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Home / News / Google Wifi: 5 reasons to be excited about a wireless router (yes, really)

Google Wifi: 5 reasons to be excited about a wireless router (yes, really)

Update 28/3: Google's white wireless wonderpuck is coming to the UK on 6 April...

Update 28/3: Google has announced that its Wifi routers will be available in the UK from 6 April for £129 (for one router) and £229 (for a two-pack). We’ll bring you our impressions of the UK version here soon, but here’s why it’s might just be the internet hub your house has been craving.

We know what it’s like. You get home after a hard day, slump on the sofa and fire up Netflix to watch whatever new show everyone’s been banging on about at work.

Except you can’t, because your family’s all streaming YouTube videos, or your housemate’s BitTorrenting what seems like the entire internet, or the wireless signal’s just not strong enough to reach from your office to your living room.

What can you do? Well, you can read our seven top tips for better home wifi. But, failing that, you can take the easy way out: Google Wifi.

Google’s new wireless routers aim to take the pain out of home networking and come with a range of internet smarts. Here’s what you need to know about them.

Google wants you to buy a few of these things

Google wants you to buy a few of these things

If you’re paying £1,000 a month for a tiny bedsit in West London, you probably only need one Google Wifi router, which will set you back £129. But if you’re lording it up in your country mansion, you’ll probably want to check out the two-pack, which will cover your home in one giant Wi-Fi blanket for £229.

You need to position your devices so that they cover all the nooks and crannies at the house’s extremities, but Google’s app will help with the setup process.

Google will make sure you can always watch that cat video on YouTube

Google will make sure you can always watch that cat video on YouTube

Google reckons it knows a thing or two about internet traffic, which is probably true – when its services temporarily went down a few years ago, global internet traffic dropped 40 per cent.

Using its expertise, Google’s going to be managing all of the tech inside the router, making sure that all of your devices get served with all the ones and zeroes they’re greedily requesting.

This includes beamforming technology, support for Bluetooth Smart, automatic channel management and all other traffic routing. Nerd stuff, basically.

The one with the companion app controls all

The one with the companion app controls all

If, like most people, you’d rather have a solid internet connection than food or clean water, then you’re going to want admin privileges for Google Wifi.

Using the app, you can cut anyone off whenever you like. It’s clearly meant for parents and their kids, when you just need them to sit down, eat some food and stop playing Pokémon Go for a couple of minutes – unless they’re about to catch a Dragonite, in which case, cut them some slack.

It’s relatively fast, if not the fastest

It’s relatively fast, if not the fastest

If you’re shifting a lot of data between devices over wireless at home (and boy, do you know how to party), then Google Wifi may not be for you.

Its AC1200 wireless speeds are fast enough for 4K video streaming, but there are faster routers out there for less money. The Netgear R6400 (above, obvs) is one of our favourite routers and offers AC1750 speeds for only £80.

But, crucially, it doesn’t look like a wireless router

But, crucially, it doesn’t look like a wireless router

Take a look at the Netgear, though, and you’ll see it’s an antenna-stuffed black box that even a hardcore gamer would keep out of sight because it’s too ugly.

Google Wifi, meanwhile, is a sleek white puck, designed to look inconspicuous in a bedroom or even a kitchen. We’d even go so far as calling it the best-looking router we’ve seen to date.

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