Vilo Mesh Wi-Fi Machine review: Complete Wi-Fi connectivity for accurate $60?

Mesh routers are a large option in your home Wi-Fi desires, but the costs of these systems most incessantly bag them inaccessible for so much of households. Vilo is taking a peruse to upend the home mesh Wi-Fi market with an cheap machine of its personal.

Priced at accurate $20 for a single router or $60 for a 3-pack that connects together to blanket up to a 4,500-square-foot home, Vilo promises to connect up to 120 gadgets at a time at a fragment of the worth of competing units.

It’s roughly one-fifth the worth of the competing Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi machine, so clearly, Vilo needed to bag some compromises. But it cuts corners within the factual locations, balancing efficiency and aspects with its extraordinarily dazzling mark.

Jump to: Construct | Specs and aspects | Setup | Performance | Our purchase

Construct

Vilo’s mesh routers would possibly perhaps perhaps also be bought in a pack of 1 — excellent for smaller areas and offices — or a elevated pack of three designed to blanket elevated homes. Every unit, called a node, is similar and interchangeable, so it’ll even be extinct as either a satellite or the vital router instantly related to the modem.

The Vilo units appear scheme more top class than they’re, and nothing about the Vilo’s form quality would betray it’s $20 mark. Essentially, the minimalist square-fashioned canister form — and the unit’s non-glossy white conclude — rings a bell in my memory of Linksys’ more top class Velop mesh machine. The Velop retails for a whopping $229 to $300 for a 3-pack by comparison.

Adore the Velop, the Vilo is terribly gentle-weight and it’s compact form — 5.9 x 2.7 x 2.7 inches — is never any elevated than a immense can of iced tea. The easy form of this unit is made to mix in alongside with your furnishings and home decor.

Now not like extinct Wi-Fi routers, mesh systems don’t come with intimating, protruding antennas that resemble alien-admire tentacles. The plot with these systems is that the more tidy form scheme that you’ll must dispute these units all the scheme thru your residing house to bring better Wi-Fi protection, in its build apart of cloak the mesh machine and obfuscate its signal on the support of furnishings and home equipment.

On the entrance of each Vilo, you’ll discover a recessed round button that will perhaps perhaps even be extinct to rapidly disable community connectivity to that particular person node. as successfully as a community field indicator LED gentle. When the Vilo starts up, the LED is crimson, on the opposite hand it would switch to a solid blue whenever you happen to’re related to the web and the machine is ready. A flashing blue gentle shows spotty Cyber web protection, whereas amber shows that the unit is ready to be paired and setup.

Once you’re sensitive to gentle or don’t desire Vilo’s LED to disturb your home’s ambient lights, you would possibly perhaps perhaps must quilt the LED gap with some white tape for a cleaner magnificent.

On the rear, each unit comes with three Ethernet ports to accommodate wired connections if wanted. Having Ethernet ports on satellite units can will be found in at hand for gamers who would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably personal a reliable connection and personal their modem or vital mesh router in a odd room, or for connecting IoT gadgets in a ways away corners of your home. The ports here don’t bring the same speeds that you would possibly perhaps perhaps be ready to construct a question to when plugging instantly into your modem, but can aid in sustaining a more exact connection for more excessive applications.

Having the Ethernet ports on satellite units is a welcome switch from my older Amazon Eero machine that lacked aid for wired Ethernet connections on satellites. In classic, I employ the Ethernet ports on my satellite nodes for plugging in my gaming console, a condo IoT hub that doesn’t come with constructed-in Wi-Fi, and my desktop PC.

Specs and aspects

At accurate $20 a unit, you gained’t discover aid for the latest Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E specs on the Vilo. Aloof, with dual-band 802.11ac on board, you’re getting the same Wi-Fi 5 aid that’s found on something admire the more top class Linksys Velop AC2200 mesh machine. Now not like Vilo, Linksys does supply a more top class version of its Velop machine with Wi-Fi 6 aid.

The first incompatibility here is that the $229 Velop aspects a triband antenna for better protection and reliability, whereas the more cost effective Vilo inns to a dual-band antenna. At its severely lower mark, you would possibly perhaps perhaps quiet purchase pleasure in MU-MIMO connections, beamforming, and band steering on the Vilo. Band steering would possibly perhaps perhaps also be configured thru the Vilo Residing app, which is out there on each iOS and Android. The app’s dashboard offers you additional knowledge about your mesh community, admire your Wi-Fi signal energy, the firmware version that’s running, and your preference of encryption scheme.

Developing your home Wi-Fi community will require you to make employ of the app. Every Vilo unit comes with a QR code on the backside, and whereas you’re registered and logged into the app, it would urged you to scan the QR code of the vital unit first — here’s the individual that’s plugged instantly into the router. Once you purchase a multipack, subsequent satellites will automatically be detected after you run them in. While Vilo offers a 3-pack configuration, you are going to be ready to resolve extra nodes and pair them to your machine if your home requires it. Adore competing mesh systems, the app offers you a good deal of control and knowledge about your home community in a nonintimidating scheme.

Yet every other support with the app is that folks can control the community to agenda downtime where particular person gadgets are blocked off. Once that you would possibly personal younger children, it’s an added layer to the digital successfully-being apps which would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably be constructed into many in vogue phones, and it would support build healthy web habits.

You would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably presumably additionally block explicit web sites, originate a customer community for guests to make employ of with a separate password, and remotely restart your mesh machine if there are any system faults. And whereas you’re into recordsdata, you are going to be ready to additionally search for a usage document to peruse how noteworthy recordsdata each instrument is the employ of. For customer networks, Vilo enables you to field up transient ones with an expiration time or a everlasting one, giving you lots of flexibility to change your password and settings to retain things stable.

Setup

I examined a 3-pack of the Vilo machine at my folks’ home, which is elevated than my smaller condo and an even bigger indicator of how the units abolish together as a mesh community. In my smaller house, a one-unit modem would personal sufficed.

For the test environment, I modified the present Eero Pro 6 community at home with the Vilo community. I positioned a unit within the upstairs mattress room on the support of the condo, one within the lounge downstairs within the entrance of the condo, and one within the storage.

Thanks to the formula the home is laid out, the storage has consistently been a Wi-Fi dull zone, and within the previous, my folks would dispute repeaters or a mesh node within the storage so that they would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably control their related storage door opener and Ring cameras. Because each unit desires to be plugged into energy, their placement ought to be shut to a energy outlet.

Performance

Adore a community of cell cell phone towers, the mesh machine would resolve which node offers essentially the most attention-grabbing connection and switch your instrument to the strongest node as you switch across the house. This all occurs seamlessly, and in theory, you ought to bag essentially the most attention-grabbing Wi-Fi reception without having to change to a odd community at any time whereas you step precise into a odd protection zone.

To test the efficiency of the Vilo, I wished to peruse if there are breeze degradations and differences incoverage reliability as I moved across the house. I do know that my folks personal 300 Mbps symmetrical speeds from their local web provider provider (ISP), and connecting my iPhone instantly to the ISP’s equipped router-modem combo gave me speeds in that change.

The vary runs from the lowest breeze of 280Mbps to the ideal breeze of 325Mbps. Vilo’s unit helps a maximum of 867Mbps on the 5GHz band and up to 500Mbps on the 2.4GHz band.

Vilo sayst each unit has four inner antennas and can tackle a few customers with MU-MIMO, making it reliable for various gadgets related simultaneously. Beamforming is additionally extinct to aid route the signals to the gadgets from the nodes, and band steering automatically sets each instrument to either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz band.

You would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably presumably flip off band steering, if needed, in Vilo’s app for gadgets that require a explicit connection to a 2.4GHz band. I disabled band steering for the test and as a change compelled Vilo to rely on the 5GHz band for our assessments in converse that the ISP speeds weren’t capped by the lower band.

Running breeze assessments all the scheme thru various capabilities within the home, I found that the Vilo community used to be on practical 30% slower than the Eero Pro 6, averaging accurate over 350Mbps across a few areas within the condo. Aloof, a 3-unit pack of the Eero Pro 6 funds $599 for a 3-pack.

This implies that you would possibly perhaps perhaps be ready to keep 90% of the worth by sacrificing accurate 30% of the breeze, making the Vilo a excessive winner for most practical households.

No longer all used to be dire, on the opposite hand. Within the lounge related to the vital node — the unit that’s related instantly into the modem — speeds averaged greater at around 400 Mbps. Moving to the opposite conclude of the condo with accurate the vital node running, speeds hovered shut to 200 Mbps.

When a satellite used to be extinct within the same dispute within the condo, speeds had been about 250 Mbps. Within the storage with its nefarious Wi-Fi dull zone, speeds had been around 75 Mbps all the scheme thru my breeze test — that’s 15% of the 500Mbps promised by my ISP.

In comparison to the Eero Pro 6 machine, the descend-off in speeds wasn’t as drastic as the Vilo. Within the lounge, the Eero Pro 6 performed shut to 450 Mbps, so it’s marginally faster than the Vilo on this environment. Nonetheless, off of the vital node, when bewitching to the opposite conclude of the condo, speeds had been noteworthy faster than the Vilo at 320Mbps on practical. In that very same dispute with a satellite unit, speeds had been bigger than 100Mbps faster on practical at 370Mbps. And within the storage, the Eero quiet delivered shut to 150 Mbps on the devoted node for that house.

The ideal gripe with the Vilo is that the handoff between varied nodes doesn’t work as successfully as on competing systems. That would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably be a misfortune whereas you launch your connection on one conclude of the home on one node and then switch to at least one other space within the home that ought to personal been serviced by a odd node for optimal breeze and protection.

This doesn’t happen so much, but I did perceive it when bewitching from the backyard — where I had first charge Wi-Fi protection on my cell phone when related to the node from the upstairs mattress room — to the entrance of condo, which will have to personal been serviced by the vital node within the lounge. After I had migrated, now not finest did my Wi-Fi reception plummet — indicating I was related to a more a ways away node — but on tale of weaker reception, my speeds additionally severely dropped.

While this isn’t a overall pain for most families — you essentially are engaged on your notebook computer or tablet in mostly one space — it is a misfortune whereas you’re FaceTiming or video calling with folks whereas strolling across the condo.

Speeds are accurate one portion of the memoir in phrases of Wi-Fi networks. In employ, I found the Vilo machine used to be very reliable in classic. Within the month that I’ve extinct the Vilo community — each on the test field at my folks’ home and my condo — the community needed to be restarted twice.

The principle time used to be after a software program replace that precipitated a glitch where one amongst the satellites used to be now not acknowledged, and the second took place when gadgets that had been related to Vilo’s community would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably now not bag bag admission to to the web.

Despite the undeniable truth that this would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably seem worrying, the system faults can more without complications be misplaced sight of at Vilo’s lower mark point. In comparison to my older Wi-Fi 5 Eero machine, the Amazon-branded community performs scheme more reliably on the present time, but when it first launched, I’d abilities the same system faults twice or three instances a year, and mostly after software program updates.

Our purchase

Once you don’t already personal a condo mesh community, the Vilo machine ought to be on the head of the list. While Vilo compromises on more in vogue aspects — the machine lacks an option for Wi-Fi 6 aid and it comes with a dual-band, in its build apart of a triband antenna for scheme more sturdy protection — its cheap $20 starting mark for a single router unit or $60 for a 3-pack makes Vilo a large charge for those taking a peruse to change to a condo Wi-Fi mesh machine.

Are there any alternate solutions?

Some of Vilo’s bigger opponents consist of Amazon’s Eero, Logitech’s Velop, and Google’s Nest Wi-Fi. And whereas Wi-Fi 6 is supported on just a few of the more pricey units, admire the Eero 6 or Velop AX4200 Wi-Fi 6 machine, you’ll be paying a top class for this technology. For the time being, Wi-Fi 6 hasn’t reasonably taken off yet, and even supposing your fresh smartphone or notebook computer helps it, most homes within the U.S. don’t personal the broadband speeds to purchase perfect thing about Wi-Fi 6.

In step with Ookla’s Speedtest.get, most homes within the country practical around 192Mbps for fixed broadband. Vilo’s Wi-Fi 5 community helps up to 867Mbps, which ought to competently tackle most broadband plans with sub-gigabit speeds.

Apart from to mesh networks, Vilo additionally competes against extinct Wi-Fi routers, particularly after they’re coupled with vary extenders.

How long will it closing?

Vilo offers a runt one-year guarantee to quilt any defects within the hardware. And unlike smartphones, Wi-Fi units are most incessantly stationary, so that they aren’t inclined to accidental ruin. With a intelligent instrument admire a mesh router, you additionally originate years of aid thru software program updates that happen within the background, guaranteeing that your Vilo community lasts for years. In classic, the Vilo community ought to closing you till you upgrade to home broadband speeds which would possibly perhaps perhaps presumably be faster than 1Gbps.

Within the occasion you purchase it?

Except you wish Wi-Fi 6, whereas you don’t already personal a mesh Wi-Fi machine, you ought to completely purchase into consideration upgrading to the Vilo mesh. The unit boasts tidy correct looks, though it does makes some compromises with speeds. But at $60 for a complete-home community, the breeze descend-offs don’t essentially topic noteworthy for prudent purchasers, as long as the machine works as advertised and you are going to be ready to bag reliable reception in essentially the most a ways away corners of your home.

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