Linksys Velop AX4200 WiFi 6 Mesh System Now Available

[zubikov]

Just ended up buying this 3-piece mesh system MX12600. You can get a 25% student discount with an edu email. Thx MacRumors for the heads up.

I have a 2 year old AmpliFi HD with a total of 5 mesh points in a larger house and 35+ devices. Amplifi HD is starting to need constant reboots and speed is lagging. If these 3 supposedly stronger nodes can provide similar coverage with Wifi 6 speeds for eligible devices, seems like a no-brainer.

 

[CBlakeston]

Just ended up buying this 3-piece mesh system MX12600. You can get a 25% student discount with an edu email. Thx MacRumors for the heads up.

I have a 2 year old AmpliFi HD with a total of 5 mesh points in a larger house and 35+ devices. Amplifi HD is starting to need constant reboots and speed is lagging. If these 3 supposedly stronger nodes can provide similar coverage with Wifi 6 speeds for eligible devices, seems like a no-brainer.

Cool. I hope you’ll love it. The price of the MX5300 continues to drop today at low as £200. So Bought another to build out my mesh network.

That means i’ve now bought two for around the price of what one cost last week. Amazing. Lol.

 

[squirrrl]

Wait for 6E.

Screw that, I'm waiting for 6F. Always waiting, waiting, waiting.........

 

[pianophile]

I have an Eero and I love it. It's so simple, and like Apple..it just works.

I'm a fan of the simplicity and reliability, too, but had to switch to something else due to my "busy wifi neighborhood" and eero's lack of admin level tools. If it had let me choose the 5ghz band, and set my own wifi channel, I'd still own the eero. YMMV.

 

[G5isAlive]

I tested products in my home and Velop won. It's been fine but I'd like WiFi6.

Recommended my Velop to a friend and he's had nothing but frustration, with satellites disconnecting.

Folks recommending other products as "better" should elaborate on why they feel this way.

Up until recently I had pretty good success with Velop. It wasn't that hard to set up, though did take some patience and reading and I agree the App could be better... but I have been running the Velop for over a year and only have had to reset it once due to a node dropping off... which I consider to be good.

Until a couple of days ago, and one of the nodes just seemed to blow up. Didnt really give me any warning or indication, lights come on fine, just my wifi really started misbehaving, dropping in and out, until I got rid of that one node on a hunch. Now it works fine.

I have been very happy with the range and speed though. My source is supposedly 1000 Mbps fiber optical and I can get over 700 wired passing through this, or over 300 on wifi with my iPhone.

 

[MacBH928]

Not my experience. I bought an Orbi mesh network and it was slow and had poor coverage in my house. Exchanged it for a Velop AC2200 mesh network and that has been substantially faster, much better coverage and has been rock solid. I have had to reboot my network once in the past 2.5 years, when one of the nodes was having trouble with a firmware update. The UI on the iPhone is pretty clunky, but I rarely use it so don't really care.

Wifi electronics are peculiar as everyone proclaims a different expereience, I too was not happy with Orbi's performance even though many proclaim how stable and fast it is. Yet I rather have a failed unit from Netgear than Linksys,. At least I went with the more reputable brand.

 

[whirldy]

Go for the new eero Pro 6 system. You won't regret it. Having used both eero and Velop, I can say that the Velop systems work well most of the time, but the app interface is horrendous and I've experienced nodes randomly disconnecting at least a couple of times a month, requiring a restart of the entire Velop network. I switched to the current-gen eero Pro over the summer and it has been rock solid; haven't had to restart the network at all. The app interface is also MUCH nicer and more responsive.

eero is well worth the extra ~$100 in my opinion.

Hi!
November 2 release date...
Do you know if eero 6 dual/triple band are sold in retail stores too? Best Buy, maybe? 🐶
My eero pro has been a beast! It works wonderfully!! Need 802.11ax though.

 

[squirrrl]

Hi!
November 2 release date...
Do you know if eero 6 dual/triple band are sold in retail stores too? Best Buy, maybe? 🐶
My eero pro has been a beast! It works wonderfully!! Need 802.11ax though.

Also, if anyone hears of where one can actually buy a set of two (discounted), please post. Seems like they advertise that you could buy a set of two but only see either a single or a triple.

 

[CBlakeston]

Just wanted to add I spoke with Linksys tech support today to help resolve an issue where my wireless speeds dropped after I upgraded my ISP connection to 1gigabit. Very strange. Linksys support was amazing emailing me back and calling me at home to sort it out. All fixed now.

One of the things the engineer mentioned about the MX5300 I have is that not all of the bands are wifi6. of the 1x 2.4GHz band and 2x 5GHz band. One of the 5GHz band is AC. Which i guess is why the announcement of this new AX4200 mentioned that all bands in that model are wifi6 now. Interesting to note for those interested in it.

 

[richpjr]

Just wanted to add I spoke with Linksys tech support today to help resolve an issue where my wireless speeds dropped after I upgraded my ISP connection to 1gigabit. Very strange. Linksys support was amazing emailing me back and calling me at home to resolve.

One of the things the engineer mentioned about the MX5300 I have is that not all of the bands are wifi6. of the 1x 2.4GHz band and 2x 5GHz band. One of the 5GHz band is AC. Which i guess is why the announcement of this new AX4200 mentioned that all bands in that model are wifi6 now. Interesting to note for those interested in it.

That is interesting about the MX5300 and really makes me look at the 4200 (though I really wish it had that one extra port on it).

 

[CBlakeston]

That is interesting about the MX5300 and really makes me look at the 4200 (though I really wish it had that one extra port on it).

I guess the good thing is the Velop family is additive. So you could add an AX4200 to whatever you have now to add WiFi 6 and strengthen your network.

 

[CJ Dorschel]

Just wanted to add I spoke with Linksys tech support today to help resolve an issue where my wireless speeds dropped after I upgraded my ISP connection to 1gigabit. Very strange. Linksys support was amazing emailing me back and calling me at home to sort it out. All fixed now.

One of the things the engineer mentioned about the MX5300 I have is that not all of the bands are wifi6. of the 1x 2.4GHz band and 2x 5GHz band. One of the 5GHz band is AC. Which i guess is why the announcement of this new AX4200 mentioned that all bands in that model are wifi6 now. Interesting to note for those interested in it.

At first this was disappointing but it makes sense. Having the 2.4 and one 5GHz on WiFi 6 and one 5GHz on WiFi 5 makes up for the shorter spectrum and allows for larger coverage with just 2 WiFi 6 nodes. The new model has 3 nodes with not much more sq ft coverage. The WiFi 6 nodes came out over a year ago when prices were higher, so I suspect limiting them to two nodes kept the price as low as possible then. If they came standard with three bands at WiFi 6 at that time it would have been $1000. There are still some benefits with the MX5300.

The new models are definitely a good buy and can be mixed with the velops and WiFi 6 MX5300.

 

[CBlakeston]

I guess the good thing is the Velop family is additive. So you could add an AX4200 to whatever you have

At first this was disappointing but it makes sense. Having the 2.4 and one 5GHz on WiFi 6 and one 5GHz on WiFi 5 makes up for the shorter spectrum and allows for larger coverage with just 2 WiFi 6 nodes. The new model has 3 nodes with not much more sq ft coverage. The WiFi 6 nodes came out over a year ago when prices were higher, so I suspect limiting them to two nodes kept the price as low as possible then. If they came standard with three bands at WiFi 6 at that time it would have been $1000. There are still some benefits with the MX5300.

The new models are definitely a good buy and can be mixed with the velops and WiFi 6 MX5300.

That’s a great observation. I have a two bedroom house and one node does me fine (I returned the other Mx5300 node I’d bought as wasn’t needed) but nice to know i could pick up one of the new ones at some point and get the benefits of the newer model if I wanted t.

 

[ryanmcv]

Hi!
November 2 release date...
Do you know if eero 6 dual/triple band are sold in retail stores too? Best Buy, maybe? 🐶
My eero pro has been a beast! It works wonderfully!! Need 802.11ax though.

Yes, all eero 6 models are being sold at Best Buy.

 

[CBlakeston]

Just wanted to add that as of iOS 14.2 I’m getting 855mbps speed test on my iPhone 11 Pro Max with the Linksys Velop MX5300. Not sure what the update fixed but before I was only getting around 700mbps Could not be happier.

 

[Abkhazia]

Hello macrumors forum,
I think it will be better to suggest any manufacturer you think with comparison specifications. Also write any small technical reason, why you suggested any other product? Does it has any better CPU than the CPU model of the MX5300 which is Qualcomm's IPQ8072A quad-core 2.2GHz CPU and is very powerful and 1GB DDR3L memory. 12 antennas, 3bands 4x4mimo.
Qualcomm’s chips :
1. QCN5024 - 2.4G supports 4x4mimo, WIFI6, maximum wireless rate at 40MHz bandwidth is 1147Mbps. 5G supports 4x4mimo WIFI6, maximum wireless rate at 80MHz bandwidth is 2402Mbps.
2. QCA8075 gigabit switch chip that supports 5-port 10/100/1000Mbps three-speed Ethernet PHY.
3. QCA4024 a Bluetooth 5 wireless multi-mode chip including Zigbee and Thread.
4. QCA9984 highest-end 5G wireless chip in the WIFI5 4x4mimo and a maximum speed of 1733Mbps. It supports MU-MIMO and supports two 2x2mimo terminals running under mu-mimo which is the best ever you will find in any other routers you suggested.

2.4G and 5G of the MX5300 both support offline and downstream OFDMA which is important feature of WIFI6, cause is used to reduce the delay of multiple devices at the same time.
AX4200 also includes very good components.

 

[Abkhazia]

Btw in EU I find it with EU plug type F around 320€ and with UK plug 280€

 

[Bach2011]

Ok for anyone wondering there are quite a few difference between the new AX4200 and the MX5300. They have just dropped the price of the solo MX5300 from £350 to match the AX4200 at £250 also.

AX4200 MU-MIMO Tri-Band Gigabit, 600+1200+2400 Mbps
AX5300 MU-MIMO Tri-Band Gigabit, 1147+2402+1733 Mbps

1.4GHz Quad Core Processor
2.2 GHz Quad-Core Processor

3 Gigabit LAN + 1 Gigabit WAN
4 Gigabit LAN + 1 Gigabit WAN

40+ Devices
50+ Devices

2700 square ft coverage
3000 square ft coverage

Flash: 512MB; RAM: 512MB
Flash: 512MB; RAM: 1GB

2.08 lbs
3.5 lbs

Both are same size
Both have USB 3 for external storage.

So I appreciate the AX4200 is the new 'Flagship' as it's way cheaper. But also isn't quite as specced out as the older one.

I just bought an MX5300 at the weekend for £350 and now its dropped to £250. Just spoke with amazon chat and they're refunding the difference.

I think it's more than only the spec especially on the 5GHz band per this https://dongknows.com/linksys-velop-mx4200-ax4200-mesh-router-review/

 

[Bach2011]

I tested products in my home and Velop won. It's been fine but I'd like WiFi6.

Recommended my Velop to a friend and he's had nothing but frustration, with satellites disconnecting.

Folks recommending other products as "better" should elaborate on why they feel this way.

Agree. I got Eero Pro 6 3 pack but it's not for me as the app is buggy and lack of advanced features. It did not seem to improve the signal for my surveillance cameras. The deal breaker is when I changed to Manual IP to have 192.168.1.x, the switch and all wired devices that hooked up to the router showed up as offline while they were online and I could access if I can guess IP. This is unacceptable and still no solution on their community talk. Sending a small file to print on Qidi 3D printer took almost 10 minutes which surprised me.

I am now testing Orbi RBK853 which could make all my cameras on home dashboard quite stable. However, the Fire stick did not seem to like it (buffering all the time) and I noticed devices switching between router and satellites often. For $9xx I don't think it's worth. I am aware that my condo layout may be a bit too small (1600 + 900 sqft and the router is in the basement) but I had blind spots since it's 3 stories. For mesh system, the location of each piece may be more important. I did not have much problem with Linksys EA9500 v1 but just wanted more coverage.

Plan to get Linksys AX4200 to test along Orbi today. I quite agree on Dong's review https://dongknows.com/linksys-velop-mx4200-ax4200-mesh-router-review/. Also I am not sure about other brands like Asus. I used to have for a while but not so stable like Dong's mentioned on his reviews. So far, Linksys routers seem to be more stable if set correctly.

 

[CBlakeston]

Agree. I got Eero Pro 6 3 pack but it's not for me as the app is buggy and lack of advanced features. It did not seem to improve the signal for my surveillance cameras. The deal breaker is when I changed to Manual IP to have 192.168.1.x, the switch and all wired devices that hooked up to the router showed up as offline while they were online and I could access if I can guess IP. This is unacceptable and still no solution on their community talk. Sending a small file to print on Qidi 3D printer took almost 10 minutes which surprised me.

I am now testing Orbi RBK853 which could make all my cameras on home dashboard quite stable. However, the Fire stick did not seem to like it (buffering all the time) and I noticed devices switching between router and satellites often. For $9xx I don't think it's worth. I am aware that my condo layout may be a bit too small (1600 + 900 sqft and the router is in the basement) but I had blind spots since it's 3 stories. For mesh system, the location of each piece may be more important. I did not have much problem with Linksys EA9500 v1 but just wanted more coverage.

Plan to get Linksys AX4200 to test along Orbi today. I quite agree on Dong's review https://dongknows.com/linksys-velop-mx4200-ax4200-mesh-router-review/. Also I am not sure about other brands like Asus. I used to have for a while but not so stable like Dong's mentioned on his reviews. So far, Linksys routers seem to be more stable if set correctly.

interesting review. That’s a read great. Thanks. Since I set it up and worked out the initial kinks with my ISP its been Rock solid for me. I’ve literally forgotten about it lol.

 

[zubikov]

Had these for a few weeks now and they have been excellent. I'm upgrading from Amplifi HD mesh, which **** the bed when more and more devices joined the network, requiring a weekly system reboot.

The MX12600 has excellent coverage. But more importantly, there's no hint of a slowdown and cheapish 2.4ghz IoT devices work very well under the single mixed band SSID. I can get 600mpbs consistently throughout most of my house. I think Linksys knocked it out of the park with this one, given the price.

My experience with Orbi has been that it fails to keep older IoT devices connected, and it steered my phone to a slower 2.4Ghz band unnecessarily when there was no interference and the router was across the room. So you'd pay for Wifi 6 but keep getting 2.4ghz <100mbps speeds. Orbi's signal did cover a lot of area though, pretty much equal to this Velop system.

 

[rk-apple]

Installed this at my home this week. Install is a bit slow to set up, but does work great. Did a wired backhaul and the system really flys compared the the wired airport routers I had. Nice upgrade and works well with newer Apple WiFi 6 devices such as iPad Pro or iPhone SE. Very pleased. I do recommend Dong Knows Tech for great analysis of this system and competitors.

 

[minik]

I recently upgraded my cable internet to gigabit speed paired with a new modem and 2 MX4200 routers. The routers were on sales at Costco. My previous setup was the last gen Time Capsule and AirPort Express (802.11n), they were okay but the signal strength wasn't good anymore with all the newer WiFi6 devices.

Setting up on the iOS app was okay and I was able to mess around on the web interface afterwards. I wish I can see which channel or speed rating on each connected device, which Apple AirPort Utility would tell you. I can plug in an external USB hard drive and use the Linksys UI to act as Time Machine or NAS but I haven't done it yet.

For the $70 off, better range, and roll your own storage, I am okay with it.

 

[Sperious]

Replaced my AirPort Extreme/ time capsule (AC) with a linksys mx 5300 2 pack. Overall pretty great device. I get full speed on every device. I do miss Bonjour though.

What do you mean by missing Bonjour? Doesn’t the MX5300 work with the Bonjour protocol? Is that why every time I open my Home app all my HomeKit lights take 5 seconds of “Updating...” before they show their status? This usually worked immediately on my old Asus router.

 

[CBlakeston]

What do you mean by missing Bonjour? Doesn’t the MX5300 work with the Bonjour protocol? Is that why every time I open my Home app all my HomeKit lights take 5 seconds of “Updating...” before they show their status? This usually worked immediately on my old Asus router.

Not sure about bonjour but for what it’s worth with my MX5300 and the 4 hue lights in just added they show up instantly.