Google Nest Wifi Pro

If you have or are considering starting a smart home, the Nest Wifi Pro is one of the first three-in-one devices — Matter controller, Wi-Fi router, Thread border router — on the market. There will likely be more, and the Eero line is being upgraded to Matter next year. Going forward, it’s likely that Thread and Matter will be built into every Wi-Fi access point. But the Nest Wifi Pro will be a good fit today if you’re looking to future-proof your smart home, don’t anticipate access to multi-gig speeds, and want to avoid the dead spider aesthetic.

The Google Nest Wifi Pro is a slick-looking, well-priced package, but there are some serious teething problems. Poor speeds combined the relative scarcity of Wi-Fi 6E client devices right now means you may want to hold off until firmware updates improve performance – or buy a different system entirely.

Nest Wifi Pro brings Google’s Wi-Fi solution up to date with a snappy tri-band AXE5400 connection with a 6GHz band for devices and the backhaul. Performance was generally strong compared to similar mesh kits but the lack of advanced settings and Google’s requirement to use Nest Cloud Services to see which devices are using your Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi 6E devices also rarely connect to Wi-Fi 6E or use 160MHz connections with Nest Wifi Pro.

Late to the Wi-Fi 6E game, the new Google Nest Wifi Pro has nothing to add and leaves much to be desired. The “Pro” notion is laughable, if not ludicrous.

The Nest Wifi Pro doesn’t win many points for versatility or user-friendliness either: even though the feature set is quite sparse, the app manages to make things confusing. On paper, a three-node Wi-Fi 6E mesh for $399 looks like a great deal, but you’ll do better to spend your money almost anywhere else.

Nest Wifi Pro doesn't offer game-changing Wi-Fi speeds or truly unique features -- but it is a consistent and reliable mesh Wi-Fi system that brings the benefits of the 6GHz band to your home network. Those benefits aren't going to be that meaningful in a lot of homes at this point, so Wi-Fi 6E isn't a must-have feature -- but with the number of Wi-Fi 6E devices expected to rise steadily in the coming year, it's still a nice-to-have feature.

The Google Nest WiFi Pro may not be the best-looking router out there, but with WiFi 6E and a range of smart features, it’s a seriously compelling option.