Five Best Home Wi-Fi Routers
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A
good Wi-Fi router is essential for any solid home network. The best
ones get great range and can serve all of the computers in your home,
offer tons of management features so you can control your network, focus
on speedy communication, and others even have advanced features like
NAS support, printer sharing, traffic shaping, and more. This week,
we're looking at five of the best on the market right now.
Earlier in the week, we asked you which Wi-Fi routers you thought were the best.
If this post looks familiar at all, it's because we've updated it with
your top five from this week, booting out the older routers from several
years ago. We figured it was time to take a fresh look! Some of the old
standbys that made the list last time are either no longer available,
painfully old, or at the very least, have been eclipsed by superior
options, now that 802.11ac is available in more phones and computers than before.
You
offered a great selection—more than we have room to highlight—including
some hacker-friendly routers and crowdfunded models that aren't on the
market just yet, but here are the five that rose above the rest:
ASUS RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless-AC1750 Gigabit Router
The
ASUS RT-AC66U is the successor to some of the RT models that made the
roundup last time we looked at the best routers. This one comes to the
market packing 802.11ac, incredible range and signal power, and
performance that can punch through walls and other obstacles to connect
devices around your home. The antennae on the back are adjustable and
detachable in case you want to add bigger ones or signal boosters, and
the RT-AC66U packs NVIDIA's GameStream technology for gamers who use
NVIDIA products and GPUs. The router also packs four gigabit Ethernet
ports for wired connections, two built-in USB ports for printer or drive
sharing with your network (not to mention remote management, remote
downloading, and other devices you may want to be always on and always
connected), and dual-band transmitters to help balance out tons of
devices or connect ones that may be farther from the router. If you're
interested, it'll set you back about $180 from Amazon.
Those
of you who praised the RT-AC66U noted that it's super-easy to set up,
with a built-in connection wizard that's easy enough to configure and
will have you and your devices connected in minutes. You also noted that
the router's built-in software, while not perfect, does pack a lot of
management tools and advanced configuration options so you can monitor
your traffic, prioritize applications and devices, and secure
everything. Speaking of security, the router has a built-in VPN, so you
can connect securely anywhere. Oh, and did we mention that it gracefully
supports the DD-WRT and Tomato custom firmwares if you want to install
them? You can read more about it—and its Wireless-N predecessor, the ASUS RT-N66U ($125 at Amazon)—in the nominations thread here.
Netgear AC1900 Nighthawk Smart WiFi Router (R7000)
The
Netgear AC1900 kind of looks like a stealth fighter, which may or may
not be an awesome thing to you. Its design is actually supposed to boost
signal, and the three external antennae are adjustable and designed to
help deliver 802.11ac wireless signal to all corners of your home,
connecting all of your devices. The Nighthawk is a dual-band router,
perfect for connecting lots of devices or devices with varying ranges,
and is heavily marketed to gamers, thanks in no small part to support
for NVIDIA's GameStream technology. It also packs four gigabit Ethernet
ports for wired connectivity, two USB ports (one of which is USB 3.0)
for device sharing, including always-on downloading, printer sharing,
NAS or hard drive sharing, and more. The router even supports Apple
AirPlay and Time Machine backups right to connected drives. The
Nighthawk packs a built-in VPN, guest networking, parental controls, and
more security and configuration features that you probably need, and
can also handle useful network management tasks like QoS, traffic
shaping, and application prioritization. If you're interested in one,
you can pick it up for $190 at Amazon.
Those
of you who nominated the Nighthawk praised its sleek design and
appearance, incredible range, and its reliability, noting that 802.11ac
is amazing when you have devices to support it, and the Nighthawk is a
rock once it's set up and configured. Best of all, it's DD-WRT
compatible, and easy to customize on your own if you want total and
complete control over its features and power. Even if you don't, you
noted that it's easy enough to set up that anyone can do it. Read more
in its nomination thread here.
Apple Airport Extreme/Airport Time Capsule
Apple's
Airport Extreme and Airport Time Capsule both pack 802.11ac wireless
into small routers that can fit just about anywhere, set up easily, and
can be remotely managed by iOS devices if you have one. Both devices
support printer and hard drive sharing, and the ability to connect other
devices via USB and share them with other computers, or to share a
printer wirelessly with everything on your network. Both models also
feature three gigabit Ethernet ports for wired connections. While the
Airport Time Capsule is essentially a NAS and router combination, the
Airport Extreme is more of a pure router - although the TIme Capsule is
pretty much an Airport Extreme with drives and drive management
features. They're both pricey though—the Airport Extreme will set you
back $199, and the Airport Time Capsule will set you back $299 or $399,
depending on whether you want the model that offers 2TB or 3TB.
Those
of you who nominated both devices—and there were enough of you to make
each of them their own separate nominee, to be sure—praised the fact
that both devices are essentially plug in and walk away—setup so simple
that you won't need to spend more than a few minutes getting your
network configured and all of your devices connected. In addition to
ease-of-use, those of you who nominated them noted their solid
performance if you're vested in the OS X and iOS ecosystems, despite
their high price tags—if the price tags get you down, you noted the Airport Express is a $99 802.11n base station that can also get the job done. Read more in the nominations threads here and here.
Buffalo Technology AirStation N600 Gigabit Dual Band DD-WRT Wireless Router
Its
name may be a mouthful, but the Buffalo N600 comes in a couple of
flavors—the one we're highlighting, and the one you nominated, is the
one that ships with DD-WRT already on-board, offering you unprecedented
control over the router's features, the ability to get under the hood
and really manage your router and your network and set everything up the
way you like, and more. Of course, the router itself is no slouch—it's a
dual-band 802.11n router with great range and signal strength, so if
you're not looking for 802.11ac like some of the other models in the
roundup, but you are looking for DD-WRT compatibility, this one might be
a good option. It packs four gigabit Ethernet ports in the back and a
single USB port for connected devices and device sharing, extendable
antennae from the chassis for a little signal boost, and it can be
configured as an access point or as a wireless bridge that can extend
your current network's reach. They're pretty affordable, too—it'll only
set you back $87 at Amazon if you want one.
Those
of you who nominated the N600 praised Buffalo's DD-WRT support and
compatibility, and the router's own reliability. A number of you pointed
to it as a logical upgrade from the old Linksys WRT54G, especially one
that won't break the bank if you're looking for a cheap network upgrade
without giving up control over your network or dealing with a UI you
don't like or admin tools that don't give you the options you want. You
also praised the N600 for handling all of the great things that DD-WRT
can do, including built-in VPN via OpenVPN, Dynamic DNS, traffic shaping
and QoS, NAS and wireless printing support, device sharing, and more. Check out the nomination thread to read more.
Asus RT-N56U Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit Router
The
ASUS RT-56U earned more than a few nominations of its own, even
considering its higher-end Wireless-N sibling, the N66U was mentioned
along with its Wireless-AC successor, the RT-AC66U, both earlier in the
roundup. Still, there was a lot of love for the RT-N56U, especially from
those of you who wanted a fast, flexible router with internal anntennae
that could be mounted anywhere, was powerful enough to serve an entire
household with great signal, packed dual-band 802.11n so you could
connect all of your devices, and still packed in features like NVIDIA's
GameStream, twin USB 2.0 ports on the back for device sharing, wireless
printing, and more, and the four wired gigabit ethernet ports that the
router offers. It's a snap to set up, it looks great, and it's rock
solid—a great router for someone who wants a device to connect to the
internet, not necessarily manage a network. If you want one, $88 will get you one at Amazon, although if you shop around, you can probably find it for less than that.
Those
of you who nominated the RT-N56U praised its reliability and
performance, noting that many of you have had one for years and they're
rock solid. You noted that you can't really ask for 5GHz, dual band
performance and gigabit Ethernet in a consumer router at such a low
price point, and almost all of you who commented on it noted that it's
one of the few routers you can own and completely forget its there—you
don't have to reboot it every few days. You can read more in the nominations thread here.
Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to an all-out vote to determine the winner.
2 comments:
good one
I would also like to extend some tips to increase wifi..The wi-fi signal is subject to the same rules as sound or light. The more obstacles in the way, the weaker the signal. You always have the option of adding more hardware, but this may not be the best answer. If you add more devices, called bridges, they will connect to the original wi-fi source, then repeat the signal and extent the range of the network.
The best way to amplify signal is to chose a good location for the source. Given that your modem is in a specific location in the house, you can use a long ethernet cable and place the wi-fi device in a central spot in the house, allow the waves to spread before hitting the first wall.
Apart from this check whether your system is clear from cache,cookies,virus etc.
You can also have a look in http://www.wikihow.com/Improve-WiFi-Reception to improve the signal.After you have tried some of this,try your connection again using Scanmyspeed.com and see if you get improved speed results. If you are not satisfied Call your Internet service provider (ISP) and check whether upgradation of your plan is necessary.
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