Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased a set of three Google Wifi units to upgrade my wifi network at home from b/g/n series wifi access points circa 2010 to the latest and greatest ac/dual radio/mesh technology. Installation was easy and I was up and running in less than 20 minutes with a mesh grid of all three access points. I have an 11K ft2 property with multiple structures. I put the main router unit (which was plugged into my network via ethernet) at one end of my main house and I put another satellite unit at the other end of my main house. I put the second satellite unit in my garage (separate structure in the corner of the property). Speedtests: At various locations around the property from an Mac OS laptop were as follows: From any location in the main house I was able to get speeds easily exceeding 100Mbps. The highest was 140Mbps. From my Garage and from locations in my yard near to my garage I was able to get speeds up to 50Mbps (average was about 44Mbps). Decent speeds. Based on speeds alone, I'd say the Google gets 3 stars because I have heard of much better speeds from mesh dual radio systems but still, 43MBps at the far reaches of the mesh is plenty for streaming video. But for me, the fun stopped there. The main issue I had with the system was that it is designed strictly for people who have absolutely zero understanding or interest in computer networking and is very limited in how you can setup your network. The software that you install on your phone goes to great lengths to protect you from all technical details. This could be a good thing for some and that was indeed one reason why I purchased this system (because my wife wanted something that she could fix when I was gone and she knows zero and cares zero about computer networks) That said, I think there is a limit to how simple one can or should make something that is fundamentally technically complex. In my opinion Google crosses the line with this system trying to deliver wifi configuration and management in a wrapper of non-technical consumer messaging similar to what you might find on your facebook app. Here's some examples: Network Setup: The system configures an ip network automatically without prompting you for an ip address or subnet, DHCP range or anything else other than the SSID name. It does the same with wifi security. You can change the ip addresses later under the advanced settings section but not the wifi security. You have a particular type of wifi security you want? or your curious what Google is using? Sorry. I could see no way to Wifi security settings settings or change them. Radios: There is no ability to adjust the power or direction of the radios. The Google solution seems to be to just try moving the wifi pods around to different spots. Now for the worst: The router. So in the CNET review that I read, it clearly stated that Google Wifi can be used in either bridge mode or as a router/gateway directly to your modem. Since I have already a VERY high performance Ubiquiti router, this review was important to me because it meant that I can implement Google Wifi as a wifi mesh solution only and not disturb my very high performing core wired network or routing. The truth is (rather hilariously) quite different. This solution in my testing ONLY functions as a router/gateway replacing your existing router. It MUST plug directly into your modem in order for it to work as it has been designed. The router functionality provides layer 2 network that cannot be configured or turned off. So if you have a router already you are stuck with double NAT and all the issues this brings. Now the hilarious part. There is in fact a setting under the advanced network configuration settings section that ostensibly allows you to switch the system into bridge mode. But nowhere during setup does it give you the opportunity to do this. It does not sense that you already have a layer 2 network setup. It just goes ahead and configures it's own router, gateway and network. Then when you try to change it to bridge mode later the toggle switch is grayed out and there is only one clickable link on the page that says "Device mode has been automatically set. Learn more". upon clicking this takes you to a verbose help article which i am compelled to paste here in it's entirety so as to save others like me a lot of wasted time: "Bridge mode Most people won’t need bridge mode, but for those who do, we’ve outlined some recommended setups below. When to use Bridge mode: Bridge mode is only needed when encountering specific cases of Double NAT. For most people, Double NAT does not affect Wi-Fi performance. But it can be an issue if you play online games or use IP address assignments, port forwarding rules, and UPnP. Learn more about Double NAT and when you might need Bridge mode. Does Google Wifi support Bridge mode? Yeah, but it will only work if you’re using a single Wifi point. If you’re creating a mesh network with multiple Wifi points, your Primary Wifi point cannot be in Bridge mode. This is because the Primary Wifi point needs to do special things to control settings and communication within your Wi-Fi network. If it’s in bridge mode, you’ll lose some of Google Wifi’s key features. How do I enable bridge mode? If you are only using a single Google Wifi point andDouble NAT is causing problems, you have two options: Enable bridge mode on your ISP-provided modem/router (RECOMMENDED) Enable bridge mode on your primary Wifi point (NOT RECOMMENDED" OK! Great. So in summary if you play online gaming, use UPnP, have any port forwarding setup, or have assigned IPs, Or [let me add] print! ..(from any device wired into your ISP provided router)... you CANT use Google Wifi as a mesh system! The hilarious part is that the toggle switch is even there! Why not just make this abundantly clear to people up front?!?! Bottom line this system is NOT a wifi mesh system alone. It is an ALL-IN-ONE home network. You will need everything in your house to be on the Google wifi network or plugged into one of the LAN ports provided on one of the Google wifi pods. (Each Google pod gives you two LAN ports accept for the one acting as the router which gives you one. So why is this so bad? Well for starters the router functionality itself will become the bottle neck in your network quite easily if you have traffic of a typical house (50=-75 devices including IoT, security cameras, mobile devices, consoles, HiFi, Smart TVs, etc.) Even with a quad core ARM processor (That Google advertises as a feature on the "lets get technical" section of their online sales brochures), acting as a MESH main access point and a gateway/router is going to put too much burden on a single Google pod. The odd thing is that the same compliment of computing is being wasted on the other pods acting as satellites. Some other points about the router: QOS -> has been renamed "Priority device" Singular not plural. You can pick just one! VLAN -> has been renamed " Guest Network" and yes you guessed it. You can setup only one! Port Forwarding and DHCP reservations are configurable but sadly the port forwarding does not support ranges and port forward rules cannot be edited once created. The only option is to delete and start over. There is a potentially cool feature available called "Family Wi-Fi" that allows you to enable website filtering of adult sites, and pause WAN connectivity but it does not work unless you enable the Google cloud services that sniff your network. (more on that next) Do No Evil - Ok I had to include this in my review... So There is also a "Privacy" settings under "network & general" section. (I went poking in here as part of my futile attempt to understand how the Wifi security had been setup.) This section has three toggle switches all by default have been turned on. What do they do? Again I feel compelled to paste the un-abridged version herein (refer to screen shot). So in essence, without notifying the user Google has basically setup network sniffing at the layer 2 router level of your private network and is reporting stats back to Google! And the quad core CPU that is already over burdened is doing that processing too! It should be noted that unlike setting up an Apple device where you know there will be that one screen during setup that asks you permission to turn on reporting back to Apple, with this Google Wifi there was no such screen or notification during setup. Oh and they also set the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and only 8.8.8.8. (for those who don't know 8.8.8.8 is Google's main public internet domain name server) All this can be changed. But its a bit sneaky and IMHO a violation privacy to pre-configure it to the lowest level of privacy. The target non-technical user of this system will probably never even know. So in summary Thanks Amazon for the 30 day return policy. I very much appreciate trying this system out. I give this a 2 star rating for a person like me. For a complete non tech person who just wants to plug in and go, I maybe give it 3 stars. It will probably be better than what your ISP gives you in terms of wifi performance. But you MUST put your other router in bridge mode and you MUST be aware of the monitoring Google will be doing of your network activity. In my opinion this device is a really more about maintaining and extending Google dominance of your online usage than anything else. It is a $300 system that arguably benefits Google more than the consumer who paid or it.