Google Nest WiFi Pro – 6E – Reliable Home Wi-Fi System with Fast Speed and Full Home Coverage, Mesh Router, 3 Pack, Snow

Pro: Speeds are awesome so long so long as there is a strong mesh signal.
Con: Expensive. Short range compared to ASUS wifi 5 router and mesh network.

Be wary of online advice and instructions that do not specify the upstream modem or gateway: there are MANY models of modems and gateways, but online posts rarely recite which modem or gateway is being used, and modems/gateways vary GREATLY in handling downstream routers. I used a Sagemcom FAST 5568W gateway from TMHI and a 5-node (“5-point” in Nest-speak, and “5-egg” in this review) mesh network.

ONLY Google Nest systems are certified to work on TMo Home Internet (“TMHI”). and you cannot mix earlier Nest systems (Wifi 5) with the Pro 6E system. I tried a current ASUS router and mesh network with the TMHI gateway, which didn’t work. I learned from TMHI support … only Nest works downstream from a TMHI gateway.

I was successful with the following steps (you should already have the TMHI app installed in your smartphone and the TMHI gateway operating):

1) install the Google Home (“GH”) app on your smart phone, but don’t launch it yet.
2) place the first “egg” (Pro 6E node) at least 6 feet, away from the gateway (the full length of the cable in the Nest pack).
3) connect the gateway to egg 1 with Ethernet cable.
4) Power up egg 1.
5) When the LED on egg 1 turns blue, launch the GH app on your smart phone and follow the instructions to create and name a mesh network (a one egg network at this point (pun)). Scanning the QR code on the bottom of an egg requires good lighting on the QR code (black specks on grey plastic… brilliant).
6) You will have two Wifi SSIDs, one for the TMHI gateway and one for the Nest mesh. You cannot turn the gateway wifi off, or “bridge” the gateway, that is why you need distance between the gateway and egg 1 (to avoid interference called phase cancellation).
7) Power up each additional egg, wait for a blue LED, then on the home page of the GH app, press “Add device” (it should say “add point” since other parts of the GH app treat anything OTHER THAN an egg as a “device”), scan the QR code, and wait for the egg to be added as a “point” in the mesh network. Add one egg at a time, since the GH app presents QR code serial numbers that all look alike until an egg is added and named: if you have a bunch of new eggs and pick the wrong one in the “new points” list, you get a “wrong code” error, without further explanation.
8) After adding all your eggs, run the mesh test and speed test. The GH app will report the results.

The TMo app in the devices tab will report “Connection Error 500”, but there is no such error code, according to TMo’s mesh network gurus (you have to ask TMHI support rep for the guru phone number)… so ignore the error code on the gateway. TMHI mesh support says that network performance degrades with more than 5 eggs in a single network. We have 5 (a 3 pack and a 2 pack), and have fiberoptic speeds.

Nothing in TMHI or GH web pages explains the preceding, or that solid white on an egg LED means good signal, and blinking white means weak signal. Blinking yellow means no signal.

We’re getting around 1 Gbps down and 50 Mbps up on the gateway wifi and and the same speeds on the Nest network, but the system required 1 or 2 more nodes than ASUS gear at wifi 5. With the 6 GHz band in Wifi 6E comes shorter range, but awesome speeds.

In 2020 had our household number of devices skyrocket due to laptops, pads, smart tvs, and got a TPLINK high end, multi-band (3) wifi system…and had routine troubles with wifi crapping out, not reaching around the house, rolling restarts of every device, just a general pain. Finally the WIFI just stopped altogether after 2.5 yrs, and it was time for something else.

This system is AMAZING – lots of dinged reviews are for compatibility with older systems, hodge-podge setups – maybe that’s a problem, but for us it was perfect.

I LOVE the REDUNDANCY built into the system: Got the three pack, one for each floor. If any of the units bites the dust, I can physically connect ANY of the three to the ISP line and it becomes the main node, and my house can survive on two (probably even one). Bought three as it was much cheaper per unit (130/each vs 180 each alone).

I was worried during the setup that it said that they should not be placed more than “2 rooms” apart, but had no problems putting one per floor, opposite ends of the house. My worst node is “good” vs “great”. Setup took a little while to find the internet, just let my phone do it’s thing for 5minutes and it was done. Each unit took another 5 or so, so in <20 minutes, the whole house was covered!

The WIFI is AMAZING – even though I had a “high end” system from 2.5 yrs ago, they’ve improved the signal, so now we get WiFi6 throughout not just our whole house….but our entire property as well. No more cutting out in the driveway or garden! Got to take down our extender, which caused problems because of the different network name – now just one name EVERYWHERE.

Folks have complained that there weren’t multiple Ethernet jacks per unit (lists two, but one is in, one is out), but if you can get cheap ethernet splitters to go off of that if needed.

So for us, absolutely perfect! Only ding would be the price …an unexpected $400 to keep the house going, but could have probably made it work with fewer units, and I’m cheap, so anything would have been too much.

UPDATED after software fix 1.63.324946:

Google customer service responds well to issues. Nest WiFi Pro 6E seems to work differently than my older mesh system and, although the speed and connection to my 2 wifi 6e devices was not what I expected to see, Google quickly opened a ticket and listened to customer concerns and issued an update. Speed tests seem erratic since it appears that this system allocates to different devices as needed. It seems as though it drops the speed (not the connection) when a device is idle to allocate the bandwidth to the ones currently in use. I’ve noticed that when I first log on to a pc, a speedtest may show a low reading but running it again after a couple of minutes of use shows the speed dramatically increased. My expectations for how this system worked were based on how my older system worked and I realized that being an early adopter of this new technology may mean encountering a few speed bumps. Google Nest, as well as my internet provider, will hopefully continue to make this system even better. As of now, all of my devices stay consistently online which was a big reason for my decision to upgrade. The 2 wifi 6e devices are the only ones that I think still need improvement and that may require better range for that band.

Original Review:

Google Nest WiFi Pro, Wi-Fi 6E, Reliable Home Wi-Fi System is what I got to replace the Google Nest three pack that I got six years ago and that has worked problem free the entire time.

Three years ago I got the newer marshmallow shaped Google Nest router to replace the OnHub that was working with the three points and I really loved how well everything worked seamlessly.

However, I have a smart home with a lot of devices in every room of a 3700 sq ft home as well as in the garage and front and back yard. I also have a Wifi 6e phone and Xfinity’s 1.2gb plan so I wanted to upgrade to something that would work more effectively with future devices. I am using the Xfinity XB8 combination modem and router device but I am using it only as a modem in bridge mode since it is not as efficient a router as this Google mesh system. The XB8 connected immediately with the Nest Wifi Pro and the combination works well.

This upgrade only gives me three devices to replace the four from previous generations (router and three points) and I have these three in spots that I used before. The Google Home app mesh test shows great connection for all three.

While I got this in anticipation of getting more Wifi 6E devices, the one thing that I have noticed is how much faster my smart home devices respond. Most of my other devices are also faster and I expect that will only increase as I upgrade them to Wifi6E as well as when Google Nest applies software upgrades which it does so well behind the scenes. The only possible negative that I can see is that the ethernet ports are only 1 gigabyte. This is not a problem for me at this time since multi-gigabyte tiers are not yet available in my area. I also rarely connect anything with ethernet since Wifi works so well.

This upgrade works the same as previous generations with the Google Home app which allows very good control of the devices in one’s network. I am pleased with this upgrade and expect it to work as flawlessly as the previous generations have for the last six years, unless technology speeds up improvements before then and internet providers expand their tier. In that case, I will upgrade again with Google Nest Mesh since I like to stay with what works problem free for me.