Linksys Velop Wi-Fi router: One of the best mesh network systems to date

LINKSYS BID ITS time before jumping into the consumer mesh Wi-Fi router market, watching Eero, Luma, Netgear, and Google wade in with new products in 2016. Now, Linksys is making a splash at CES where it debuted its Velop Whole Home Wi-Fi system. We’ve benchmarked the heck out of a three-node system and found it to be

one of the best yet. It’s also one of the most expensive, with a single router priced at $200, a two-pack at $350, and a three-pack going for $400 (a substantial discount over buying three singles).

You’ll find benchmarks conducted with Windows PCs further down, but I performed the same tests with a MacBook Pro. Click here (go. pcworld.com/veloprev) if you’d prefer to read that version.

The Velop’s slightly rounded columnar form factor hews closer to Netgear’s Orbi () (next on my review to-do list) than the puck-shaped devices from Eero (go. ) (benchmarked, but not officially reviewed yet) and Google (Google Wi-Fi has been fully). And like the Orbi, the Velop is a tri-band router with three 2x2 radios (two uplink and two downlink) operating three independent networks on the 2.4- and 5GHz frequency bands. One of the 5GHz networks utilizes the lower channels on that band (36 and up) while the other uses the upper channels (149 and up). The router automatically steers clients to the most appropriate network, and each automatically chooses a different channel for its backhaul duties (i.e., data traveling from client devices back to the router). You can also set up one guest network.