![]() ![]() I'll post the answer to commonly asked router questions below - if you have any others, feel free to reach out on Twitter ( or by clicking the little envelope icon on my CNET profile page. From there, I make sure to evaluate each router's features and its ease of use, as well as considerations like security standards, smart home compatibility, and overall value relative to the competition. If the router allows me to separate each band into a separate connection, then I'll run separate rounds of tests for each band to see how they perform when isolated.Īfter all of that, I'm left with a comprehensive look at how the router's speeds hold up to different devices across different distances, as well as how the router handles other considerations, like latency. I also run a separate round of tests to a Wi-Fi 6E device (a Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphone). I run the entire process detailed above (a front-to-back round of speed tests, followed by a back-to-front round) three separate times: once during morning hours, again in the early afternoon, and once again during evening hours. Your distance from the router when you first connect will make a difference in how the router handles your connection, so running a split of front-to-back and back-to-front tests helps to keep my averages rooted in real-world results. ![]() Once I've run tests in all five rooms, I repeat the entire process, but this time, I start with a fresh connection in the room farthest from the router. I start in the same room as the router, I run multiple speed tests on a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop with full support for Wi-Fi 6, I log the results in a spreadsheet, then I move to the next room and repeat. My operating procedure is largely unchanged - I start by setting each router up in a fixed location in our lab, and once it's up and running, I run a multitude of speed tests from five different rooms nearby. Last year, in 2022, I relocated my home test setup back to our product testing facility in Louisville, Kentucky. Like a lot of people, I spent the majority of 20 working from home, and that included my router tests. Some manufacturers like TP-Link are jumping the gun with Wi-Fi 7 router releases in 2023, but buying in now seems premature given that the standard isn't fully ratified yet and there isn't a Wi-Fi 7 device certification process yet. That said, at this point, the smarter play for future-focused shoppers might be to hold out until 2024, when we expect to see the full ratification of Wi-Fi 7, the next big generational update for Wi-Fi.
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