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ALYSE MARKEL (ILLUSTRATIONS); TREVOR RAAB (APP)14
How to
Use It1 | AN AVERAGE APARTMENT
Apartments aren’t as spacious as
houses and often have small balconies
instead of backyards. If your living space
is 2,000 square feet or less, a single Wi-Fi
6 router placed in the center of your
apartment offers plenty of coverage for
all your devices. (The latest generation,
Wi-Fi 6 is a faster protocol, reduces con-
gestion, and increases overall network
efficiency.) If the apartment happens to
have a loft or basement, the ideal place-
ment for this router is on the ground
f loor, since most traffic will come from
internet-connected devices in your liv-
ing room, bedrooms, and kitchen.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t ben-
efit from a mesh system, like in cases
where the modem is wired in an unde-
sirable spot. In my apartment, for
example, the modem is confined to
my upstairs loft despite all my gaming
consoles, smart displays, and smart
home-security equipment living down-
stairs. By placing a satellite node in
the center of my ground f loor, I’m able
to diffuse coverage so that each device
receives a speedy and stable connec-
tion from the main router in the loft.
A newer mesh router, such as the Eero
Pro 6 (page 94), can connect up to 75
devices simultaneously by itself.2 | AN AVERAGE HOUSE
The typical American house sits
around 2,200 square feet, so for most
people, the 4,000 square feet of cover-
age provided by a router and a satellite
point is enough for the whole home. It’s
best to think of each node’s network
signal output as a 30-foot-wide bubble
surrounding the device. You want to
overlap the main router’s and node’s cov-
erage like a Venn diagram, with the edge
of each range converging in the center of
your living area or whatever space you’relikely to have more devices in. That way
this centralized point is enveloped in
signals, which get even stronger as you
get closer to the nodes placed on the
opposite ends of your home.3 | A PROPERTY LARGER THAN
3,000 SQUARE FEET
Say you live in something bigger still.
You should opt for a mesh system with
three components—one main router
and two nodes—as this will allow for
up to 6,000 square feet of coverage.
This signal is strong enough for a larger
house as well as the front yard and
backyard. You’re going to want to make
sure the widest part of the house is cov-
ered with two of the nodes. If that’s the
ground f loor, place a router and satel-
lite on opposite ends of it, and a single
node upstairs. If you’re in a wide ranch,
place your router in the center of your
home and a node on each end.When placing a router and satellite, make sure
nodes are within two rooms’ distance of each
other. This is the rule of thumb for ensuring
that your device has a strong connection. But
the apps included with newer mesh setups will
let you know where the routers are at an opti-
mal distance apart for a far-reaching, fast,
and stable connection. While you can expand
your network with a node-to-node connec-
tion, linking each satellite directly to the main
router offers the strongest performance, since
it doesn’t need to piggyback signals from anindirect source. For example, in a setup with
one router and three nodes, place the router in
the center and each node equidistant from it to
create a pyramid.
If you need still more coverage, mesh sys-
tems are scalable, meaning most brands sell
individual nodes that integrate into your exist-
ing system. As you move devices around your
property, they automatically connect to the
node with the strongest signal. This is espe-
cially helpful for bandwidth-heavy tasks like
streaming, gaming, and videoconferencing.CONNECT EACH NODE DIRECTLY TO THE MAIN ROUTEROPTIMIZE YOUR PLACEMENT