What router should i buy for my home

Sign in or Become a Member. Connect With the Best Wireless Router We test, evaluate, and compare the latest wireless routers for WiFi signal strength and connectivity features.

What Is a Router? More on Wireless Routers. Types of Wireless Routers There are two types of wireless routers in our ratings: traditional single-unit wireless routers and a newer type of router called a mesh router. Important Considerations WiFi Standards As of early the tech world is starting to transition away from the WiFi standard known as WiFi 5 toward WiFi 6, which is faster and boasts better support for more devices connected at the same time.

Wireless Router Ratings by Consumer Reports. Wireless Router Ratings. When you shop through retailer links on our site, we may earn affiliate commissions.

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If you purchase something through our links, we may earn a commission. Pricing and availability are accurate as of publish time. As smart home products become more accessible and innovative, your Wi-Fi network becomes more crucial — this is especially so during a pandemic that's forced many people around the planet to work from home if they could and if they still can , overburdening home networks that once sat mostly dormant in daytime.

If you want your Zoom calls, photos, videos, games and everything else you share or view online — whether on your laptop , tablet , TV or smartphone — to load fast and to load reliably, you want a strong Wi-Fi router at home.

However, not all Wi-Fi routers are born equal. Once upon a time, computers needed to be wired up to one another in order to communicate. In Wi-Fi launched as a way for computers to wirelessly connect to one another and the internet. Through your internet service provider typically referred to as your ISP , a cable or DSL line finds its way into your home and connects to a modem — a small device that decodes the incoming internet signal into something your computer and other devices can read.

When you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Ry Crist. Jump to details. Best mesh router Nest Wifi. Best mesh value Netgear Orbi dual-band, AC Best mesh performance Netgear Orbi 6 triband, AX Read more: Best internet providers for Best Wi-Fi 6 router. Best Wi-Fi 6 router on a budget. Best mesh router. Nest Wifi. Best mesh value.

Netgear Orbi dual-band, AC Best mesh performance. Netgear Orbi 6 triband, AX Best Wi-Fi 6 mesh router. Best gaming router. What does a Wi-Fi router do? How much should I spend on a router? How do I set up a Wi-Fi router? Stay in the know. Discuss: The best Wi-Fi routers of To make matters worse, those top speeds on the box are actually theoretical maximums derived from lab-based manufacturer tests that don't take real-world factors like distance, physical obstructions or network congestion into account.

Even at close range, your actual connection will be a lot slower. None of that stops manufacturers from using those speed ratings to describe how fast their products are. For instance, that hypothetical AX router might claim to support speeds of up to 6, megabits per second -- which is nonsense. A router is only as fast as its fastest band. Don't be fooled. Keep in mind that it doesn't matter how fast your router is -- if you're pulling data from the cloud, then you'll only be able to do so as fast as the plan from your internet service provider allows.

If you're paying for download speeds of, say, Mbps, then that's as fast as your router will go when you're browsing the web or streaming video. That's a significant limitation these days.

In our own top speed tests, we're seeing a growing number of routers that can comfortably hit speeds of 1 gigabit per second or faster -- but with the average fixed broadband speed in the US currently sitting at just over Mbps or less, if your ISP throttles your connection , few of us can hope to surf the web as fast as that anytime soon. That isn't to say that fast routers aren't worthwhile. For instance, you'll still be able to hit those top speeds during local transfers -- when you're using the router to pull files from one computer to another on your local network.

Your ISP speeds don't matter at all for transfers like that, because you're not sending or receiving data beyond your local home network. Beyond that, upgrading to a faster, more powerful router can help you get the most out of your home's internet connection, especially when you're connecting at range.

To that end, be sure to keep an eye on our latest reviews as you shop around to get a good sense of the specific routers that might be the best fit for your home. We're constantly testing new models and updating our best lists with new test data. New routers that support Wi-Fi 6 like the Ubiquiti AmpliFi Alien are available now -- but for most, it isn't a priority upgrade just yet. Wi-Fi 6 is the newest, fastest version of Wi-Fi, and it's the main reason we're starting to see so many new routers capable of hitting gigabit speeds with ease.

You can read more about the way the speedy new standard works in my full Wi-Fi 6 explainer , but the quick gist is that it lets your router send more information more efficiently to multiple devices at once. There are all sorts of new routers available this year that support Wi-Fi 6, including ones that cost a lot less than you'd expect -- but there are still relatively few Wi-Fi 6 client devices outside of early flagships like the iPhone 11 or iPhone SE and the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Fold.