Price When Reviewed

$399.99

Best Prices Today: Linksys Velop Pro 6E MX6200

$399.99

The ‘E’ in Wi-Fi 6E may formally stand for “Extended,” however till not too long ago, it has additionally stood for “Expensive.” Linksys goals to vary that with the Velop Pro 6E MX6200, a Wi-Fi 6E mesh system accessible in a three-pack, which you’ll choose up for round $400 / £500. 

Why must you care about Wi-Fi 6E? Speed. It’s the newest Wi-Fi commonplace, and presents sooner speeds than Wi-Fi 6 {hardware}. If you have got a contemporary cellphone or laptop computer, you possibly can count on to get pleasure from quick speeds over 1Gbps, and older units ought to profit from clearer, much less congested connections on the two.4GHz and 5GHz bands as nicely. 

Imagine a brand new lane has opened up on the motorway and all the sooner vehicles are making the most of the additional capability. That’s Wi-Fi 6E in a nutshell. 

Aside from efficiency, the Linksys Velop Pro 6E presents the standard perks you’d count on from a mesh Wi-Fi system: seamless home-wide Wi-Fi protection and distant administration of your house community via the Linksys app. 

Everything sounds nice on paper, so we took a three-pack Linksys Velop Pro 6E system for a check drive. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Design and construct

• Six inside antennas, no inside modem
• One gigabit WAN port, one gigabit LAN

The Linksys Velop Pro 6E models are neat minimalist towers with curved sides, save for one sharp-edged nook. All of the antennas are tucked away inside, simply as with virtually all mesh techniques, and just like the Linksys Atlas 6 models, have rubbery bases, which shield the floor you place them on.

While the Velop Pro 6E models are constituted of plastic, they really feel fairly weighty and durable. They stand simply shy of 8 inches tall, so they may not match simply in all places; and as you may count on given their form and dimensions, the models can’t be wall-mounted. 

You solely get two Ethernet ports right here, one WAN, one LAN. Most mesh techniques will provide you with not less than a few further LAN ports to play with, so it is a downside. 

You may purchase a community change should you want the additional bodily connectivity, for any units in your front room which may profit from a wired connection — video games consoles, or NAS drives, for instance. There are not any USB ports, or some other bodily connections on the Velop Pro 6E models. 

Another potential subject is that these are gigabit Ethernet ports. Customers receiving sooner providers from their ISP could nicely have a modem with a 2.5Gbps port, and if that’s the case, you might be shedding out on a number of efficiency. The Asus ZenWiFi XT9 models have 2.5Gbps WAN ports, however are proportionally costlier.

On the opposite hand, most individuals nonetheless have sub-1Gbps broadband, so this received’t be a deal-breaker. It’s simply one thing to be aware of should you plan to improve sooner or later.

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Installation

• Linksys cellular app makes it easy
• Setup ought to take not more than quarter-hour  

Linksys has made organising the Velop Pro 6E as simple as pie. The Linksys cellular apps take you thru the method, one step at a time. Virtually each firm within the house networking enterprise presents the same guided setup for patrons as of late, but it surely’s at all times good to see that an effort has been made to streamline and helpfully clarify what is usually a complicated course of, particularly should you’ve by no means completed it earlier than. 

The cellular apps see you connecting to the Velop Pro 6E system in your cellphone through Bluetooth to start with. 

As it’s a mesh system, the setup course of includes you connecting the primary Velop Pro 6E unit to your modem, and establishing an web connection — energy off your modem first, then join the Velop Pro 6E to your modem with an Ethernet cable, join the router to the mains, then energy your modem again on.

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Once that’s completed, you possibly can then energy up the opposite two. Specs-wise, all the Velop Pro 6E models are the identical, so it doesn’t matter which one you select to behave as the first node. 

For the setup course of, you’re required to plug the opposite two Velop Pro 6E models into the mains in the identical room as you’ve arrange the first unit, so make the pairing course of simpler. Once all of the units are linked, you possibly can then change the community identify, set the Wi-Fi password, and create an admin password. 

Once completed, you possibly can then unplug the opposite two models and place them wherever they’re wanted in your house. The app helps you to change the names of the models — they’re known as “Router,” “Child 1,” and “Child 2” by default — so when you’ve positioned them optimally round your house, you possibly can name them issues like “Living Room,” “Kitchen,” or no matter you need.

The technique of organising all three nodes took me about quarter-hour in whole. As there are three nodes, and I’m nonetheless reeling from the season 3 finale of Only Murders within the Building, I modified the default SSID to “PickwickTriplets,” as a result of I can’t get that blasted music out of my head. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Features and distant administration

• Linksys app offers a transparent overview of your house community
• New Safe Browsing network-level filter instrument 
• Channel Finder searches for the quickest Wi-Fi channels
• Guest Wi-Fi, precedence for as much as three units, and port forwarding are current

The Linksys Velop Pro 6E has all the fundamental house networking options you’d count on, plus a few others, all of that are very simple to activate due to the intelligent structure of the Linksys cellular app. 

The app’s major goal is to present you an summary of your house community. Tapping on the Devices icon brings up an inventory of every thing that’s at the moment related to your community, whether or not it’s utilizing 2.4GHz, 5GHz, or 6GHz Wi-Fi, or if it’s utilizing a wired Ethernet connection. 

Tapping on a tool icon on this listing (e.g. “Google Pixel 6”) permits you to prioritize that machine, to make sure that it’s at all times received sufficient bandwidth in your community — helpful should you’re working from house and wish to be sure that you’ll at all times be capable of make video calls from a selected machine. You can solely prioritize as much as three units, so select fastidiously. 

From this listing, you too can apply parental controls to particular units. These allow you to manually pause web entry, or schedule a break, if you wish to implement a while away from screens. You even have the power to create a blocklist, by including particular person internet addresses — efficient, however time consuming. 

Rounding this out is a brand new beta characteristic known as Linksys Safe Browsing, a characteristic which guarantees to “block unwanted content on devices connected to your network using DNS security.” In this case, “unwanted content” is content material of the grownup selection. It’s a network-level filter, which suggests it’s utilized to all units utilizing the community, as an alternative of particular person units. 

URLs for all the Aylo (previously MindGeek)-owned websites and the websites of some well-known grownup retailers have been inaccessible from all of my check units when this characteristic was activated. 

It’s not excellent; one standard identify you might have heard of escaped the dragnet, and all the main UK playing websites could possibly be accessed too, in addition to websites promoting alcohol. It’s a beta characteristic, so you possibly can’t be too vital, it should doubtless enhance over time. Until then, your greatest wager is to utilize devoted parental control software or change DNS settings your self.

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Channel Finder, which we noticed on the Linksys Atlas 6, is current right here, and this scans all the radio bands, and selects the least-busy channels inside these bands on your units to make use of. A few days after I set the Velop Pro 6E up, I ran Channel Finder, and all the nodes switched channels on the two.4GHz band.  

You’re not capable of manually choose channels your self, which is a bit irritating should you occur to know that sure channels work greatest in your house. You’ll simply need to run Channel Finder, which takes about 5 minutes to do its factor, and hope for the perfect. For most individuals, this received’t be a problem. Linksys says that the Velop Pro 6E makes use of one thing it calls “cognitive mesh” to routinely decide which channels are the perfect to make use of, and it’ll change these itself with out your enter. The Channel Finder instrument then, is a means of manually forcing a re-scan of obtainable channels. 

Other extra frequent house networking options are right here: Guest Access helps you to create a brief sub community for visitors to make use of, should you don’t wish to hand out your major community password; and port forwarding choices — discovered below Advanced Settings – embody single port forwarding, port vary forwarding, and port vary triggering.

You even have the choice to allow DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection), which sees you capable of entry extra of the 5GHz band that’s generally utilized by radar techniques. The app warns you to not allow this should you stay inside 20 miles of an airport, as chances are you’ll lose connectivity — because of this, it’s turned off by default. In testing, having DFS on didn’t seem to make a lot distinction, however you might have extra success in your space. 

Linksys deserves credit score for having an app with a transparent and easy-to-navigate structure that’s filled with genuinely useful data, which could possibly be a lifeline to anybody new to house networking. Generally talking, you received’t need to hassle with opening up the desktop management panel. The solely causes you’d want to try this is should you wished to vary sure DNS and VPN settings. The solely factor that’s unhealthy about it’s that it’s generally gradual to load, sometimes taking a few minutes to get previous the “Getting router settings” display screen. 

Performance

• Consistently delivers 1Gbps speeds should you’re in the identical room because the router…
• …and also you’re utilizing a tool with Wi-Fi 6E
• Expect 400-700Mbps in all different indoor places 

The Linksys Velop Pro 6E demonstrates very nicely the professionals and cons of 6GHz Wi-Fi. As you possibly can see from the velocity check outcomes beneath, taken utilizing the WiFi Speed Test Pro Android app, I may reliably get 1.2Gbps when in shut proximity to Velop Pro 6E node. 

That’s nice information should you’re planning on organising a node in a house workplace working house, or your front room is the place you’ll be spending most of your time together with your cellphone, laptop computer, good TV, and video games consoles. 

It additionally exhibits that the 6GHz frequency can’t penetrate even skinny non load-bearing partitions. In all checks the place I stood greater than 15 toes away with a single wall in the way in which, I used to be bumped again on to the 5GHz band. 

Whether I’m testing out a single router or a mesh Wi-Fi system, I take various velocity checks in the identical 4 places in a two-up two-down home in south London. One is the place I stand 3 toes away from the first node, one other with me 16 toes away, with a non load-bearing wall between me and the first node. 

Another velocity check is taken upstairs, roughly 50 toes away from the first node, whereas the ultimate check takes place outdoors within the again backyard, roughly 65 toes away from the first node. 

You can see the place I’ve arrange the three Velop Pro 6E nodes in my house within the NetSpot heatmap beneath. The purple areas point out a powerful Wi-Fi sign, cooler colours point out a weaker sign. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

The Google Pixel 6 has a Wi-Fi 6E radio, and is due to this fact capable of entry the sooner 6GHz band. The different two check units have Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 antennas, respectively. This ought to offer you an concept of the sort of speeds you’ll get from the Velop Pro 6E on older units. 

Anecdotally, I can say that the sooner Wi-Fi 6E does add a sure one thing, if that sure one thing means with the ability to load YouTube movies and Bandcamp streams barely extra shortly. For probably the most half, efficiency was broadly on par with most Wi-Fi 6 techniques I’ve examined within the final 12 months.  

I used to be unable to hyperlink all the units with Ethernet cables within the rooms I’d set them up in, and so I can’t touch upon how nicely the Velop Pro 6E system works with wired backhaul. 

The system makes use of what Linksys calls “dynamic wireless backhaul” by default, which signifies that any of the radio bands can be utilized for community site visitors. There aren‘t any channels or additional radios that are “dedicated” — where certain radio frequencies are reserved for network traffic, so that they don’t congest the 5GHz frequencies your telephones and laptops are utilizing. 

One means you possibly can normally inform if a system helps devoted wi-fi backhaul, is that if the {hardware} options an additional pair of radios — which will probably be expressed as one thing like “4×4” as an alternative of “2×2” within the spec sheet.

Systems such because the Netgear Orbi RBK760S and Asus ZenWiFi XT9 characteristic devoted wi-fi backhaul. There’s normally an additional price related to this, however on your cash you get extra strong protection, and should you’ve received a busy family, it’s a characteristic that needs to be in your radar — see our greatest mesh Wi-Fi spherical up for extra on this.

Linksys says that its method presents clients 6E speeds in a 2×2 setup at an reasonably priced value, and in equity, it‘s laborious to disagree with that. Then once more, folks‘s wants differ– my explicit home setup, with two adults and no youngsters, won’t replicate the wants and makes use of of bigger, busier properties.

Price & availability

The Linksys Velop Pro 6E is that can be purchased within the UK and US. Price and launch date data for Australia and Canada will not be at the moment accessible. 

Being model new on the time of this writing, only a few locations have been promoting the Pro 6E.

In the United States, you should buy a Velop Pro 6E 3-pack instantly from Linksys, for a comparatively reasonably priced $399.99.  

Alternatively, Amazon has single models plus 2-pack, and 3-pack bundles for $169.99, $299.99, and $379.99. 

In the UK, the Velop Pro 6E is listed on Linksys’s website, however there’s no possibility to purchase instantly. 

Amazon UK has single models for £199.99, in addition to 2-pack and 3-pack variations for £379.99 and £499.99.. 

Ebuyer has particular person Velop Pro 6E models on for £211.49 and a 2-pack for £396.99, however no 3-packs at the moment. 

Likewise, Ballicom has single models and a 2-pack for £211.87 and £397.27 respectively, however no Velop Pro 6E 3-packs simply but. 

There are at the moment no touchdown pages for the Velop Pro 6E on Linksys’ Australian and Canadian websites, nor and nor have been any accessible from third social gathering retailers on the time of writing. 

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Should you purchase the Linksys Velop Pro 6E?

The Linksys Velop Pro 6E offers Wi-Fi 6E speeds for a lower cost than rivals. The massive profit is the brand new 6GHz frequency which might ship nice speeds. However, this implies it should enchantment to consumers who’ve not too long ago upgraded to a brand new cellphone or purchased a brand new laptop computer that helps 6E, such because the iPhone 15 vary. If you haven’t, and none of your units can entry that new 6GHz band, then you definitely’re not going to get the quickest speeds accessible right here.

If you continue to wish to get a mesh Wi-Fi system, the Linksys Atlas 6 and Atlas Pro 6 are actually accessible cheaper than once they launched so contemplate these as related options as they use the identical app.

The focus right here is definitely on Wi-Fi 6E at a extra reasonably priced value, besides, it’s disappointing to not have extra Ethernet ports on not less than the principle router at this value. That is just solved with a reasonable Ethernet change, although.

I may criticize the shortage of a devoted wi-fi backhaul band, too, however not less than you have got the choice to hyperlink all the Velop Pro 6E nodes through Ethernet.

The barely pricier Netgear Orbi RBK760S options devoted wi-fi backhaul, as does the marginally cheaper Amazon Eero 6, however neither of those techniques provide Wi-Fi 6E.

Ultimately, and to reply the query: You can buy the Velop Pro 6E should you’re after an reasonably priced but quick mesh Wi-Fi system and have not less than one machine that really helps Wi-Fi 6E. It’s definitely a extra tempting possibility within the U.S. the place it’s less expensive than within the UK, too.

This evaluate initially appeared on techadvisor.com.