Shopping for a Router Sucks. Here’s What You Need to Know

Having a fast and stable WiFi network is vitally important, especially if you work from home a few days per week. Add in the fact that so much of our entertainment comes over the internet, and that it’s how we do our banking and stay in touch with family and friends, and there’s no doubt that access to a reliable WiFi signal is a modern necessity.

All of which is to say that you need a wireless router that both works well for your home and fits your budget.

But what makes a good router, and how do you know which model is right for you? Results from Consumer Reports’ testing can help you answer those questions.

What Is a Router?

A wireless router is a device that creates a WiFi network using the internet connection provided by your internet service provider, or ISP.

Devices like laptops, smart speakers, TVs, smartphones, video game consoles, and tablets thenwirelessly connect to this WiFi network to get online.

Your ISP may provide you with a modem, a router, or both, usually for a monthly rental fee. Some ISPs even combine those devices into one, generally called a gateway.

But you can also buy your own router, saving monthly rental fees, and possibly getting a big boost in performance and capability.

There are a few reasons you might want to shop for a new router. A router that is old or outdated might not provide a strong enough WiFi signal to handle all your devices, especially if you have a house filled with adults and children trying to stream 4K video and play online games at the same time. 

Perhaps you’ve recently moved to a new house and find that the wireless router from your old place can’t adequately bathe the new space in WiFi. 

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.

You’re probably familiar with the first type, which you simply plug into your modem to create a home WiFi network. Depending on several factors, including the size of your home and the building materials used, a single-unit wireless router may or may not be sufficient to spread WiFi into every nook and cranny.

That’s where mesh routers come in. These are composed of multiple units, usually sold in packs of two or three, that you place strategically around your home, where you need a good internet connection the most. One unit connects directly to your modem, then communicates wirelessly with the other units, creating a large “mesh” network to spread WiFi around your home more effectively.

The nomenclature can vary by manufacturer, but the unit that plugs into your modem is usually called the base station while the other units are referred to as beacons or satellites.

Regardless of which router type you choose, getting a good WiFi connection can be as much art as it is science. Building materials like drywall and plaster can interfere with your router’s performance; even uninsulated doors and floors can cause signal degradation, as can the water in a fish tank. But some of the biggest offenders are aluminum studs (found in office buildings and some modern apartments), insulated walls and floors, glass, and solid brick and stone. The more floors, walls, and windows in the way, the worse for the signal.

For more info, see our tips on how to get a stronger WiFi signal throughout your home.

Router Standards and Security

WiFi Standards
Routers that support the latest WiFi standard—WiFi 6—first appeared on store shelves in late 2019. Compared with WiFi 5, which dates back to 2014, WiFi 6 is faster and boasts better support for the growing number of connected devices now found in today’s homes.

You may sometimes see WiFi 6 referred to by its technical term, 802.11ax (including in our ratings).

WiFi 6 is backward-compatible, so a tablet, a laptop, or any other device made before the year 2019 won’t have trouble connecting to a WiFi 6 router. But those devices will not get the full benefits of WiFi 6.

WiFi 6E is part of the WiFi 6 standard that can tap into more spectrum (“room,” basically), thereby improving the performance of compatible wireless devices. WiFi 6E debuted in 2021 and now is supported by many, though not all, wireless routers.

WiFi 7 hasn’t been officially certified by the body that standardizes WiFi technology, but it began to appear in devices in mid-2023. We expect to see even more WiFi 7 devices in 2024. You don’t need to buy a WiFi 7 router to stay current.

Booster Club
Internet service providers typically offer several tiers of service, and you can upgrade your service if you find yourself needing more speed for apps like video calls or gaming. A connection speed of around 200 megabits per second should be able to handle a family’s worth of these sorts of tasks.

Frequent Houseguests or Airbnb Visitors?
If so, use the guest network, which is available with all the routers in our ratings. It’s a second network that provides online access without you having to give guests your regular security password, which would give them access to your primary network.

Keeping Your Router Secure
You should secure your router with a password with the latest available encryption standard, which is probably WPA2 or WPA3, depending on the age of your router. You’ll normally need to enter the password just once into each wireless device you use; afterward, the device will remember it. (CR has detailed tips on router security.)

Features to Consider

LAN Ports
LAN (local area network) ports are used to connect a computer to the router using an Ethernet cable. Many internet-connected smart home devices, such as Philips Hue and Samsung SmartThings products, require a LAN port-connected hub to function. If you need more LAN ports than the router has, you can expand the number available by adding an Ethernet switch, which is sort of like a power strip that adds open Ethernet ports.

USB Ports
USB ports on a router are used for connecting to a flash drive, an external hard drive, or a USB printer if the router has a built-in print server.

Quality of Service (QoS)
This is also called media prioritization or traffic control. If you’re the type who likes to play with your computer settings, you might appreciate the flexibility this feature offers. It lets you optimize the router’s performance depending on what you’re doing at a given time. For example, you can change the settings to work best for streaming videos, making Zoom calls, playing games, or streaming music. It will give those applications priority when it comes to the bandwidth—so, for example, your Netflix movie doesn’t pause and rebuffer because someone in your house is downloading a large file.

App-Based Management
Accompanying almost every new router is an app meant to simplify the tasks of setting up and making adjustments to your WiFi network. The apps make it easier than before to monitor which devices are connected to your network and choose which devices get priority. Your router’s app can also alert you when an update is available for your router.