If your Wi-Fi has been lacking, and you’ve been looking for ways to enter the whole-home mesh market, Linksys’ brand-new Velop Pro 6E system could be the perfect solution. With a starting price at $50 less than the MSRP of eero Pro 6E and with similar features, the new Velop Pro 6E system sets up in less than 10 minutes, offers a new external design, and packs the latest Wi-Fi standard for Gigabit networking. So, if you’re ready to dive into the world of mesh Wi-Fi 6E networking, then head below, where we unpack all that the brand-new Linksys Velop Pro 6E has to offer.
Linksys Velop Pro 6E makes upgrading your network easy
While Wi-Fi 7 might be “around” right now, Wi-Fi 6E is the latest official wireless networking standard. That’s why the Linksys Velop Pro 6E utilizes that and delivers plenty of performance to boot. You’ll find that it has overall Wi-Fi speeds of up to 5,000Mb/s, which means that your family won’t have to deal with lagging devices from here on out. There are dual Gigabit WAN/LAN ports in play here, which is pretty standard but also something I wish we would have seen better from. For example, eero Pro 6E has a 2.5Gb/s Ethernet port, which enables true multi-Gig networking. So, in that respect, the Velop Pro 6E does lag behind a little but also costs a bit less at the same time.
Multi-Gig networking aside, the Velop Pro 6E does have a lot to offer. Linksys has overhauled the setup process and says that the new system takes less than 10 minutes to be fully operational, which is “three times quicker than previous Linksys systems.” On top of that, the new droplet design makes the nodes sleek and minimal, so you can put them anywhere in your home.
Going with Wi-Fi 6E means that you’re not only getting the standard 2.4GHz and 5GHz networking bands but also an added 6GHz band, which is how the system is able to reach such blazing wireless speeds. There’s also the addition of WPA3 security alongside WPA2 and even parental controls. Those parental controls allow you to do things like time-based, domain-based, and MAC address-based blocking of Internet access. With these functions, you can say that your child’s Fire Tablet or game console can only access the Internet for a few hours per day and have it blocked outside of that to encourage them to go outside and play this summer. For other security features, it supports NAT, SPI firewall, and single/range port forwarding and triggering, as well as UPnP.
There are three systems to choose from here, as well. The single node Linksys Velop Pro 6E system will cost $199.99, while two will run $349.99 and three $499.99. That’s compared to the $250, $400, and $550 pricing of eero Pro 6E, which is your next-closest competitor here, with Linksys saving you $50 over Amazon’s mesh networking setup.
Linksys Velop Pro 6E is slated to officially launch on July 16.
Electronicsforward’ Take
It’s nice to see Wi-Fi 6E networking systems start to come down in price for MSRP, that’s for sure. However, the one big letdown here for me is the lack of a multi-Gig Ethernet port on the back. Locking the system to Gigabit means that you won’t really be future-proofing here, even though systems of a somewhat similar price range offer that functionality. Most homes don’t need (or can’t even get) Internet plans with more than Gigabit speeds, but for those who can, this mesh system might not be the best investment.
If that doesn’t both you, however, then the Linksys Velop Pro 6E would be a solid buy in all other areas. It looks sleek, is feature-packed on the security and administration side, and costs less than most of its competitors.
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