Netgear Orbi Pro (SXK30B3) Wi-Fi 6 Mini Mesh System | $260 | Amazon
If your internet seems to suck any time you get more than a couple of rooms away from your router, it’s probably time to consider a mesh system. Wireless internet is a cool technology, but all sorts of things can interfere with it, from just wood walls to electronics to water pipes to large appliances, your internet, coming from a single lonesome router, can straight up suck, particularly when you use the Wi-Fi functions of the modem/router combo your ISP gave you. You don’t have to live that life, and that’s where the Netgear Orbi Pro Wi-Fi 6 Mini Mesh System comes in. This 3-pack is on sale for $260—that’s a whopping $140 off its usual price of $400.
For that you get a router and two mesh extenders that use the Wi-Fi 6 protocol, which achieves better throughput and performance by cutting through wireless interference with new breakthrough wireless technologies. Wi-Fi 6 also offers improved security with WPA 3, the standard meant to replace the very old WPA 2 authentication protocol that has been around since the early 2000s. The Netgear Orbi Pro system supports a busy network with up to 40 concurrent devices, and is expandable to 4 mesh satellites for as much as 10,000 square feet of coverage. This mesh system received great reviews from the likes of Tech Radar and Dong Knows. For those familiar with Orbi, one of the biggest improvements of this system is the relatively diminutive size of the router and satellites; other iterations of the Orbi family of routers are almost comically large, with the Netgear Orbi Pro SXK80 standing at almost 10 inches, whereas these stand at a comparatively small 7.4 inches.
2-packs and 1-packs are also on sale, for $120 off and $40 off, respectively. And here is your usual disclaimer: no amount of good wireless router will fix a slow plan—your internet speed is ultimately determined by what is being fed through the pipe coming to your house, in other words. This just makes sure you’re getting the most out of that speed. It’s like attaching a sprinkler to a hose, rather than just pouring all the water into one spot.