Wi-Fi coverage with the Intellinet Home Mesh Wireless AC1200 Kit
We tried Intellinet’s Wi-Fi mesh system consisting of a router and two satellites. It reaches AC1200 speed specifications and offers extensive coverage.
At home as well as in the office, it is essential to have a network connection. For years now, wireless routers that carry connectivity to all types of devices (printers, computers, smartphones and tablets, without forgetting the IoT) are more than usual, resulting in a much more comfortable solution than cable connections.
Not always, it is easy to obtain a wide coverage with a single wireless router, and this is why different solutions have spread to expand its reach without compromising performance too much. One of these is the Intellinet Home Mesh Wireless AC1200 Kit system, also sold as a complete kit including a router and two repeaters. It is a ” mesh system “, capable of offering a maximum coverage of 4,500 ft².
What is a mesh system?
A traditional home router can reach a range of a few tens of meters, and only in ideal conditions (without walls or obstacles between it and the client). In practice, the range of the router is almost always limited by many external factors and, with the cheaper models, it is possible to verify stability problems or loss of performance by moving away only a couple of rooms.
A solution to the problem has come with the extenders, devices that serve to replicate the Wi-Fi signal and spread it in the environment using another antenna in a more convenient position. Extenders, solve the problem of stability but not entirely of the performance: as the extender of the network increases.
The available bandwidth is reduced in proportion to the number of extenders present in the network. Furthermore, each extender creates a different network, forcing the client to switch from one network to another when it considers it necessary to do so.
Mesh systems are born precisely with the need to solve all the problems we have mentioned, introducing also the considerable plus of a simplicity of installation in the environment and very high configuration. In mesh systems, we have a Wi-Fi router that can be connected to different satellites (also Wi-Fi), and a dedicated connection band that is not shared with other devices on the network.
The network connection thus always occurs at the maximum possible speed and does not present bottlenecks based on the number of ” extenders ” used in the network. All with a unique SSID and without the need to change networks when a device hooks up to one or another satellite.
Intellinet Home Mesh Wireless AC1200 Kit
Having made the necessary premise let’s talk about the features of Intellinet Home Mesh Wireless AC1200 Kit, complete kit consisting of a main router and two repeaters. The router can be connected to a modem via the WAN port on its back, and can be recognized by the satellites due to the blue color of the upper façade.
For the rest, the three devices are identical: they are 3.9″ x 3.9″ x 4″ parallelepipeds of dimensions that can be installed extremely simply in the environment. The only requirement is to have a power outlet nearby.
The system covers an area of 4,500 ft² with a single Wi-Fi network without any interruption with the passage from the connectivity provided by a satellite to that provided by another satellite. The network is configured via the app, also via smartphone, or via a web interface on a PC, and if you want to share connectivity with the guests, there is no ” touch-and-connect ” function.
Home Mesh Wireless uses smart technology to effectively convey the signal to the client and supports protection via encryption through the WPA / WPA2, WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK protocols.
On the connectivity side, we find four internal antennas (not visible then) with omnidirectional 3-dBi on each unit and several ports on the back, plus the power button:
Main unit :
- 1 WAN 1Gbps
- 1 LAN 1Gbps
- 1 LAN 100Mbps
- On / Off button
- DC 5V port for power supply
Wireless :
- 2 LAN 1Gbps
- 1 LAN 100Mbps
- On / Off button
- DC 5V port for power supply
Each unit uses a 512MB DDR2 RAM memory with a 64MB flash and can spread networks using the 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies, up to the AC1200 standard with a maximum throughput of 1200Mbps. All the devices also have LED for data activity on the LAN and WAN ports, and a status LED on the router and on the repeaters: when the latter shows the color red it indicates that there is no internet access, while if it has the blue color you are connected. The LED may also flash to indicate that pairing is in progress or an active host connection.
As with many other systems that we have tried in the past, even Intellinet can be configured and managed exclusively via the app, from a smartphone or tablet, or at least from the web client via browser on a PC or notebook.
All with maximum ease of use: the home of the application is divided into six large sections through which to monitor the status of the individual devices connected to the mesh network, the Wi-Fi, and finally interact with different technical details regarding the settings of the mesh network and internet connection.
Intellinet Home Mesh Wireless AC1200 Kit is offered at a price of $249.99, a rather interesting figure especially in relation to the coverage offered by the system and the general quality. On the market, there are much cheaper models (but of lower quality and specifications) and also much more expensive, with the Intellinet system that is an interesting solution for those with advanced domestic needs or want to cover a medium-sized office in absolute simplicity.
- [Complete-Coverage Wi-Fi] This kit features Mesh Internet that blankets your home or...
- [Dual-Band Wireless] The wireless mesh network kit gives you max. speeds of 300 Mbps...
- [Super-Simple Setup] Getting online with this kit takes little effort; the mesh...
Product prices and availability are subject to change. Any price and availablility information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of any products.
