Linksys Velop Mesh Routers - a successor to Apple Routers?

A newer kind of home and business routers are called Mesh Routers.  Mesh refers to rich interconnection among devices or nodes.  Mesh networks are more reliable and offer redundancy, hopping seamlessly between nodes of the network.  As a newer technology for the spread and propagation of WiFi signals, mesh routers are more expensive than traditional routers, yet buying three of them for my network in the $3-400 range seemed reasonable. This article is based on the Velop Tri Band AC 6600, so YMMV (your mileage may vary) with other systems.

Introduction

Late last year, I first noticed the Linksys mesh routers in the online Apple Store under accessories, seemingly in place of the Airport Extreme (and Time Capsule).  https://www.apple.com/us/search/routers?src=globalnav.  Since I first put this piece together, Apple also includes the Netgear Orbi mesh systems, and these are highly rated by Consumer Reports so also worth consideration.

Anyway, the presence of Linksys Routers on the apple.com page (and now others) appears to coincide with announcements that Apple is retreating from the router business.  Watchers explain that the router business was sufficiently mature to no longer require Apple’s participation via the longstanding Airport devices. https://www.imore.com/rip-airport.  Thus, Apple has stopped making or selling its own new router devices. 

Also, because these new Linksys products are being sold by Apple, note from the highlight graphic that the form factor is similar, though not the same, as the Airport Extreme (Time Capsule).  In a meaningful way, does not Apple seem to suggest these Linksys routers as one successor to their Airport devices? 

I bought the Triband, i.e. three devices, for the three floors of our house.  The box comes with three router devices with power strips plus one Ethernet cable for the modem connection.

Next, we will detail the setup of the new system, explain the step by step installation, and follow that with observations. 

Setup

            Prequel

First, download to your mobile device the Linksys app.  Here is the link to the iOS store. You can also do this all online by setting up a Linksys account here: https://www.linksys.com/us/login/ 
For the balance of the setup, however, we will discuss and show screenshots from the Linksys iPhone app.

The Linksys App prompts the user to login or to setup a new device.  

Choose "Set up a new device," and then walk through the successive screens.  First, choose your new Mesh router. 

Next, the page titled "Where did your previous internet come from" presents two options, first with a separate modem and router, and then with a single device that is a modem and router. 

More info appears in the detail screen. 

  I do not use my cable modem to broadcast WIFI, but instead give that task to my Airport Extreme.  So I will choose the first option.  If you use your cable modem also to broadcast your wifi channels and do not have a separate dedicated Wifi Router, select the second choice.  The app then helpfully says "Gather your new gear" and instructs the user to bring the new router - with included Ethernet cable and power cord - to the location of the current modem/router. 

            Installation Steps

1  I unplugged my Airport Extreme, disconnecting its Ethernet connection to my FIOS Cable Modem. 

2.     Finally, Woo Hoo!  It is time to plug in one of the Velop routers (they call each router device a "node"). 

After powering it on, I used the included Ethernet cable to connect the Velop unit to the FIOS cable modem.

3.     Now watch the light on top of the Velop device.  When it moves from purple to blue, it's fully connected. 

4.     Follow the prompts to name the base station, give your admin access a strong password, then name the WIFI channel (for channel name, I use a word from the closest book title I see), and add a WIFI channel password.  At this time, you can also set up a Guest channel - and password protect it. 

      As always, I recommend use of a password manager like 1Password - it makes it easy to generate and store random passwords for the admin base station and for the Wi-Fi channel.

5.     Once the first node is plugged in and connected, your Linksys app provides the option of adding more.  I continued with the setup to add two other nodes. 

6.     Now, the app helpfully shows a house plan and even suggests where to locate additional nodes. 

7.     I next went upstairs, and in an upstairs room, placed a node on a high bookcase.  Upon plugging this router into power, the app displays a clever image of a periscope looking around. 

Now watch the color on top of the newly plugged in node - when it starts blinking purple, it has found the other node. 

The app then sets up the connection.  It warns that this can take several minutes, but instructs the user to leave the phone (and app) close to the new node.  

Once finished, the app flashes a "Success" screen, which depicts the nodes now connected. 

8.     I repeated these steps with the third node, this one in the basement level.  In each case, the app reported little trouble detecting the other nodes and connecting the new one.

Observations

·      Automatic firmware updates.  Upon completion of the installation, the app flashes that updates by default take place automatically and overnight. 

Router Firmware Updates have long been a security trap for the unwary.  Therefore, automatic firmware upgrades offered with this new class of router represents a substantial security improvement.

Note that in the app Dashboard (under Velop Administration), this can be turned off, but that is only for experts wanting more control over updates and not recommended for ordinary users.  

·      Smooth transition - except.  We had no trouble connecting our devices to the new system.  Not surprisingly, the newer the device, the easier to change the WiFi connection.  My office MacBookPro kept a smooth very fast connection, no longer relying on the annoying extenders I had been using. 

o   The Smart Home Wemo (Belkin) switches were the most laborious to change.   To change the WiFi connection, one must factory reset these devices.  People with a large Smart Home set up should allocate a large block of time to reconnect all these devices.

·      Seamless Roaming - in an online chat, a Linksys tech explained another pleasant surprise.  During installation of the new routers, I had not seen the usually separate name/password setup for 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless channels. Yet in the Linksys app Dashboard display of devices on the system, all the older wemo devices that could not use the 5GHz channel are connected to the 2.4GHz channel, while the newer devices are connected at 5GHz.  This is because the Velop routers support a Seamless Roaming protocol  (IEEE 802.11r) which automatically connects the devices to the network or access point with the best connection.  This is a welcome step forward. 

·     
       Network Hard Drive Fix

      My Airport Extreme, long used as my home router, has a USB port.  I had used this USB port to plug in an external Hard Drive, to create a network drive for shared files, wireless Time Machine backups, etc.  The new Velop mesh routers (at least at present) do not include a USB port, just two Ethernet ports each.  At the suggestion of a Linksys tech, I plugged my old Airport Extreme into the upstairs Velop node in "bridge mode." 

This way, I still have network access to the external Hard drive plugged into the Airport Extreme. 

While two Ethernet ports per node is minimalistic, with 3 Velop nodes, I actually have 6 ports to work with.  I chose my upstairs Node to attach the Airport Extreme and HD, as the place most convenient to do so, and still have ports to spare.

Conclusion

On the whole, I found the set up and installation of this new mesh routing system far easier than expected.  I commend Linksys for the quality of its iOS app, that smoothed the path during the installation.  I hope this tutorial is helpful.  Let us know if you'd like us to write about other mesh router systems, like the Netgear Obi systems also now sold on the Apple.com website.