Google released a “Weather” app for all watches alongside Wear OS 3 in 2022. With the Pixel Watch 4, Google is expanding Pixel Weather beyond Android phones and tablets to Wear OS.
Pixel Weather features a Material 3 Expressive design, but the layout is pretty similar to the existing Weather app. The new icon is the same yellow sun against a blue (sky) background. After the city, there’s a large pill-shaped container — like in the redesigned mobile experience — that has the current condition, matching icon, temperature, high/low, and “Feels like.”
There’s also a background that matches the phone app to liven up the feed. Up next is the Hourly forecast, just like the existing Weather app.
Meanwhile, there are M3 Expressive Tiles. The main one leverages three containers for the temperature, high/low, and chance of precipitation. These cards aid glanceability, with the location appearing above and the current condition below.
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Just like the current Weather app, there are also Tiles for sunrise/sunset and UV index with the latest style. You can also expect watch face complications.
This will presumably debut with the Pixel Watch 4 next month, but the Play Store listing already has Wear OS screenshots. An early launch for existing Pixel Watch owners would be nice.
It remains to be seen whether Google will continue to update “Weather” or just expect OEMs to offer their own apps.
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The estimated Powerball jackpot is $1.4 billion. The lump sum payment before taxes would be about $634.3 million.
The Double Play is a feature that gives players in select locations another chance to match their Powerball numbers in a separate drawing. The Double Play drawing is held following the regular drawing and has a top cash prize of $10 million.
Powerball is held in 45 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The Double Play add-on feature is available for purchase in 13 lottery jurisdictions, including Pennsylvania and Michigan.
A $2 ticket gives you a one in 292.2 million chance at joining the hall of Powerball jackpot champions.
The drawings are held at 10:59 p.m. Eastern, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The deadline to purchase tickets is 9:45 p.m.
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French AI startup Mistral AI is finalizing a €2 billion investment at a post-money valuation of $14 billion, reports Bloomberg, positioning the company as one of Europe’s most valuable tech startups. The two-year-old OpenAI rival, founded by former DeepMind and Meta researchers, develops open source language models and Le Chat, its AI chatbot built for European audiences.
Mistral isn’t commenting on the report, but the round would represent Mistral’s first major raise since June 2024, when it was valued at €5.8 billion. The company has previously raised over €1 billion from prominent investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.
The investment comes as European AI startups gain unprecedented momentum. European AI companies secured 55% more year-on-year investment in Q1 2025, according to Dealroom, with 12 European startups achieving unicorn status in the first half of the year. Also leading this surge is Sweden’s Lovable, an AI coding platform that reached a $1.8 billion valuation in July just eight months after its launch.
Sometimes, rising prices for streaming services feels as inevitable as death and taxes. So when a serious discount is available, we tend to sit up and take notice. For a few weeks, you can get a whopping half off an annual subscription to Paramount+. A year of the Paramount+ Essential plan, which is ad-supported, will cost $30 compared to the usual $60. Paramount+ Premium, which is ad-free except for live tv programming, will cost $60 for a year instead of $120.
Paramount+
Get half off plans for new and returning customers through September 18.
This is a substantial deal that both new and returning subscribers can take advantage of; it’s not uncommon for this type of serious discount to only be offered to a first-timer. Anyone who signs up for a year-long subscription to Paramount+ from now through September 18 will be able to get this pricing. The only real caveat with this deal is that you have to pay for the full year in advance; month-to-month subscriptions will still cost the usual rate.
Paramount+ has some great programming options, particularly if you’re a fan of anything involving RuPaul. It’s also the home of and Star Trek: Lower Decks, which are arguably the best modern additions to the sci-fi show’s canon, as well as the other past and present Star Trek series. The platform offers a solid lineup of sports as well. And if you opt to go for the Premium plan, you’ll also be granted access to Showtime titles such as Yellowjackets and the rebooted Dexter: Resurrection.
Check out our coverage of the best streaming deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
I used to love Chromebooks, to the point where my main laptop was a Chromebook for a few years. But lately, it’s felt more and more like the platform has been struggling to retain relevance, and the latest Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 – besides being a mouthful – basically paints a perfect picture of that.
ChromeOS as a whole is in flux at the moment, with the future outlook constantly changing. Technically speaking, as our Abner Li brought out, Chromebooks are better today than they’ve ever been. It’s full of new features and has built out a relatively compelling platform for web apps and for AI, all while an Android base looms in its future. But the hardware, as of late, feels both uninspired and not particularly compelling.
The new Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 really cemented that for me again.
In a brief hands-on at IFA 2025, I got to try out the machine. It feels snappy on top of MediaTek’s Kompanio Ultra chipset, and the display is rather good as well. According to The Verge which has had a unit for a while now, the battery life is also pretty solid.
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The hardware, though, felt largely mediocre to me. The chassis is metal, but it feels like plastic with a good amount of flex and lacks the premium touch that most metal laptops evoke. The keyboard is fine, and the trackpad feels decent too, but it’s all very average. Especially for a Chromebook that costs $700. And Acer’s not alone here. I have very similar feelings about Lenovo’s latest release as well, which I’ve been using on and off for the past few weeks.
To me, these premium Chromebooks remain largely an oxymoron. ChromeOS thrives when it’s offering a better experience than Windows for less money, but the advancements in hardware on Windows, and even more so on macOS, make buying a generation or two old “proper” laptop a lot more compelling, or just saving up a couple hundred extra dollars for a new machine.
What do you think? Have you used one of these high-end Chromebooks?
BURLINGTON, Vt. — A serial bank robber and straw man who illegally bought 19 firearms — including one used to shoot a Springfield, Massachusetts, police officer in the face a year ago — has been sentenced to almost four years in federal prison.
Stephen Loewe, 43, of Springfield, Vermont, also was ordered to pay $2,410 in restitution for money stolen during three bank robberies in southern Vermont in August 2024 to help fuel his crack cocaine addiction, officials said.
Chief Federal Judge Christina Reiss told Loewe that he would be on three years of supervised release once he is discharged from the 45-month prison term.
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Inspired by his grandparents, who were apple farmers in China, Charlie Wu got the idea to apply technology to agriculture while studying computer science at Cornell University, a top agriculture school.
“I got to meet fruit professors who are the best in the world at what they do,” Wu told TechCrunch. “Through talking to them, I realized even the largest farms in the nation basicallyhave no idea what is actually growing out in their fields.”
He dropped out of Cornell, became a Thiel fellow, and in 2022 began building Orchard Robotics, a startup that uses cameras and AI to help fruit growers manage their crops more precisely.
On Wednesday, Orchard Robotics announced that it raised a $22 million Series A funding led by Quiet Capital and Shine Capital, and with participation from returning investors including General Catalyst and Contrary.
Although the idea of using computer vision for specialty crops isn’t new, Wu says that the largest farms in the US still rely on manual sampling to make critical decisions about farm operations.
Since farmers inspect only a small percentage of their crops, their estimations of how many healthy fruits they have on their vineyard or orchard can be extremely imprecise.
“If you don’t know what you’re growing in the field, you don’t know how much chemical to apply to it. You don’t know how many workers to hire to harvest it. You don’t know what you can actually sell and market,” Wu said.
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Orchard’s small camera attaches to tractors or farm vehicles, collecting ultra-high-resolution images about fruit health as the operator drives through the field. Those images are then analyzed by AI for fruit size, color, and health.
The data is then uploaded into Orchard’s cloud-based software, which acts as a central record for making decisions such as the vines or trees that may need extra fertilization, pruning or thinning.
Orchard is already in use in some of the country’s largest apple and grape farms, and the startup recently began to offer its technology to blueberries, cherries, almonds, pistachios, citrus, and strawberry growers.
The company is not alone in its use of tractor-mounted cameras to leverage AI for specialty crop image analysis. Orchard’s direct competitors include Bloomfield Robotics, which last year was acquired by farm equipment manufacturer Kubota, as well as seed-stage startups Vivid Robotics and Green Atlas.
Wu admits the existing market for fruit and vegetable data is only $1.5 billion, but he believes that future AI advancements will allow the technology to make autonomous decisions, expanding Orchard’s product offerings.
He hopes Orchard’s evolution mirrors that of Flock Safety, a public safety startup now valued at $7.5 billion, which over the past eight years has expanded from simply collecting license plate information to a range of other products, including gunshot detection and video surveillance.
“Our ambition is to be a lot more than just collecting data,” Wu said. “We want to collect the data, then build an operating system on top of the data, and then eventually own all the workflows in the farm, and that’s going to have the potential to expand our market by quite a bit.”
A Wi-Fi mesh system is one of the best upgrades you can make to improve your home’s internet coverage, especially if you’ve ever struggled with dead zones, buffering or dropped video calls. Unlike a single router that broadcasts from one central point, a mesh system uses multiple access points spread throughout your space to blanket your entire home with a strong, seamless Wi-Fi signal. Whether you’re working on multiple laptops, streaming 4K video in the living room or gaming online in the basement, a mesh setup helps ensure you get reliable Wi-Fi wherever you are.
These systems are designed to handle the demands of modern households, offering features like dual-band or even tri-band connectivity to balance your bandwidth across devices, and automatic updates to keep your firmware current. Many also support high-speed internet plans and include options for a wired connection if you need extra stability for gaming or work. With easy setup, smart app controls and long-term future-proofing, the best mesh Wi-Fi router systems can eliminate the need for clunky Wi-Fi extenders and give you fast, dependable Wi-Fi connections across your whole home.
Table of contents
Best mesh Wi-Fi systems for 2025
Photo by Daniel Cooper / Engadget
Wireless band count: 3 | Wireless speed rating: Up to 2,402 Mbps (6GHz band) | Ethernet ports: 3 | USB ports: 0 | Coverage area: Up to 7,200 sq. ft.
There’s no single glitzy feature that sets TP-Link’s Deco XE75 apart from its competition. Instead, it expertly balances raw power and user friendliness. If you’re looking for a no-fuss upgrade for your existing wireless router with faster speeds, this is the right option, especially for large homes. It’s not perfect, but my biggest gripes are nitpicks: The power cables are too short and the app could do with a polish. This tri-band mesh Wi-Fi system is the best for most people. In my spacious and wireless-hostile home, the $400 three-pack was almost overkill. If the $300 two-pack can cover your home’s square footage, then it’s a more wallet-friendly proposition than some of its rivals.
Let’s address the elephant in the room: TP-Link has a Chinese-owned parent company and, late last year, the US began asking if there was a potential national security risk. In a statement, TP-Link Systems said it was “no longer affiliated with China-based TP-Link Technologies” and that its products comply with “regional industry security standards and regulations.” It added the Chinese government does not have access to or control over “the design and production of our routers,” and that it is engaging with the US government to demonstrate its “security practices are fully in line with security standards.”
Nest Wi-Fi Pro offers a simple experience for folks who want to set their network and then forget all about it. It’s not as powerful, or customizable, as its competitors, but it should be more than suitable for most of your needs, with reliable tri-band Wi-Fi for streaming and web browsing. It’s quite cheap, so while I have reservations about its long-term potential, it’s a great buy for the next few years.
If you’re already inside Google’s world, then the various integrations Assistant offers, as well as support for Matter and Thread-equipped smart home devices, is a bonus. Plus, Google promises regular software and security updates, letting you concentrate on enjoying the internet, rather than worrying about it.
Pros
Super simple to set up and use
Relatively affordable
Integrates nicely with Google services
Cons
Doesn’t offer as many customizations as some comeptitors
Wireless band count: 3 | Wireless speed rating: Up to 4,804 Mbps (6GHz band) | Ethernet ports: 2 | USB ports: 0 | Coverage area: Up to 3,000 sq. ft.
ASUS’ ZenWiFi Pro ET12 is a “pro” piece of hardware inside and out, with the power (and price) to justify such a name. Each node has the power to cover your home in Wi-Fi, and those extra gigabit and 2.5 Gbps ethernet ports will let you add fast backhaul or a speedy NAS. I’d say pro users and gamers who need faster speeds will find plenty to love in this package. Hell, it’s good enough to support a medium-sized office without too much stress.
That’s before you get to ASUS’ AiMesh, which will let you add ASUS’ powerful standalone routers to the same network. You could pick up a ZenWiFi Pro now, and in a year or two bolt on one of its beefy Wi-Fi routers to really boost your speed. Power users will be better equipped to deal with some of its more idiosyncratic control options, and are more likely to take advantage of its support for the 160MHz band.
If I’m honest, I started using this and realized pretty quickly that this was simply too much gear for my needs. It’s like needing to buy a blender and coming back from the store with the Large Hadron Collider — lovely, but probably a little too much overkill for a single glass of kale smoothie.
Pros
Superb performance
Easy to expand system with additional nodes and routers
Linksys’ CEO Jonathan Bettino told Engadget why mesh systems are an “advancement in Wi-Fi technology” over buying a single point router. With one transmitter, the signal can degrade the further away from the router you go, or the local environment isn’t ideal. “You can have a small [home], but there’s thick walls […] or things in the way that just interfere with your wireless signal,” he said.
Historically, the solution to a home’s Wi-Fi dead zone was to buy a Wi-Fi extender but Bettino said the hardware has both a “terrible user experience” and one of the highest return rates of any consumer electronics product. Mesh Wi-Fi, by comparison, offers “multiple nodes that can be placed anywhere in your home,” says Bettino, resulting in “ubiquitous Wi-Fi” that feels as if you have a “router in every room.”
Rather than having one main router in your home, having a “router in every room” is the biggest selling point for mesh Wi-Fi given how reliant we all are on the internet. Each node is in constant contact with each other, broadcasting a single, seamless network to all of your connected devices. There’s no separate network for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, just a single name that you connect to.
It’s a good time to buy a mesh Wi-Fi system since the latest standard, Wi-Fi 6E, represents a big leap in the technology. Matt MacPherson, Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer for Wireless, said Wi-Fi 6E is a big “inflection point,” using much more of the wireless spectrum than its predecessors. “If you’re using that spectrum with a Wi-Fi 6 [device],” he said, “you’re going to get significant gains [in speed.]”
MacPherson added Wi-Fi 6E will likely “carry you for a long time” thanks to the fact its “top throughputs now typically exceed what people can actually connect their home to.” In short, with a top theoretical per-stream speed of 1.2 Gbps, Wi-Fi 6E is fast enough to outrun all but the fastest internet service.
What do all these Wi-Fi numbers and letters mean?
I’m sorry folks, we need to get boringly technical for one paragraph, but I promise you it’s worth it.
Wi-Fi is governed by International Standard IEEE 802.11, and every few years a letter gets added onto that name when the technology evolves and improves. Until 2019, routers were sold under their IEEE name, leaving users to pick through the word soup of a product labeled 802.11 b/g/a/n/ac and so on.
Mercifully, wiser heads opted to rebrand the letters as numbers, so rather than 802.11 b/g/a/n/ac, we have Wi-Fi 1, 2, 3 4 and 5. Right now, we’re in the middle of one of those Wi-Fi generations, with most of the gear on sale right now supporting either Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E.
What’s the difference between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E?
Wi-Fi uses chunks of the radio frequency spectrum, with Wi-Fi 6 using the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands to pump data around. In fact, back in the old days, it was likely your home router would offer you the choice of the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz network, as separate bands to access. These days, all of the spectrums are tied together as one thing, and Wi-Fi 6E has the added ability to use the 6GHz band as well. That’s a big chunk of extra wireless real estate that isn’t as cluttered up as the 2.4 and 5GHz bands.
You’re going to talk about wireless frequencies now, aren’t you.
Each Wi-Fi band had tradeoffs, because the slower radio frequencies have greater range but less speed. 2.4GHz signals will travel a long way in your home but aren’t quick, while 6GHz is blisteringly fast but can be defeated by a sturdy brick wall. A lot of Wi-Fi-enabled gear you own, like smart home products, only use the 2.4GHz band because the range is better and it’s a lot cheaper. But it means that the band is also overcrowded and slow, making it great for your doorbell and robovac, but lackluster for Twitch streaming.
So, what am I looking for?
Right now, the market is full of mature Wi-Fi 6 and 6E devices, and most new systems available to buy are capable of taking advantage of the faster speeds they offer. This guide focuses on Wi-Fi 6E gear since it’s what we think it’s more than enough to satisfy almost everyone’s at-home Wi-Fi needs.
What about Wi-Fi 7?
We’re now seeing the first generation of Wi-Fi 7 devices available to buy, but we don’t recommend you do so immediately. The Wi-Fi 7 standard is still so new that there’s little to no reason for you to rush out and buy one for your home. The hardware is tremendously expensive and while Wi-Fi 7 will, eventually, offer some great benefits over 6E, it’s not as transformative an upgrade as 6E. Not to mention, Wi-Fi 7 is so new that almost none of your home’s devices will be able to take advantage of its big-ticket features. I’d estimate you won’t need to worry about upgrading to Wi-Fi 7 for at least five years, if not longer.
Range and speed
All Wi-Fi routers boast a theoretical broadcast range and a theoretical top speed, and in some cases external antennas to boost signal directionality — but these figures don’t mean much. After all, manufacturers can’t control your ISP’s real speed, the materials and layout of your home or where you put your Wi-Fi gear. Raw speed isn’t everything, either, and you likely need a lot less than the internet speeds your provider is advertising. What matters more is how consistent your connection is between rooms and across devices.. After all, Netflix needs just 15 Mbps to push a single 4K video stream to your home. As cool as it is to say you’ve got all these hundreds of Mbps, factors like latency and reliability are far more crucial to a happy internet life. And unless you have Gigabit internet that can reach speeds of up to 1 Gbps, you won’t need a mesh router that offers that spec.
Backhaul
Mesh Wi-Fi systems work by connecting every hardware node to a single wireless network, letting them all communicate with each other. Imagine four people in a busy, noisy restaurant all trying to order their dinner from a weary staff member, all at once. Now imagine, while this is going on, that four more people at that same table are also trying to tell a funny anecdote. It’s no surprise that it might take a long time for the right information to reach its intended destination.
To combat this, higher-end mesh routers offer dedicated wireless backhaul; a slice of the spectrum for node-to-node communication. So rather than everyone talking at once in the same space, the conversations are essentially separated, reducing the invisible clutter in the air. Because there’s less confusing cross-chatter, everything moves faster, offering a significant performance boost to those systems.
Connectivity
These days, even your washing machine can have a wireless connection, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the joys of wired internet. No matter how fast Wi-Fi is, a hard line will always be faster, and some gear, like Philips’ Hue bridge, still needs an ethernet connection. Plenty of routers can also use these hard connections as backhaul, eliminating further wireless clutter.
It’s convenient for spread-out systems and power users, but it will mean running more wires through your home. The most common standard is Cat 5e, or gigabit ethernet which, unsurprisingly, has a top speed of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). Since Ethernet cables are backward compatible, you should be able to easily find one that works with your system. However, to get the most out of your mesh routers, it’s worth investing in an Ethernet cable that meets the standard your router uses — if it’s Cat 5e, use a Cat 5e cable. You can check your router’s specs via the manufacturer’s website to be sure.
Flexibility and scalability
Mesh routers enable you to add (or subtract) modules from your home network to suit your needs. D-Link’s Alan Jones said users should “check how scalable the prospective product is” before you buy. This sense of scale doesn’t just apply to the number of nodes on the network, but how many simultaneous connections it can handle.
It’s also worth looking at ASUS’ AiMesh products, which can combine mesh Wi-Fi gear and its standard “spider” Wi-Fi routers. If you’ve got a tricky part of your home, you can bolt on an ultra-power standalone Wi-Fi router to a compatible mesh.
Placement
Mesh networks replace one big piece of hardware with a series of identical nodes that you scatter around your home. You connect one to your modem (usually over ethernet), and then scatter the rest around the place for the best coverage. A good rule of thumb is to place each node no more than two rooms away from the last one, rather than sticking them at the far ends of your home.
Bear in mind, every physical obstacle between a Wi-Fi node, its siblings and your devices will hurt your overall performance. You should aim to place them, at the very least, at waist height on furniture in open air, without too many obstructions. The reason many mesh Wi-Fi products are designed to look like an inoffensive white doodad is so you don’t feel compelled to hide them behind your TV.
Other mesh Wi-Fi router systems we tested
Amazon Eero Pro 7
Eero built its reputation on easy to use yet powerful mesh systems that offer a lot of good in a relatively small and affordable package. Setup is effortless, the app running things is clean and simple, and you get the added benefit of backwards compatibility with older hardware. Sadly, the issue with every Eero system is that so many basic management features, like parental controls, are paywalled behind the company’s Eero Plus subscription for $100 a year.
Amazon Eero 6E
Eero Pro 6E is an “easy” device, the sort a total novice can set up on their own and thrive with for years on end. There’s little brainwork required to get things set up, and the app has a clean UI with plenty of hand-holding. But, as with the Eero Pro 7, the fact that so many basic management tools are paywalled irks me, especially since you can get plenty of them for free with Google’s rival offering.
Netgear Orbi 960
The Orbi 96T0 (RBKE963) is Netgear’s flagship mesh Wi-Fi product, which the company calls the “world’s most powerful Wi-Fi 6E system.” It’s also one of the most expensive consumer-level kits on the market, setting you back $1,499.99 for a three pack. It’s a fantastic piece of gear, but it’s worth saying that the subset of people who could, would or should buy it remains far smaller than you might expect. Ultimately, I feel that if you’re paying luxury prices, you should expect a luxury product. There were plenty of times during testing that I went looking for a feature that was either only available via the web client, or behind a paywall. While, yes, much of your cash is going to the superlative hardware, but for this sort of money, the fact you have to pay extra for some table-stakes features is insulting. If you’re looking for a new Wi-Fi system and aren’t prepared to spend almost $1,500, it’s worth considering our other top picks for the best Wi-Fi routers and mesh systems.
How we test Wi-Fi routers
My home covers around 2,200 square feet across three stories with the office on the third floor. It’s relatively long and thin, with the living room at the front of the house, the kitchen at the back and the three bedrooms on the first floor. Its age means there are a lot of solid brick walls, old-school lathe and plaster as well as aluminum foil-backed insulation boards to help with energy efficiency. There are two major Wi-Fi dead zones in the house: The bathroom and the third bedroom behind it, since there’s lots of old and new pipework in the walls and floors.
For mesh routers with two nodes, I place the first in my living room, connected via ethernet to my cable modem with the second on the first floor landing in the (ostensible) center of the house. For three-node sets, the third goes in my kitchen, which I’ve found is the optimal layout to get the bulk of my house covered in Wi-Fi. Fundamentally, my home poses enough challenges that if it succeeds here, it stands a very good chance of succeeding in your place.
Each mesh is judged on ease of setup, Wi-Fi coverage, reliability, speed and any additional features that it advertises. I look at how user-friendly each companion app is from the perspective of a novice rather than an expert given you shouldn’t need to be a network engineer to do this sort of thing. Tests I do include checking for dead zones, moving from room to room to measure consistency of connectivity and streaming multiple videos at once to replicate common usage patterns.
Mesh Wi-Fi system FAQs
This is the section of our mesh Wi-Fi buyer’s guide where we talk about the stuff that most people just glide past. If you’re not familiar with technology, it can be intimidating if people talk about these things as if you’re expected to already know. So here’s a very simple, very basic rundown of some of the stuff you might have missed in very basic terms.
What’s the difference between a Wi-Fi router and a mesh router?
A Wi-Fi router is a box that usually sits close to wherever the internet comes into your home and pumps out information over radio waves. A mesh router, meanwhile, is a set of smaller devices, one of which sits next to your internet connection while the rest are scattered around your home. A single Wi-Fi router is great if your home is small, your needs aren’t too demanding, or if your home doesn’t have many radio-blocking obstructions that mean those signals can’t reach every corner of your home. But, much like standing next to a radio transmitter and then walking away from it in a straight line, after a while, the signal will degrade.
That’s the problem a mesh system is designed to solve, since it will take the signal from your modem and pump to the other mesh devices, known as nodes, in your home. That way, instead of having one big router in one part of your home, you have several small ones that ensure you have good Wi-Fi connectivity all over. It also helps ensure that there’s no risk of dropping your connection as you move around — a mesh router system makes it easy to, for instance, walk from room to room watching Netflix and know you won’t miss a single frame.
What’s the difference between a Wi-Fi extender and a mesh system?
Oh boy. Wi-Fi extenders, or repeaters, are small devices designed to push Wi-Fi a little further than your Wi-Fi router can stretch. They’re cheap, compact and often come in the form of little boxes that sit on your plug sockets with the hope of pushing Wi-Fi to a signal-sparse corner of your home. They are, and I can’t put this delicately enough, often a big pile of rubbish and are often not worth your time. Especially since the price of mesh routers has fallen to within most people’s budgets.
What is a wireless backhaul?
As we explained above, mesh Wi-Fi systems work by connecting every hardware node to a single wireless network, letting them all communicate with each other. Imagine four people in a busy, noisy restaurant all trying to order their dinner from a weary staff member, all at once. Now imagine, while this is going on, that four more people at that same table are also trying to tell a funny anecdote. It’s no surprise that it might take a long time for the right information to reach its intended destination.
To combat this, higher-end mesh routers offer dedicated wireless backhaul; a slice of the spectrum for node-to-node communication. So rather than everyone talking at once in the same space, the conversations are essentially separated, reducing the invisible clutter in the air. Because there’s less confusing cross-chatter, everything moves faster, offering a significant performance boost to those systems.
Is it better to hard wire instead of using a mesh Wi-Fi system?
This is a great question that doesn’t have a simple answer.
It is (almost) always preferable to connect devices with a wire, in this case Ethernet, than to use Wi-Fi. The speeds are faster, it’s more reliable and your data is less vulnerable to the slings and arrows of the laws of physics. Hell, I spent about a year trying to work out how to build an iPhone to Ethernet connector back in the bad old days of Wi-Fi.
But your ability to do so depends on your level of DIY skills and / or how much money you want to spend on contractors. Wiring your home for Ethernet if you don’t have the infrastructure already can be a costly and time-consuming process. Particularly if you don’t want ugly wires running along your baseboards and under your carpets or across your hardwood floors.
If you’re building your own home or can do some serious DIY, then hard wiring is a fantastic thing to have. It goes wonderfully hand-in-glove with mesh networks too, since you’ll be able to hook up your nodes to the network for even better speeds.
But if I’m honest, advances in Wi-Fi technology mean I’d only go for hard wiring if I really believed I needed the sort of speed it offers. Unless you’re a Twitch streamer running your own 24/7 content studio, it’s probably overkill.
When we started renovating our 140-year-old home, I had Ethernet installed in the living room, the master and second bedroom and in my office, all at the front of the house. I can’t use it for my mesh since I’d need to put the wiring through the middle of the house. If I ever had the wiring done again, I would do so as I know I’ll instantly see a meaningful improvement in both my connection speed and reliability. But I wouldn’t spend several thousand pounds to have it done just for the sake of it.
Google implemented a special “Extra Dim” toggle in prior versions of Android that, starting with the Pixel 10, will be fully removed and now implemented into the brightness slider.
The “Extra dim” option in Android was introduced in Android 12 as a way to make the display a bit dimmer compared to even the lowest setting on the brightness slider. The feature allows users a quick way to make the display as dim as possible which can be useful when trying to use your phone in a very dark environment. But, being a toggle, it was also easy to forget it was turned on, leading to issues when the brightness goes back up.
In Android 16 on the Pixel 10 series, Google has removed the dedicated “Extra dim” toggle, instead integrating it into the brightness slider. Users quickly noticed the change within days of the Pixel 10’s release thanks to a pop-up which shows (at least for some users) to explain that “Extra dim is now part of the brightness slider.” Android Authority shared an image of the pop-up, as seen below.
“Extra dim” still works as it did previously on the Pixel 10, with the software adjusting display output to make the content appear dimmer despite the screen’s brightness not actually going down any further. Having it built into the brightness slider makes this feel effortless, and essentially just gives the phone’s brightness some additional range.
Kevin Doherty was killed on the morning of Aug. 28 after dropping his 6-year-old son off at school. Prosecutors say Doherty confronted Snehal A. Srivastava, 26, and the pair argued over graffiti before Srivastava shot Doherty several times.
Doherty had called 911 just before the shooting and could be heard saying “he shot me” on the open line, according to a police report.
Srivastava has since been criminally charged and is being held without bail.
Doherty was born in Brighton but spent his childhood in Framingham, where he graduated from Marian High School. He eventually earned a degree in geography from Fitchburg State University and worked for many years at Jarvis Appliance in Wellesley.
The obituary recalls Doherty as a “man of many joys” who loved music, golf and hockey.
“Known for his giving spirit, he was a friend to all and truly the life of every gathering — bringing laughter and chatter wherever he went,” the notice reads.
Doherty was engaged to be married at the time of his death and was the father of three children, a 17-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 6-year-old.
Visiting hours for Doherty will be held at the McCarthy, McKinney & Lawler Funeral Home in Framingham from 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday. His funeral mass will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. George Church in Framingham.
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