How to Choose the Best Router for your Smart Home

With so many options like Wifi 6, Wifi 6E, HomeKit routers, mesh, tri-band, etc...it's all very confusing...😫😫!! What does all this mean and what should you be looking for when shopping around for a new router? We'll discuss all of these topics and more. I'll also share with you what I'm currently using, what I've used in the past, and my experience with them all.

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✅ Let's Connect:

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Products Seen in Video:
Linksys Velop MX 10 Mesh Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6:

Eero Pro Mesh Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6:

Netgear Orbi Mesh Tri-Band Mesh Wi-Fi 6:

Negear Orbi 2 Pack Mesh Wi-Fi 5:

🏠 Other Recommended HomeKit Products:

NOTE: This description contains affiliate links that allow you to find the items mentioned in this video at no cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Chapters:
0:00 Overview
2:05 Linksys Velop
3:06 Your Internet Service Provider
4:05 Mesh Wifi
6:50 WiFi 6
8:10 WiFi 6E
8:47 HomeKit Routers
10:17 Other Considerations
12:24 My Experience & Opinions
16:53 Tips for Changing Routers
18:25 Final Thoughts

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🎥 RECOMMENDED

HomeKit 101 Playlist

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#HomeKit #SmartHome #Router

[leftverture]

“Personally, I wouldn’t want a router that’s owned by Google or Amazon. That’s just me… call me crazy.“ I’m crazy right there with you brother.👍

[ArasPundys]

Apple should release an updated Airport mesh Wi-Fi system. That would drive HomeKit adoption and the ecosystem.

[coreydebbiewindedahl]

Great video! I use a Ubiquity Amplifi mesh system for my smart home. Easy setup and gives lots of control. One thing that really helped was setting up new HomeKit devices that need 2.4 ghz, if the device couldn’t “see” the 2.4 then I could toggle my 5ghz off so smart devices connect the turn 5ghz back on with no interruptions!
The mesh extenders have a signal strength on them and the antenna is adjustable so you can get good signal. The base unit looks like small alarm clock so if it’s sitting in your living room it doesn’t look like a router 😁

[joseaperezjr]

I’m still using an Apple TimeCapsule 3TB and an AirPort Extreme as a range extender. I have never had to touch these since the day I bought them. They work flawlessly. I wish Apple was still making these.

[AgWhatsUp]

it would be good to also note that even though you don't pay for gigabit speeds from your ISP, if your router and devices support wifi 6, you will see those fast speeds in data transfer between devices. For example streaming movies from a home PC to your TV, or transferring files between two computers over wifi. That's where you'll take full advantage of your routers high speed capabilities.

[JohnVanderbeck]

Note about Modem/Router combos - if you are on Fiber, such as AT&T you don't generally have an option to replace the combo as the unit is doing the translation from fiber. For these you can either disable the router or use an IP Passthrough setup. Check your service for details. Personally I use Eero on AT&T and I just had to setup my AT&T box to IP Passthrough.

[Razorgirl]

I recently purchased a Ubiquiti Alien mesh Router. I wanted to future-proof my purchase, gave me the option to expand to a mesh network later on if I need to, and it cost half as much as Netgear and Linksys Routers that had the same stats.

Bonus points because it doesn’t look like a robotic spider. 😍

Australian ISPs only offer 100mbps max to consumers (which I have via fibre to my home). Using my new router I was able to clock 104mbps *over wifi* (not wired).

This router also allowed me to name/identify each device that connects to my router (eg. each light in each room) as I add them, so that I can see what’s connected and what’s not connected via the router’s app. Also means that if I had kids, I could turn off their specific devices if I needed to.

Hopefully Ubiquiti add in HomeKit support at some point. But it’s not a deal breaker for me at this stage. 🤞

[ShredGarage]

Decided to ditch more consumer based router and went with UniFi. One Dream Machine and my whole home is covered, if I decide to want better network outside I can add an AP.

The downside is they’re not as user friendly since they’re not made for consumers. Luckily for me I’m a system admin and know how to configure firewalls and networking, but they’re not for everyone.

Lastly.. my new house is fiber and I have a 400/400 speed for about $50. It’s crazy. Love it.

[macsterguy]

I use a Synology RT6600 wifi 6 Tri-band Mesh system and it is really HomeKit friendly and does time machine backups as well... Absolutely love this router! Synology also make NAS storage devices

[OurAppleHome]

We were torn between the Velop and the Ubiqiti Networks options when we moved to our new house. We opted to go with the Unifi stuff because we wanted the in-depth app and configuration ability. I will say this came with a multiple access point HomeKit broadcast issue that just seemed to get solved with the latest firmware that just came out two weeks ago. We have also struggled with getting the Meross Garage door opener to work, but I think we solved it and we have that setup/review coming in a video next week.

I'm was glad to hear your experience with the Velop so far. At the end of the day, the Power of Ethernet setup really sold us on Unifi.

Great work!

[paulmaine]

I’ve got VM 100 MB using eero mesh, perfect, I’ve only got a small house but the router never used to reach all the rooms, sorted now, full speed every corner of the house 😁👍

[wlangendijk]

Thanks Shane! Alway a pleasure to watch you informative videos
I got a good tip to speed up your connection. I was not getting the speeds I was paying for....Place your modem/router from your ISP in bridge mode. (Mostly only one connection is allowed then) I got a 25-30% speed increase!

[RodPriester]

Thanks Shane....complex subject with no easy..”buy this and you’ll be future proof” answer. I have been using google nest wifi....good mesh system, but not the latest and I agree about not buying Google or Amazon Wifi in the future...for me at least. People need understand there is no “buy once, cry once” answer and the technology is constantly can be intimidating and frustrating...but it’s also exciting for consumers. I had a friend that called me and asked if he needed to change his mesh wifi to the latest version....I asked if what he had was not working properly and he said it was working fine....I told him to relax and buy only if/when he was having issues....and not to over think it. I have ATT Fiber optic....it works 👍🏻....sorry to ramble...Thanks again

[ashpole]

Great video, thanks Shane. It used to be simple to swap out Wi-Fi Routers by keeping the same SSID and password but no more. It became a problem for the same reason people sometimes have trouble connecting a 2.4GHz device to a network with the same SSID on 2.4 and 5GHz networks. IoT devices often use and store the MAC address passed to them by, for example, your iPhone and not the SSID to identify your network. That means if your iPhone is connected to 5GHz, it’ll pass the 5GHz MAC address and the IoT device can’t connect to 5GHz! And when you swap out your router, you’ll be changing MAC addresses, so even if you use the same SSID some devices won’t connect automatically. PITA.

[benjaminfox]

G'day Shane! I've been meaning to say a massive HELLO and THANK YOU to you mate! What an awesome, insightful and well-crafted channel. Love your work!

I've recently gone down the HomeKit route for my home.

- A mixture of
--- x16 LIFX - Bulbs ( I love the luminance on them )
--- x6 NanoLeaf Essential - Bulbs
--- x7 Phillips Hue - Sensors
--- x6 Phillips Hue - Dimmer Switches
--- x2 Eve - Aqua Switches
--- x1 Eve - Weather
--- x1 Eve - Room
--- x3 Eufy Security 2k Indoor Pan & Tilt Camera

--- Router - Netgear Orbi RBR50 (AC3000 - Triband Router) - 1 Main + 1 Satellite

--- x1 Apple TV - 4D HDR
--- x4 Apple HomePods OG
--- x2 Apple HomePod Minis

WHEW!

As you can see, I've gone all-in. My wife particularly loves the sensor and light in the pantry - Such a simple solution but she LOVES it :-)

Now to my question. As with my MANY other people. I'm intermittently getting the 'No Response' error - super frustrating. Every day, I'm power cycling either the switches or the router. There seems to be no pattern to the 'no response'.

Additionally, I've utilising a wi-fi analyser and picked the least busy 1, 6, 11 on the 2.4ghz network.

Your video I was hoping, would offer a suggestion as to what 'might???' work from a router perspective, hahaha! My router is coming up to 4 years old. I look with interest at the new routers and wonder if a new mesh network will help fix my 'no response' issues.

Sorry for the ramble, my friend! If you have any ideas, that would be awesome.

Keep that awesome content coming. Take care!

[Polkster]

Great video, Shane. One thing you might want to mention is the reason why companies are using the 2.4 GHz bandwidth for their IoT devices. The longer wavelengths don't have as much issue going though objects and the range is longer without using as much energy to produce said wavelengths.

I currently have a combo router/modem from Spectrum as I am using Apple Extreme Base Stations in Bridge mode to create a pseudo-mesh network. I also run a home business out of my home and one of my bedrooms has been converted to an office where the Spectrum Internet access comes into my house. I have a network rack already in my office that had some rack mounted computers on it. I have decided to replace my Spectrum Router/Modem combo with just a modem and install an Ubiquity Dream Machine Pro in my rack along with a 24 port Cat6 patch panel and Ubiquity UniFi Switch Pro 24 PoE and then put in a couple of their PoE access points, including one for outside. Then later I plan on adding their UniFi Protect with external cameras. I may even switch over to their VoIP phone system instead of using Spectrum VoIP phone system. I just need to make sure I can keep my land line phone number that I already have as it is my business line.

I have decided to go with the UniFi system as it allows me to create multiple VPN's and assign different devices to each and to create Firewall rules for each VPN. It also has a bunch of security features and gives me a much better view of what is exactly going on with my network.designedoptimize

surveillance, VoIP phone systems, door access control systems, along with networking control.

The good thing for me is that the vast majority of IoT devices I have are Aqara and Lutron Caseta. Once I have the Aqara hubs (1 main and 4 camera hubs) and the Lutron hub attached back to my network, that will be about 95% of my IoT devices back up and working. I have a couple of BlueTooth devices and just 7 more WiFi devices to add back along with an Apple TV 4K and a HomePod Mini.

[MRchadwickMANIA]

I'm still running on Apple's Airport router system. I've been overwhelmed and hesitant for some time about upgrading to a new system. This video helped a ton. Thanks for the research and testing.

[entertainment]

Love my eero Pro’s, so rock solid concerning HomeKit.

[MrBboy]

I’ve heard that issue a lot with the Linksys router and didn’t choose it because of that. I went with eero pro 6 and didn’t have any issues, it worked flawlessly.

[ozzitor]

“Automagically connect” 😂 That was super clever. I’m gonna use that from now on.