D-Link’s Eagle AI Pro M32 Mesh 3Pack – no more Wi-Fi dead spots

Ask any citizen of the digital age how important Wi-Fi is to them, and you’ll probably find they rate it right up there with oxygen. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise. With lighting, computing, gaming, security, music, TV, movies and more all reliant on Wi-Fi, anything that improves sketchy Wi-Fi reception has to be a good thing, right?

None of this has been lost on the folks at D-Link. They launched the Eagle Pro AI range of mesh routers a while back, and now they’re back, bigger, stronger, and faster with their Eagle Pro AI M32 mesh setup.

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I’ve written about the wonders of mesh networking in the past, and it really comes down to this: As your home becomes increasingly cluttered with Wi-Fi-connected gadgets, all things Wi-Fi-related can slow down and Wi-Fi can become more of a miss than a hit. Additionally, the Wi-Fi signal from your router can only go so far. This means wireless dead spots are a thing in most homes, making an already bad Wi-Fi situation unbearable.

A mesh system gets around this by spreading the load. As multiple mesh satellite routers combine to beam Wi-Fi throughout your entire home, each satellite has its own onboard processing power. This makes for keeping large numbers of connected doodahs running reliably at a reasonable speed with optimum Wi-Fi coverage.

While mesh networking sounds like a complete no-brainer, running a mesh setup can be fiddly. D-Link’s answer to this is the Eagle Pro AI app (Android/iOS), which keeps tabs on your mesh network and intervenes to keep everything running as smoothly as possible.

The D-Link M32 setup supports both 2.4Ghz (for greater coverage) up to 800Mbps and 5Ghz (which although faster at 2400Mbps, has less range). According to D-Link, an Eagle AI Pro M32 3-pack gives up to 710 square metres of Wi-Fi coverage, which should be ample for most homes.

Under the hood, the M32 can support up to 8 simultaneous data streams. This is double what their smaller M15 mesh models support. Better still, it also supports Wi-Fi 6, so compatible devices get better security and much faster throughput.

Our home is next to a block of flats. This translates into a very crowded Wi-Fi radio spectrum and, in the past, has seen a raft of Wi-Fi interference problems wreaking havoc on our home’s internet connectivity. Thankfully, the M32 intelligently adjusts its Wi-Fi configuration by working out which Wi-Fi channels are free (or less crowded) to offer the most reliable connection.

Additionally, the M32 automatically migrates connected gadgets between Wi-Fi bands, optimising their performance. It also recognises which data streams need more bandwidth, so video meetings and Netflix run smoothly. Add to this the ability to use Alexa or Google Assistant for voice controls and there’s plenty to like.

If you need to extend your mesh coverage, the good news with D-Link’s Eagle Pro AI is that you can easily add an additional mesh satellite. The entire line-up of Eagle Pro AI products can work together. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Usually, even different models of Mesh gear from the same manufacturer refuse to play nice. With D-Link’s Eagle Pro AI gear, this is a non-issue as all Eagle Pro AI gear is compatible, which provides ample future-proofing.

The M32 mesh gear all have two Gigabit LAN Ethernet ports. This means non-Wi-Fi compatible devices can still connect to your home network, even if they’re out of reach of the Ethernet ports on your router. A gigabit Ethernet WAN port also means that each M32 unit can be hard-wired to maximise its performance.

Getting set up was an exercise in both simplicity and frustration. My ISP supplies my landline phone via their bundled router. This meant I had to configure the Eagle Pro gear to connect to my router in bridge mode to avoid network conflicts. While the smartphone app detected the new router, I wasn’t given the option of configuring it in bridge mode. Instead, I had to drop into the web admin console to switch to bridge mode. Although I got there in the end, many other fibre users are in a similar situation and are likely to find this frustrating. Here’s hoping D-Link addresses this in a future update.

If you’re looking for a simple-to-use, super-reliable mesh networking setup that won’t break the bank, D-Link’s Eagle Pro AI M32 is a worthy contender.

www.dlink.com