, Linksys thus offers 100% speed to your devices regardless of which node they’re connected to.
The Velop (besides sounding like a Jurassic rabbit) is an attractive tri-band mesh router that can pair with additional units (using a dedicated radio band separate from your WiFi) to boost your coverage to 6,000 square feet. Velop also has plenty of smart features included in it, parental control, device prioritization, guest networks, auto-fix, and speed test, all of which are accessible through the Linksys Smart Wi-Fi mobile app on Android and iOS.
With a clean speaker-like look, Velop also has Alexa integration, letting you turn on and off the guest network with a simple voice command.
You will have to dig deep into your pocket if you’re interested in Linksys’ system and prefer it over something like the Google Wifi. Velop starts at $199 for a single unit, but you’ll want to invest either $349 for two devices or $499 for three.
Linksys jumps onto the Mesh Networking bandwagon
