Amazon Prime Day: Best Wi-Fi and mesh router deals

This story is part of Amazon Prime Day 2021, CNET’s guide on everything you need to know and how to make sure you get the best deal.

Amazon Prime Day technically runs from June 21 through 22, but Amazon’s deals have already begun, and you can now get some good prices from around the web even if they’re not part of much-hyped sales events, including Target’s Deal DaysWalmart’s Deals for Days or Best Buy’s Bigger Deal.

Read more: Best Eero deals of Prime Day 2021: Save $70 on a two-pack with Wi-Fi 6

And it’s never too soon to start shopping for a new router for a decent price. If you’ve been planning to upgrade to a home-wide mesh system, a current-gen Wi-Fi 6 router or a budget-friendly Wi-Fi 5 model, this may be the best time to search for some of the best deals you’ll find before Black Friday.

It’s also a good time to think about upgrading if you and your family members will still be working from home for the near future or if someone in the household has become an avid gamer. The right router quarterbacking your home network can make a huge difference.

I’ve got a list of products I check repeatedly that includes the products on our lists of best Wi-Fi routers, best mesh routers and best gaming routers, because finding a great deal on a great router or mesh system trumps just a great deal. 

You also won’t see any recommendations for little-known brands which tend to be popular on Amazon, because for networking gear, things like stability, privacy policies and good customer support are must-haves that I’ve seen signs of too little of in the products I’ve checked out. A deal isn’t a deal if you’ve chucked the router out the window. You can also find those heavily featured in Amazon’s own lists if you’re interested.

I’ll update these recommendations regularly with all of the best home networking deals we’ve spotted across the web until the last deal dissipates into the ether. 

Router deals available now

TP-Link via Amazon

Though this basic router is about three years old, the Wi-Fi 5 standard it supports is even older, so you wouldn’t be missing anything cutting edge. It’s stood the test of time, and with features like four gigabit LAN connectors, a USB drive port to share content on your network and an app for remote management, it offers the essentials. The $50 price for this can’t be beat, especially if you’re upgrading from an even older Wi-Fi 4 model. It’s occasionally been cheaper over the course of its life, but not so much it’s worth waiting for yet another drop.

Netgear

Like the TP-Link Archer A7, this is a meat-and-potatoes Wi-Fi 5 router, now available at an all-time low of $60; Wi-Fi 5 is a solid choice if none of your devices support the newer Wi-Fi 6 standard. It does have modern conveniences including a phone app to set up and control it, parental controls, remote access and guest accounts.

Netgear

It doesn’t support Wi-Fi 6, but the AC1200 version of the Netgear Orbi is still a solid and dependable mesh router, and it impressed us with surprisingly strong signal strength when we tested it out at the CNET Smart Home. Back then, we called the two-piece version of this system a terrific value at $129, and now it’s back to its Black Friday pricing for the three-piece version with an extra range extender for just $100 ($120, with another $20 coupon applied at checkout).

A three-piece mesh system like this one is the best way to cover a large home with a steady, reliable Wi-Fi connection, and $100 is as low a price as you’ll ever see for a well-reviewed, name-brand option that can cover a lot of ground like this one.

Read our Netgear Orbi AC1200 review.

 

Netgear

$112 isn’t an all-time low price for this entry-level gaming router — that’s closer to $90 — but it’s still lower than it’s been for a while, so you may want to think about grabbing it, if not now, then during another sale season. The Nighthawk AX4 features a dual-core processor and support for 4X4 MU-MIMO connections to aggregate faster speeds to devices with multiple antennas of their own. Amazon’s price keeps wobbling in the range between $115 and $111, so I’ve left Walmart’s $115 deal in place.

TP-Link

If none of your devices are Wi-Fi 6 but you still have a ton of them competing for signals on your Wi-Fi 5 network, a tri-band router, with two 5GHz bands, is the way to go. B&H has this one at an all-time low price of $120.

Chris Monroe/CNET

If you’re looking for a mesh system on the cheap, the latest version of Amazon’s own Eero dual-band mesh Wi-Fi 6 router and extender is a great option. It’s available now at a Prime Day all-time-low sale price of $129. It’s not the fastest mesh router available, but it’s solid and the price can’t be beat.

Read our Eero 6 review.

 

Netgear

This all-around solid Wi-Fi 6 router is designed to cover the territory of a small or medium house (2,000 square feet) with four antennas splitting up to 4.2Gbps of bandwidth. And now Amazon has it for it’s all-time-low price, not seen since last year’s Cyber Monday.

Netgear

This well-loved Wi-Fi 6 mesh system can cover up to 7,500 square feet and handle over 40 devices simultaneously, and you can get started with the router and one satellite for $330, which is an all-time low. 

It’s not as fast as the top-of-the-line Orbi AX6000 we tested (and briefly found a good deal on), but neither is it as expensive — and we consider the AX6000 overkill for a lot of people, anyway.

Netgear

A lot of internet providers will let you skip the monthly equipment rental fee if you use your own router, but some require you to use your own modem, as well. If that’s the case, then you might want to check out Netgear’s deals on a variety of cable modems, including the CM700, seen here. That model supports incoming speeds of up to 500Mbps, but you’ll find other models that support higher and lower speeds if your needs are different. For most homes that don’t have blazing-fast gigabit connections, 500Mbps is more than enough — and at the Prime Day sale of $80, it’ll pay for itself in less than a year, presuming it lets you finally skip that equipment fee.

Expired router deals

Netgear

There’s nothing particularly amazing about this dual-band Wi-Fi 6 router with the ability to cover about 2,500 square feet, but it’s a good choice if you know what you’re doing to tweak it for best performance. And now it’s at an all-time low price of $192.

TP-Link

Technically, you’re only saving about $8 off this already low-priced mesh system, though it was $190 when it launched last year. That may not seem like doesn’t seem like much, but if you want TP-Link’s Deco X20 but don’t need a two-satellite setup, you’re actually saving about $128. The W3600 is just a one-satellite version of the two-satellite Deco X20 that was intended as a Walmart-only offering. So it’s odd that Home Depot has it at a lower price. Speeds are capped at 1,201Mbps on the 5GHz band of this Amazon Alexa-compatible budget mesh, but that’s still significantly faster than the previous-gen Deco P9, which capped things at 867Mbps.

Read 2020 Deco line preview.

 

Ry Crist/CNET

The Asus RT-AX68U Wi-Fi 6 router earned our Editors’ Choice in November, and this is the first time it’s seen any price drops. $20 isn’t that big of a deal, but for a router we declared “The best Wi-Fi 6 router for the money,” just six months ago, it’s just an extra incentive.

It’s fast, it’s full-featured and easy to use, and even without newer Wi-Fi 6E, it feels sufficiently future-proofed with a WAN port that supports incoming speeds as high as 2.5Gbps. 

source: cnet.com