Google Nest Wifi Router Generation

My Fellow greg mayer say Don’t buy these just yet wait for some updates. Eventually they will be great..

I’m already a big fan of the Google Wifi units and I’ve installed almost 100 and besides the typical installation issues that are easily resolved I’m very happy to recommend Google Wi-Fi. I saw these as an improvement to the existing model but right from the start I had issues with installing. I started using the new Google Home app and created my location and then I spent the next 45 minutes watching things spin and pause and wait while nothing was happening. I finally gave up and took them out. I will continue to install Google Wifi until a later date when these start to work. I will remove my one star review once I see that they have resolved set up issues.

I’m an IT professional with 20 years experience and I love mashed products and Google products are the best of those but these aren’t ready for prime time.

My Fellow Ryan say Both routers need hardwired internet connection to setup.

It took about 75 minutes on with Google/Nest support. After being on hold/Google finding the right person for me to talk with, they finally figured out if you purchased the 2 router pack (4x4 AC2200) that I needed to hardwire the the second router (that I planned to use as the mesh access point) to the main router. Basically I daisy-chained the Ethernet out of the main router to the Ethernet in of the secondary router. Long story short, the secondary router still needed a direct internet connection to connect to my newly established home network. Once I configured the second router as a mesh point I unplugged it and moved it to the room I intended it to be in. Not sure if this will be required for everyone that try to use 2 routers but Google needs to update their documentation. At least the kid from Google support was pretty nice.

My Old Man A. Manson said It's easy to set up the second router as an access point.

My wife purchased this Google Nest router 2 pack and I just set it up. I was a little worried that setting the second router up as an access point would be challenging--there are several other reviews here that talk about the difficulty and the need of phone support from Google. Now that I finished setting up these two routers as a mesh network, I wanted to briefly share my experience.

Literally, the whole process took me less than 10 minutes. It took me about the same amount of time to open to the two boxes and remove the routers, power cables, and ethernet cords as it did to get the mesh network set up. Okay, it didn't quite take 10 minutes to unbox the routers, but I'm just trying to say that the set up was fast.

I connected one router to a wall outlet and then to my modem. I ran the Google Home app, selected add new device, and added the router. I choose the same SSID/password as my old network that this was replacing. Then, the app asked if I wanted to add a mesh point. Before clicking yes, I connected the second router to the wall power in a different room.

At first, the Google Home app couldn't find my second router. Oh no! I tried again, and it still couldn't find it. I tried a third time, and still no luck. (I was starting to get worried at this point). On the fourth attempt, it found it! While it was unfortunate it took four tries to find my second router, each attempt was really only about 5 seconds. After it found my second router, my mesh network was all set up.

I just wanted to jump on here and let any prospective buyers know that setting up these 2 routers to act as a main router and access point was really fast and easy, so don't be scared off. As long as you have a Google nest router connected to your modem, the rest of your mesh network can be comprised of Google Nest routers, Google Nest access points, or any combination.

My Old Neighbor Wen B. Chu tell us Upgrade from google Wifi very disappointed waste of money..

base on review of expert new Nest version suppose to be faster and give more distance thats how I spend $170 to get something cost me 4 hours of running around and testing, at the end its either the same or worst.

1. distance did not improve any at all! my basement router only have bar half full even with nest still half full where is the more coverage part I hear??!@!!!

2. nest claim to be faster... yeah right I have 42 - 55 devices connected to Google wifi so yeah if you take 50 device offline sure a iphone can hit 400MB on fast dot com but so is old google wifi? in real life after all smart home product connected speed is down to 20-45mb each devices that exactly same number I used to have years ago.

3. Smart home device is complicated lately since nest apple amazon dont want to make it easy for us or just wont supported or not compatible, So your smart home product will go nuts (happen to 5-10 of my device either dead or cant be discover) after google try to take over all smart device with their nest router must use app call google home.

4. after total over 20 hours of painful conversion repair merge new automate device at the end My speed drop cause I end up with lot of older smart home product dont work anymore and on-hub no longer supported so I lost about 5 different product gone and my internet speed drop at least 15% and tons of no response from many other smart product...specially amazon echo just disappear or not show up in alexa app.

stay away from this junk!!

My Old Man Rbbrdcky tell us Upgraded from the Google WiFi.

I upgraded to the Nest Wifi from the original Google Wifi because it has stronger antennas that give it a larger coverage footprint. Granted, my apartment is only 1000 sq ft but for some reason, the wifi signal was not reaching all the way to my home office where my desktop computer is. I technically got a signal but it was a fraction of the bandwidth every other room was getting. My new setup has drastically improved everything! I not only switched out the Google Wifi for the Nest Wifi as my main hub router, but I was also able to then use the original Google Wifi now as one of the "beacons" located in my office. The bandwidth increased well over 1000%! Needless to say, I'm very satisfied with those results (~‾▿‾)~

My Old Chap susie Talk Google Router 2-Pack - Does not create Mesh Network.

ALL BEWARE of ( router 2-Pack) - Just spent 2 hours with Google support to find out you cannot have 2 google routers to create a mesh network .. Google does not sell or package it this way .. The One router works great and provides strong signal .. Have to return and get one router and one old google WiFi point as I need the the ports to plug in other devices.
Hope this helps others ..

Update - very frustrating- Update from google that replied to my ticket - now Google Support sent email saying that 2 routers can be set up as mesh network - this was sent to me after I returned the two pack .. I think Google needs to figure this out and have their technical support all on the same page - because depending on who you talk to you can get two totally different answers.

My Old Chap Chitownburbs Talk Great upgrade from combo modem/router but took hours to set up.

So a full 6 hours of setting this up is insane and google needs better support when they launch a product. No instructions, and 2 hours on the phone with their tech support. Issue was the 2 routers vs the standard extra point (which would have been a simple setup).

My first router plugged into my Motorola MG7550 modem with no issues, I disabled the wifi on it so that wouldn't be an issue. For some reason my speeds were not any better than the modems wifi though. I was really disappointed since I spent $300 on this setup. After resetting it a few times and trying to install the other point I started seeing the speed pickup (using third party app on phone). All of a sudden I was getting 230mbps wifi which is the same as my hard wired speed! I was getting 80mbps max on the motorola wifi. My home server movie files were too big to ever stream with around 50mbps in my bedroom but now its no issue as I am also getting over 200 there.

The problem was the second point, which I needed badly in my office across the house, never got a good wifi signal but I have a hard line into there, so it was just annoying for phone use. Figured it would be simple, hook up the hard line (from a switch) to the second router, then since it has the extra port plug that into my computer to keep the hardline going. Yeah no such luck, kept saying "problem connecting to cloud" on the final step of setup, so the wifi networks wouldn't sync (even though my phone was picking up the second one, it was under a different name) and it wouldn't connect my computer to the rest of the network.

Took an hour of explaining to google support until they finally understood there is a 2 pack of routers that only amazon sells (they kept trying to tell me I had 1 router and a point). Then they said it wouldn't work with 2 routers unless I wanted 2 wireless networks (which defeats the purpose of this). It turns out the problem was my motorola modem/router still wanting to act as a router, I unplugged everything from it except for the 1 cable going into the nest wifi, then had the witch going out from the nest wifi and even though I turned off wifi on the actual modem I also went in and changed the setting to be a bridge (not sure if that did anything, but goolge help person mentioned it). Then it picked up second router as new mesh point and connected but it was acting like a regular point and not a hard wired router, so the connection sucked. The whole point of me buying this 2 pack instead of the $269 one directly from google was having the 2 hardwired routers for better coverage. Well something finally clicked along the way not exactly sure what it was as we did so many things over the 2 hours on the phone, but its all working now. I have 2 routers hooked up, both hardwired and both sending 100% full strength signal as wifi even though they are completely across the house (where a regular non hard wired point wouldn't be able to communicate with a router). I am paying for 200mbps from cable company but getting 230-240 on all my tests, hard wired and wifi, which is amazing and anywhere from 3-5 times what I was getting. This is a better/cheaper solution than buying the 3 pack with 2 points unless you really want the google speaker functions (which I didn't care about).

This would easily be 5 star with better support on hooking up multiple routers in mesh mode, and was so painful I almost gave it 3 stars, but the product simply works really well once setup and is easily managed along with all my other google devices and hue lights thru a single app.

My Buddy Brent Duran tell us Don't be Fooled.

One would think that a router 3-pack would result in a lower price-per-router, since you'd be buying three routers. However, that's not the case - the best pricing is with the router 2-pack. With the router 3-pack, all they've done is saved you the trouble of adding both the router 2-pack and router 1-pack to your cart. At the time of this writing (12/13/2019), the prices of the Nest Wifi router bundles are as follows:

Nest Wifi Router 1-pack: $169
Nest Wifi Router 2-pack: $299 ($149.50 / router)
Nest Wifi Router 3-pack: $468 ($169 + $299) = ($156 / router)

For me, unless the Nest Wifi Router 3-pack offers a discount similar to that of the Nest Wifi Router 2-pack, there's not really any reason to get this.

***** UPDATE (12/16/2019) [ 1 of 2 ]

The prices for the Nest Wifi router packs have been updated as follows:

Nest Wifi Router 1-pack: $149
Nest Wifi Router 2-pack: $239 ($119.50 / router)
Nest Wifi Router 3-pack: $388 ($149 + $239) = ($129.33 / router)

It's nice to see that the prices of the routers have come down, but I still don't understand why the Nest Wifi Router 3-pack averages $129.33 per router, vs. the $119.50 per router for the Nest Wifi Router 2-pack. Bundling three routers together should result in at least the same average price per router as the Nest Wifi Router 2-pack, not an increased average price.

***** UPDATE (12/16/2019) [ 2 of 2 ]

That didn't take long - the prices for the Nest Wifi router packs have gone back up:

Nest Wifi Router 1-pack: $149
Nest Wifi Router 2-pack: $299 ($149.50 / router)
Nest Wifi Router 3-pack: $448 ($149 + $299) = ($149.33 / router)

Now each router is about $149 a piece, regardless of the bundle you get. That's too bad - the $119.50 price for the Nest Wifi Router 2-pack was compelling. Now I guess I'll wait and see if they come down in price again.

***** UPDATE (1/6/2020)

Looks like a sale started a few days ago.

Nest Wifi Router 1-pack: $149
Nest Wifi Router 2-pack: $269 ($134.50 / router)
Nest Wifi Router 3-pack: $418 ($149 + $269) = ($139.33 / router)

So now the bundle with the best price-per-router is back to the router 2-pack. Bizarrely, the 3-pack, again, results in a higher price-per-router.

***** UPDATE (1/10/2020)

This is interesting - the price of the router 2-pack decreased slightly, but not the price of the router 3-pack.

Nest Wifi Router 1-pack: $149
Nest Wifi Router 2-pack: $267.95 ($133.98 / router)
Nest Wifi Router 3-pack: $418 = ($139.33 / router)

I need to point out that if this bundle truly contained the price of the router 1-pack ($149) and the router 2-pack ($267.95), then the price of the router 3-pack SHOULD be ($416.95). However, it's actually MORE expensive ($418) to get the router 3-pack, than to just add both the router 1-pack and router 2-pack to your cart manually. The pricing for this router 3-pack is just bananas - I don't get it.

My Old Chap Amazon Customer said DO NOT UPGRADE GOOGLE WIFI TO THIS ROUTER!!!.

Save your money. Bought this as an upgrade to my existing Google Wifi in an effort to better extend coverage to the corners of my house. Setting this up with an existing Google Wifi in place was NOT easy and required several efforts to finally make it happen. Also, you cannot use the easy and functional Google Wifi app, you are forced to use Google Home which is trash. With the set up and app issues, the cherry on top is that Google Nest Wifi did NOT increase my coverage. In fact, I was forced to relocate my other pucks closer to the new router. Google totally screwed up such a good thing.

My Fellow Logan experience Huge improvement over Google Wifi.

I upgraded to Google Nest Wifi today without a hitch. Everything set up seamlessly and I am getting speeds that are exponentially better than the Google Wifi. I had 4 Google Wifi units, and the two Google Nest Wifi units I activated are outperforming them all. I'm using all router units, as the access point units are AC 1200, not 2200 for some reason. AM going to add one more unit to support the third floor.