It is a concern experienced by many: the connection Wireless goes very well in the room of the house where the internet box is located, but much less in other more distant rooms, to the point that we sometimes have the impression of changing the connection (from 40 to 15 Mbps, this amounts to to switch from medium flow to low flow). There is a fairly simple solution to overcome this type of inconvenience, a solution that does not require breaking a wall: Mesh WiFi.
If we take the clearest definition of the concept, Mesh WiFi is a decentralized network mesh made up of a main router and satellite terminals. In the case taken as an example above, an intermediate mesh (terminal) would make it possible to establish a “bridge” in order to extend the range of the signal received in the living room up to the bedroom.
the TP-Link Deco X20 AX1800 is a Mesh WiFi 6, which means that it can retrieve the WiFi 6 signal from the fiber box (at very high speed) and “spit it out” at a maximum speed of 1800 Mbps (1201 Mbps on 5 GHz and 574 Mbps on 2.4 GHz). The Pack of 3 Deco X20 terminals offers a total coverage of 500 m2 and allows the simultaneous connection of 150 devices! I have had this Mesh at my home for a few days, and I can attest to its relative ease of installation. Relative, because when registering the account on the dedicated app, my iCloud.com email address was systematically refused. Fortunately I still had a Yahoo.com in the corner!
Apart from this small hitch, the installation consists of attaching the master Deco via Ethernet to the SFR fiber box, and having it recognized in the app (Account + email confirmation + Bluetooth connection). As for the satellite terminals (placed near places less well served in signal), just plug them in and wait for them to connect to the master terminal. Last step, we reconnect the iPhone (in WiFi) to the master Deco terminal… and let’s go!
What about throughput? Unsurprisingly, the speed recorded in the living room (via the master terminal therefore) is the same as that of the WiFi of the fiber box (ie between 700 and 850 Mbps). In the upper room, I still lose speed, but much less than before (between 500 and 600 Mbps against 350 Mbps approximately). In short, it works pretty well. There are even some nice surprises: in the event that another person wishes to connect to this new Mesh network (and is one of my contacts), I can then directly transfer access to the WiFi network to this person without that she has to enter the network password!
Add to that a rather elegant design, the inclusion of WPA3 encryption, parental control or anti-virus functions (via the app), and you get a highly recommendable Mesh. the TP-Link Deco X20 AX1800 (pack of three terminals) is available on Amazon at a price of 508 euros.
