Personally, we’d hoped to put the smart speaker in a central location, but to get the best Wi-Fi signal we had to move it to a more out-of-the-way area instead, where the Google Assistant is much less useful. If your workspace is as overfilled with gadgets as ours, you’ll love the idea of combining two of them into one – but, in this case, it can raise tricky questions about location. Google Nest Wifi review: Google Assistant There’s no way to split up the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks either, so you have limited control over which band your devices connect to. What you won’t find is any proper traffic-management settings, nor router-level support for incoming or outgoing VPN connections. You can also nominate other members of your household as co-managers. This is where you’ll find serious administration tools, allowing you to change DNS settings, set up your DHCP pool, reserve IP addresses, create port forwarding rules and so forth. For the rest, there’s an “Advanced Networking” link that bounces you into the old Google Wifi app (or dumps you at the download page if you don’t already have it). Tap the Settings cog in the top corner and a few more technical options come up, including the option to turn on WPA3 for secure authentication from compatible clients. This lets your guests connect to your printer but not your PC, for example. It’s off by default, but you can give it a name and password, and – a nice touch – choose which devices will be visible from the guest network. The options aren’t extensive, but you can group devices together, and enforce schedules and SafeSearch on a per-group basis, as well as suspending access for selected groups with a tap.Īt the bottom of the dashboard, you’ll find the option to enable the guest network. You can also play with additional features such as parental controls. From here, you can check your internet status at a glance, see how many mesh points and clients are connected, and optionally give access priority to one device. Once the system has been registered, a new “Wifi” button appears at the top of the Home app tap this and you’re transported to the Nest Wifi dashboard page. Zyxel Multy Plus review: SMB-friendly mesh Wi-Fi Best mesh Wi-Fi 2021: banish dead spots and boost your broadband Ubiquiti Networks UniFi UAP FlexHD review: Delightfully discreet Google Nest Wifi review: Management and configuration The installer even recognised our hub as part of a two-pack, prompted me to plug in the second node once the first had been set up and automatically tested the connection between the two. In the end, uninstalling and reinstalling the Google Home app did the trick and from there on the process was friction-free. The Home app stubbornly refused to detect our unit – and there’s no web setup option, just a holding page that tells you to install the app. Finish up by picking a name and password for your new network, and you’re away. You’ll then be prompted to scan the QR code on the bottom of the unit to confirm the connection. Once you’ve plugged the hub in, simply open the Google Home app and hit “add new device”. It’s designed to replace your existing router, but can also operate a separate subnet connected to a primary router if need be. The Google Nest Wifi is a dual-band 802.11ac mesh wireless system. Two touch zones on the top light up when tapped, allowing you to nudge the volume up and down – the base light illuminates at varying intensity to indicate the volume level – and four small microphone apertures are set around them for 360-degree listening. At the back of the speaker node there’s a privacy switch to disable the microphone but, while the last-generation nodes had two Ethernet ports each, the new one has none.Ī small LED at the front of the hub glows white when you’re online, while the speaker unit has encircling downward-facing lighting that shows when the Assistant is listening. The two bulbous, largely featureless white units look similar, but not identical: the hub is slightly larger, standing 90mm tall with a diameter of 110mm, while the speaker node is 87mm high, with a circular footprint of 102mm and a speaker grille around the base.Īt the rear of each you’ll find the power socket, and the hub has two Gigabit Ethernet sockets: one connects to your modem, while the other lets you connect a single wired client. You can buy the Nest Wifi as a router-only package for £149, and then add satellites (which Google calls “points”) for £129 apiece, but it makes most sense to buy the router and point bundle for £239, which promises coverage over 210m2.
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