If you’re in the market for a new router, good news: Google just announced a replacement for its long-in-the-tooth Google Wifi. The new Nest Wifi Router and Nest Wifi Point, which debuted at an event in New York City this morning, are a mesh-capable wireless router and beacon set meant to compete with Amazon’s Eero, Netgear’s Orbi, Asus’ Lyra, and others.
Nest Wifi features Google Assistant support and it comes in three colorways — snow, sand, and mist — and it’ll begin shipping November 4 in eight countries starting at $269 for a two-pack and $349 for a three-pack.
Nest Wifi Router boasts hardware that’s backward compatible with the original Google Wifi, including a Qualcomm 400 series chipset optimized to parse Google Assistant commands. Gigabit Ethernet ports are present and accounted for, as are multiple antennas and support for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channels. That’s in addition to Thread (coming in 2020) and Bluetooth Low Engery capabilities that enable native integration with popular smart home devices.
Google says that it’s up to two times faster and provides 25% better coverage than Google Wifi. In fact, it says a two-pack can cover an entire 3,800-square-foot home.
Nest Wifi Router inherits its progenitor’s smarts — namely algorithms that automatically switch among frequency bands and spectrum channels, depending on which is the fastest based on congestion and connected devices’ locations. And like Google Wifi, Nest Wifi Router creates a single network name for both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands to simplify the onboarding experience.
With Assistant commands or from within the companion app for iOS and Android, you’re able to pause the internet in certain rooms or for specific devices, give a single device priority over others, or restrict online access for children. (Try “Hey Google, pause the Wi-Fi for Daniel” or “Hey Google, what’s my internet speed?”) Additionally, you can manage guest Wi-Fi networks and internet-connected devices like Philips Hue lightbulbs.
The app — which can be used remotely beyond the network’s reach — also lets you check speeds from both your internet service provider and from Nest Wifi Router to your device, in addition to the strength of signal between each node. It’s here where you’re able to name and rename Nest Wifi Router, and where you can quickly see the access points to which devices are connect.
The microphone-touting Nest Wifi Point both extends the range of the Nest Wifi Router and doubles as a fully functional Assistant-powered smart speaker — one capable of checking calendars, setting reminders, controlling smart home devices, playing music and podcasts, looking up movie showtimes and restaurants, and so on. The casing’s bottom portion houses speakers, and there’s a microphone mute switch around back that prompts an LED to glow when it’s active.
There’s no fetters on this incarnation of Assistant, which is to say features like Voice Match (which recognizes up to 6 unique voices in a household) are positively present and accounted for on the Nest Wifi Point. So are Routines, which let you carry out multiple tasks with a single voice command; Broadcasts, which let you send a single audio message to all the other compatible speakers in on your network; and multilingual support for a range of languages including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.
Author: Kyle Wiggers
Source: Venturebeat
