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Wave goodbye to poor network connection.

Struggling to get consistent wifi across your home? Losing connection if you move between certain rooms? Sometimes your house can work against you when trying to connect to the internet and you can be stuck battling buffering while watching Netflix or Disney+. The solution? Invest in one of the best mesh wifi systems to get a more consistent connection.

To get a better, more consistent connection across multiple rooms, mesh wifi uses more than one access point or node (much like your main central router) to extend the range of your wifi, syncing up together to give you multiple "bubbles" of internet around your home. Alongside that, if you’re building a smart home with multiple speakers, smart alarms, plugs, lights, video doorbells, and wifi security cameras, it can be a great way to keep them all connected at the same time.

We've assessed the performance, ease of use and design of the best mesh wifi systems to find those that excel. We look at how intuitive the set-up is, as well as how far the mesh networks can extend wifi coverage in a home compared to a standard router. We also look at the stability of the wifi, whether you can get the same speed in every room in the house, plus compatibility with smart platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit. We test parental controls and other features that allow you to manage your internet connection, as well as taking aesthetics into consideration. The below picks are a combination of hands-on testing from our experts and our rigorous research.

This is the best mesh wifi system that supports wifi 6 from our tests. It made light work of extending a 350Mbps internet service across the whole of a 2,700 square foot property, including the garden. The connection was only 10% slower than the speed quoted by the ISP in all rooms in the house except the one furthest away from either access point.

In the garden, the speed was 50% slower (the ISP's router couldn't even reach this far). It's a sleek-looking device that's simple to set up. However, while there are network management controls, it doesn’t offer any parental controls at present (although Netgear says it plans to add these in the future).

• Number of units: 2 • Square footage covered: 4,000 • Maximum speed: AX4200 • Wifi 6: Yes • Band: Tri-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: 3 on the main unit, 2 on the satellite • Compatible voice assistants: Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant • Dimensions: 23.11 x 18.29 x 7.11 cm • Weight: 1.7kg

After a more affordable mesh wifi system to extend your connectivity? Amazon's Eero 6 is worth investigating at under £100, helping you connect up to 75 devices at once (though we seriously doubt you'll need that many), and get fast, stable internet throughout your home.

It can't cover that much of an area, especially as it's only one additional unit, so this one is best suited to bargain-hunters who might need better coverage in just one or two additional rooms or at the bottom of the garden.

As it's Amazon-made, it's compatible with Alexa voice control, or you can navigate the controls and set parameters like switching off times, or dedicated passwords through the Eero app.

If you’re a Google Assistant user, the Google Nest Wifi is a great mesh wifi network to invest in. The second access point in this two-unit system doubles up as a smart speaker, but with Google Assistant built-in rather than Alexa. You can still ask it to play your favourite tracks, although, with the same sound quality as a Google Nest Mini 2nd generation, it’s certainly not room-filling.

When it comes to extending your wifi network, we found it could improve the reach of our internet connection to the bottom of a 50-foot garden in a 2,700-square-foot property but the speed was less than 10Mbps, so it’s a system that’s better suited to smaller properties.

• Number of units: 2 • Square footage covered: 2,200 • Maximum speed: AC1200 • Wifi 6: No • Band: Dual-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: 2 on the main unit, none on the access point • Compatible voice assistant: Google Assistant • Dimensions: 9 x 20 x 20 cm • Weight: 0.4kg

Read the full Google Nest Wi-Fi review

If you’re not after a system that supports wifi 6, then this is our top pick. It had no problems extending our 350Mbps internet service across the whole 2,700 square foot test house and garden. We found there was less than a 10% drop in speed in all rooms that were in line with the main unit or the satellite, too. However, the speed at the end of the garden and in one room that wasn’t in line with either unit was around 80% slower.

The satellite also doubles up as a smart speaker with built-in Alexa, which sounds clear (although a little lacking bass). Basic parental controls are built-in but for more robust controls, such as being able to stop specific devices accessing the internet at certain times, you will need to subscribe to a monthly service. You’re billed in dollars and it costs $4.99 (£4.06 at time of writing) per month.

If you’re not interested in having Alexa built-in, the Netgear Orbi RBK50 gives you the same great coverage and is more affordable, too.

• Number of units: 2 • Square footage covered: 4,500 • Maximum speed: AC3000 • Wifi 6: No • Band: Tri-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: 3 on the main unit, 4 on the second unit • Compatible voice assistant: Amazon Alexa • Dimensions: 22 x 16.47 x 12.34 cm • Weight: 1.8kg

Read the full Netgear Orbi Voice RBK50V review

If your budget can stretch to it, the Asus XT8 series offers speedy connections, a wealth of control options (including parental settings) and a simple set-up to keep you online. The latest model is pricey at just under £400 for two units, but it combines wifi 6 and tri-band tech to keep you connected, and it has a decent range if your house is quite big.

You can sign up for a lifetime subscription that unlocks a wealth of control options to help secure your network, customise controls for children’s use, and stay on top of how much data you’re using. It can detect when your network is being attacked and will block attempted access to your passwords or to malicious websites.

• Number of units: 2 • Square footage covered: 5,500 • Maximum speed: 4804Mbps • Wifi 6: Yes • Band: Tri-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: 3 • Compatible voice assistant: Amazon Alexa • Dimensions: 16 x 7.55 x 16.1 cm • Weight: 716g

It’s not cheap but, in our eyes, this is the best mesh wifi network you can buy if you have a large home. It supports wifi 6 and in our tests extended a 350Mbps internet service across the whole of a 2,700 square foot property. It even reached the bottom of a 50-foot garden. In fact, it covers the largest area of any mesh wifi system we’ve reviewed.

In terms of speed, we saw less than a 10% drop in all rooms that were in line with the main unit or the satellite, although there was around a 50% decrease in speed in the garden. We found the two-unit system was simple to set up, too.

While it offers basic parental controls for free, more robust controls such as being able to stop specific devices accessing the internet at certain times require a monthly subscription. You’re billed in dollars and it costs $4.99 (£4.06 at time of writing) per month.

• Number of units: 2 • Square footage covered: 6,000 • Maximum speed: AX6000 • Wifi 6: Yes • Band: Tri-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: 4 • Compatible voice assistants: Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant • Dimensions: 25.4 x 19.05 x 7.11 cm • Weight: 1.3kg

Read the full Netgear Orbi RBK852 review

You’ll either love or hate this one’s unusual disc design, but there’s no denying the set-up does a great job of removing wifi dead spots. In all rooms of our test house, we found the three discs provided a strong wifi network with less than a 10% drop in speed; however, it struggled to extend the reach of the wifi to the end of a 50-foot garden.

While it did provide an internet connection, the speed was around 3Mbps on a 350Mbps service, which isn’t enough to do much else other than web browsing.

It comes in packs of two or three access points, but you can add up to three more if you want to extend the system further. We love that the wifi network name and default password are on plastic inserts on the back of each access point, so if you forget your network password or want to connect to a new device quickly, you can.

However, this is the only mesh network we’ve tested that doesn’t let you manage the network when you’re away from the property, which may be a deal-breaker for some.

• Number of units: 3 • Square footage covered: Unconfirmed by BT • Maximum speed: AC2500 • Wifi 6: No • Band: Dual-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: 1 • Compatible voice assistant: None • Dimensions: 7.7 x 16.5 x 16.5 cm • Weight: 0.4kg

Read the full BT Whole Home wi-fi review

If you have a home with particularly thick walls, the TP-Link Deco P9 combines a mesh network with powerline adapters, which use your home’s electrical wiring to transmit the internet signal. In our tests, we found this mesh system (consisting of three units) equalled the performance of our winning mesh network, ensuring there was very little degradation in wifi speed in all rooms.

It wasn’t as successful when it came to extending this strong signal to the end of a 50-foot garden, however. We saw the speed decrease to around 10Mbps here. Tall and not particularly premium-looking, this mesh network won’t win any prizes for style but it does a good job at removing wifi dead spots.

• Number of units: 3 • Square footage covered: 6,000 square feet • Maximum speed: AC1000 • Wifi 6: No • Band: Dual-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: 2 • Compatible voice assistant: Amazon Alexa • Dimensions: 19 x 9.1 x 9.1 cm • Weight: 0.4kg

Read the full TP-Link Deco P9 review

If you want to extend your wifi network over a large area and don’t need a voice assistant, the Linksys Velop is the one for you. In our tests, it equalled the performance of the Netgear Orbi Voice in terms of extending the reach of the wifi. Even better, the three-unit system ensured we had less than a 10% drop in all rooms in the house. However, the garden speed was around half of that achieved by the Netgear Orbi Voice (above).

Set-up is simple and we particularly liked the handy clip on each access point that neatly secures the power cable.

Number of units: 3 Square footage covered: 6,000 Maximum speed: AC2200 Wifi 6: no Band: Tri-band Number of ethernet ports per unit: 2 Compatible voice assistant: Amazon Alexa Dimensions: 18.5 x 7.9 x 7.9 cm Weight: 0.8kg

Read the full Linksys Velop review

This affordable mesh network, which comes with three access points, does a great job at ensuring you have a strong, stable wifi connection throughout your home. In our tests, wifi speed was less than 20% slower than in the room with the router.

The cuboid design may not be to everyone’s tastes but with simple-to-use network management tools that let you pause the internet and prioritise different online activities, which can be adjusted even if you’re not at home, it’s a worthy buy.

• Number of units: Three • Square footage covered: 6,000 • Maximum speed: AC2500 • Wifi 6: No • Band: Dual-band • Number of ethernet ports per unit: Two • Compatible voice assistant: None • Dimensions: 10 x 10 x 10 cm • Weight: 0.4kg

Read the full Tenda Nova MW6 review

Pop these little devices around important rooms (like your study, living room, or an upstairs bedroom) and then connect to them when you're in or near that room to gain access to the internet, even if you're quite far away from your main router. These systems are great if you’ve got bigger, older homes with multiple floors or rooms with unusual layouts that make it difficult for multiple people to log on at once or for certain areas of the building to get a signal. They are particularly useful for those working from home more frequently or if you’ve got teenagers gaming or streaming after school and gobbling up the bandwidth, as they can help you stay online with less frequent dropouts.

It’s worth noting that you won’t actually get faster speeds on your internet. Mesh wifi simply extends the range of your internet, so if you’ve been quoted as getting a particular speed from your internet service provider (ISP) – say 30MBps – you’ll still get that same speed, but it will just be better distributed around your home.

You might have also heard of wifi range extenders (also known as wifi repeaters) which plug into a power socket and extend the distance your main router can offer internet. However, to get a solid connection, the extender needs to be reasonably close and within line of sight of the central router, which doesn’t help you if you need internet in specific rooms. The other problem is that they don’t actually use the same network as your router, so you might have to continually reconnect to two or more wifi networks if you move from one room to another with a smartphone or tablet. If you live in a large home across two or more levels, have an unusual layout and/or internal concrete walls, or you want to get wifi at the bottom of the garden, a mesh wifi network is your best option.

Area: A mesh wifi system should cover an area of at least 2,000 square feet but some cover more. You’ll need to figure out how much space you’ll need to be covered including any outdoor areas you want to connect in like balconies or gardens.

Number of access points: You can get anywhere between one and three nodes for most models. How many you need will depend on where in your home your wifi hub is situated.If your hub is at the front of your house on the ground floor and you want to extend the wifi out to a garden or to one or two surrounding rooms, you’ll need a system with two units. But if you want to strengthen the wifi signal in a room (or rooms) on the first floor or higher then you’ll need three units.

Dual or tri-band: Modern routers broadcast wifi networks on two different bands: 2.4GHz, which is good for long distances but can be slower, and 5GHz, which offers faster speeds but only covers shorter distances. All mesh wifi networks come with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz (called dual-band), but some have two 5GHz bands as well as a 2.4GHz band (known as tri-band).This means the access points can exchange information about the wifi network between each other using one band, freeing up the other two to keep your internet consistent.

Parental controls and network management tools: Most mesh wifi systems have tools to manage the network built into smartphone apps so you can adjust the settings. This includes parental controls that let you pause the internet - ideal if you don’t want family time to be interrupted by phones - and set up guest networks so you don’t have to give visitors your main password.

Speed: The maximum speed the best mesh wifi systems can achieve currently ranges between 1,000Mbps and 3,000Mbps. This is a theoretical speed and is shared across all of the devices connected to the network at the same time. For most of us, the maximum speed offered on your line won’t reach anywhere close to this – probably somewhere between 15-60Mbps, but a higher total speed device is better for faster speeds overall.

Wifi 6 support: Wifi 6 is a new standard of internet connection that uses different technology to ensure it’s as fast and efficient as possible. Only new devices support this standard (other devices use wifi 5) but if you’re looking to future-proof your wifi network and plan to upgrade your laptops and smartphones soon, it may be worth getting a mesh wifi system that supports wifi 6.

Voice integration: The majority of mesh wifi networks work with Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa and allow you to turn on guest networks or pause the internet simply by asking your smart speaker. Some mesh systems have the voice assistant built into their access points too, so you don’t need a separate smart speaker. Make sure you choose a mesh network that’s compatible with the current voice assistant you use.