Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System (2-Pack)

Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System (2-Pack)

These work better than a single wifi router, especially for large areas. Highly recommend. However, I bought the 3 pack from Best Buy on sale for $207.

I have been a tester for Linksys products for a couple of years. I received this tri-band 2 pack a few years ago and was quite impressed. I put the first one/master in my living room (actually in a corner of the house) and had great coverage throughout my house. I added the second node in the upstairs, which simply improved signal strength and coverage.

Set up is pretty darn easy. Only complaint is that it is done via phone app now. But I would say the the Velop routers are designed to be “set it and forget it.” I don’t have to change any settings on the app, and all of the nodes automatically update firmware at night, when available. I can see who is connected to my network at any time, rename the devices, or even block items that I don’t recognize from the app.

The reason this is tri-band is because it uses 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz to communicate with your devices, and another 5 GHz band to send the data between the nodes. There are some versions of these that are dual band, and I’d recommend these as they’ll get you faster speeds.

Overall, if you have a house with dead spots or poor signal, this system is quite helpful. You could start with 1 node and check the coverage, but I’d guess you’ll need 2 if you’re considering this purchase. Hope this helps!

I have a modem/router combo, will it still work with that? I’m guessing one has to stay near the modem and the other can be placed elsewhere? How much area would you say a node covers?
Thanks

What is the model number on these?

Good morning.

WHW0302

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Can’t speak for the tri-band but the dual band version of this works great. I have a 3 story, 3,000 sq ft house and get really good coverage on the first 2 floors and consistent but not great coverage on the third floor. I plan on adding another node if I see another 1 or 2 pack on sale. That being said, I paid $60 but the 2 pack dual band through new-egg. The 2 pack dual band were on sale for $100 and I had a 40% off coupon. It’s a solid product but $207 seems high, even for the tri-band.

Yes. I just set this up with my own Modem/Router Combo. Although, I would recommend turning off the WiFi on your Modem/Router, and if you WANT, set the Velop to Bridge Mode, so all the routing/DHCP is done through the Modem/Router instead of the Velop. Velop can just hand out WiFi IPs, and route traffic that way.

Works decently well.
Make sure the Ethernet cable to the main Node is over spec, ie a nice Gigabit CAT6 cable.

THX

So it probably would. You’d have to turn off the wifi on the combo modem/router and (I think) have to put it into bridge mode or such. But it might just work. I think these things are much better than any router from your ISP.

The other option is to buy your own modem. I bought an Arris SB 6183 and you can find refurbs of this for pretty cheap, and stop renting a modem from the ISP. Paid for itself pretty quickly by avoiding the $6-12 per month.