Do you have any wifi6 compatible devices? If so, do you do anything that could use more than gigabit speeds? Does your ISP provide higher than gigabit speed? Do you think you would ever need to stream more than a couple dozen simultaneous 4K video streams?

What I'm getting at is wifi6 likely won't be all that relevant until you are ready to buy the next round of devices in 5-10 years.

So to answer your question, if you have any wifi6 devices and if you feel the need to connect at those speeds, you will have to leave the wifi active on your modem/router combo. Usually when you get something like the Nest mesh wifi, you would disable the wifi on your modem. But even if you leave it enabled, if your wifi6 devices go out of range or get too weak a signal from the modem, you should set them up to fall back and connect to the Nest wifi. But given that you're considering a mesh system, I'm guessing coverage isn't all that great currently.

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Posted by TideSaint

Hill Country

Member since Sep 2008

75881 posts

Posted on 9/3/20 at 10:39 am to Korkstand

quote:
Do you have any wifi6 compatible devices?

I have one. My new phone.

quote:
Does your ISP provide higher than gigabit speed?

They do, but I didn't sign up for that plan.

quote:
But given that you're considering a mesh system, I'm guessing coverage isn't all that great currently.

It's fine. My teenage boys just want faster Wi-Fi upstairs when they are playing online. I planned on setting them up with an access point upstairs and plugging in the other one downstairs. The main issue I'm going to run into is the builder only put in one wall jack for the fiber into the house and it's in the freaking kitchen. So I have to plug the Nest router into the modem in the kitchen.

My house is a little over 3,000 sq ft so the Nest should offer ample coverage.

Thanks for the advice.