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Upgrade Your Router!
Looking for a new router? You've come to the right place. Whether you're looking to replace the one that came with your Internet Service, or if you're looking to turn up the power, we'll get you set on the right path. To start, let's look at some great routers to get you started with Play-Fi!
Good:
A wonderful entry point for great networking and Wi-Fi speeds, which Play-Fi is happy to take advantage of. It includes all the great Quality of Service (QoS) features that make media streaming awesome, and it even has ethernet ports capable of 1Gbps, which is 10x faster than the next model down. Plus, it has a great price.
This one should offer all the performance of the EA2700, but with a few more media options for power users. Great if you like doing advanced setups.
Better:
If you are looking to take it a step further from one of your older routers you bought some years ago, here are the ones that give you top-tier performance across 802.11n for enhanced range and speed:
This is a favorite of ours. The range and performance is excellent, partially due to the raw hardware, but the software on the router itself is also very intuitive, especially if you want to have lots of media devices.
The Linksys excels because its price is very favorable, and it focuses on having all the standards for Wi-Fi, which means solid performance with Play-Fi. Software is a little less intuitive, and maybe slightly less user friendly than ASUS, but it is still very easy to access and understand and make changes when you need to, which won’t be often as this will handle most activities automatically not just with your own network devices, but also Play-Fi.
The team at NETGEAR have done a solid job with this router, both in style and performance. The major benefit with this router is that it offers a lot of extra features and settings that the others don't always, and while none of these additions specifically impact Play-Fi, they can be nice to have based on your needs
Best:
Something to also consider is that there are newer 802.11ac models on the market right now that are more expensive, and while our products don’t function over 802.11ac, the respective routers often have more processing power and are designed to handle greater traffic loads and more connections in general. They often also have the latest software and technologies baked in that can benefit users in their daily content consuming lives. It should be noted that AC routers may not fully benefit you if you don’t have anything that can operate over 802.11ac or 5GHz. If this is the case, it’s totally valid to stick with 802.11n routers, as they should just about match the 2.4GHz performance of their 802.11ac brethren.
802.11ac routers we’d recommend are:
This is an excellent router, and one some of our team uses personally. Great range, reliability, and features. And for 802.11ac routers, the price is quite excellent.
Basically the same as the last one, but it has a faster processor, and more intense broadcasting, which increases the range and the bandwidth/throughput of the 2.4GHz range, which basically makes it the most powerful 802.11n 2.4GHz router on the market, in addition to the added benefit of 802.11ac broadcast for future use.
This should have the same theoretical performance as the previous ASUS routers, and was the barometer for 802.11ac routers for a long time. Most users seem to like the software for being fairly accessable. If you've got a Tim Allen urge for more power (and have some money burning a hole in your pocket), you can upgrade this unit to the Tri-Band model, which offers almost double the bandwidth and speeds!
Wrap-Up
And that should be good to get you started off on the path to excellent Wi-Fi streaming! One router is typically good enough to set up, and these should all have good coverage for your home, especially the 802.11ac routers. For some larger homes, we'd recommend setting up additional wireless access points that are bridged over Ethernet from the primary router, so that network coverage continues to be excellent throughout your home. Since Play-Fi operates over standard networking protocols, it can take advantage of this cross communication across different access points, as long as everything is configured from the main DHCP Server (the primary router). Since this is a slightly more advanced setup, this is only necessary if you don’t feel you’re getting the coverage you need.
If you've got a router that you've been loving and have been having a great Play-Fi experience with, let your fellow readers know in the comments!