Google WiFi Reviewed

[RamGuy]

I'm testing the Google WiFi Triple-Pack as it just got available in Norway. I have a really hard time with WiFi in my appartment due to some brick walls causing me some real headaches. WiFi will drop out in the bathroom, and our Ring Video Doorbell is also having a really hard time.

So I disconnected my Asus RT-AC5300U and configured Google WiFi instead. I have tried having a access point right next to the bathroom, as getting ethernet cables into the bathroom is really difficult so I have tired to avoid it. The problem with having my Asus RT-AC68U as access point is client stickiness... Our phones and tablets simply refuses to disconnect from the RT-AC5300U even though the connection is horrible and barely useable in the bathroom and if we are lucky enough so the switching do happen it will keep the connection to the RT-AC68U without going back to the RT-AC5400U even though performance from the RT-AC68U in our living room isn't all that good.

The only "solution" is to use two separate SSID's and manually switch but thats not ideal....


With Google WiFi we have one "primary" one located in our living room, one in the bedroom (wired) and one in the bathroom (wireless) and even though the signal to the bathroom isn't great, its reported as slightly under "okay" in the Google WiFi app we still have 70mbit down and 40mbit up so its no big deal. The important and impressive thing is how roaming works. Our iPhone's and iPad's are moving from "Living Room" to "Bedroom" to "Bathroom" without any issues, without any dropouts or anything. Even though the signal from the Living Room access point is still good in our bedroom it will still switch to the bedroom access point as that one is even better. All this happens completely automatic and its all seamless without hiccups. This is working beyond my expections thus far!

And performance is stellar as well, we are able to maximise our 540/540mbit connection in every area of the house besides the bathroom. I'm not a huge fan of being forced to use the Google WiFi-app, and I really dislike how you are enforced into using 192.168.86.0/24 which caused some issues with my Windows Server with a static 192.168.1.0/24 IP-address without a monitor connected to it. And the router lacks things like DDNS etc.. But performance seems to be great, both wired and wireless and roaming is downright awesome.

 

[thiggins]

RamGuy: Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed report.

 

[mokodi]

I'm testing the Google WiFi Triple-Pack as it just got available in Norway. I have a really hard time with WiFi in my appartment due to some brick walls causing me some real headaches. WiFi will drop out in the bathroom, and our Ring Video Doorbell is also having a really hard time.

So I disconnected my Asus RT-AC5300U and configured Google WiFi instead. I have tried having a access point right next to the bathroom, as getting ethernet cables into the bathroom is really difficult so I have tired to avoid it. The problem with having my Asus RT-AC68U as access point is client stickiness... Our phones and tablets simply refuses to disconnect from the RT-AC5300U even though the connection is horrible and barely useable in the bathroom and if we are lucky enough so the switching do happen it will keep the connection to the RT-AC68U without going back to the RT-AC5400U even though performance from the RT-AC68U in our living room isn't all that good.

The only "solution" is to use two separate SSID's and manually switch but thats not ideal....


With Google WiFi we have one "primary" one located in our living room, one in the bedroom (wired) and one in the bathroom (wireless) and even though the signal to the bathroom isn't great, its reported as slightly under "okay" in the Google WiFi app we still have 70mbit down and 40mbit up so its no big deal. The important and impressive thing is how roaming works. Our iPhone's and iPad's are moving from "Living Room" to "Bedroom" to "Bathroom" without any issues, without any dropouts or anything. Even though the signal from the Living Room access point is still good in our bedroom it will still switch to the bedroom access point as that one is even better. All this happens completely automatic and its all seamless without hiccups. This is working beyond my expections thus far!

And performance is stellar as well, we are able to maximise our 540/540mbit connection in every area of the house besides the bathroom. I'm not a huge fan of being forced to use the Google WiFi-app, and I really dislike how you are enforced into using 192.168.86.0/24 which caused some issues with my Windows Server with a static 192.168.1.0/24 IP-address without a monitor connected to it. And the router lacks things like DDNS etc.. But performance seems to be great, both wired and wireless and roaming is downright awesome.

Google added the ability to change the DHCP IP range with the latest firmware. It's encouraging to see them make continual improvements to the product, I had some fears initially when they never delivered on the smart home functionalities and Google's history of abandoning products. It's also been available in the US for $250 or less during the holiday season which makes it a pretty good deal.

 

[RamGuy]

Seems like my honeymoon period with Google WiFi has come to an end. Its a real pain in the but to troubleshoot when something goes wonky as the app doesn't really give you anything. It seems like my Google WiFi is just incapable of handling my local network load. I keep having lots of packet loss, latency spikes and whatnot and it reboots our of nowhere at times. If I disconnect one of my switches so I reduce the amount of clients connect it seems to stabilise.

This is rather disappointing. And I see no clear way to handle it. I can't add additional routers as there is no way to set static routes using Google WiFi. I can't use them as access points as the roaming features gets disabled when disabling NAT etc.. They are great for WiFi and roaming, and they are great for pretty much everything else as long as you don't run into a brick-wall like this.

Its impossible for me to really say what's going on. But my network gets pretty much useless as times (not all the time) when using Google WiFi and when switching to OpnSense, Palo Alto PA-220 or Asus RT-AC5300 there is no problem. If only I could get my RT-AC5300 and RT-AC86 to get roaming working like it does with Google WiFi I would be Golden..