It could be that you might very soon look towards a different class of home networking solutions. Your wireless router, instead of latching onto a wired fibre or cable connection coming all the way from your ISP, would latch onto a wireless receiver placed on top of your house or outside the window. We are talking about Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and India has already started running trials for it. While Wi-Fi 6 routers continue to sell like hotcakes, the demand for consumer devices has slumped since a lot of offices opened up and folks didn’t need to buy new home routers.
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Overall, the demand has dropped by about 30 per cent for consumer home gateways, as per IDC. And this has also been reflected in the number of product launches in the year. Wi-Fi 6 continues to be a premium segment accounting for a massive share of the revenues and Wi-Fi 7 is nowhere to be seen. Moving onto the winners.
Price: ₹9,999
The TP-Link Archer AX72 stands out as an exceptional budget Wi-Fi 6 router, offering a harmonious blend of performance, features, and affordability. The AX72 supports dual-band frequencies, delivering speeds up to 574 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band and an impressive 4804 Mbps on the 5 GHz band. This translates to smoother streaming, gaming, and downloading experiences, even in environments with numerous connected devices.
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It is also one of the few budget routers to have all the optional features of Wi-Fi 6 such as OFDMA and it also has MU-MIMO technology, enabling it to manage multiple data streams simultaneously. This means more devices can be connected without compromising on speed or stability. In our tests, it maintained a steady connection across all three test zones. We saw 300+ Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band with a 2×2 client and more than 830 Mbps on the 5 GHz band with a 2×2 client. The combination of packaging all the Wi-Fi 6 features, user-friendly UI, and robust build quality makes it this year’s Zero1 Award winner.
Runner-Up: ASUS RT-AX1800HP (Buy now)
Price: ₹9,900
The ASUS RT-AX1800HP is a noteworthy entry in the budget Wi-Fi 6 router market, offering a compelling mix of performance and value for users seeking to upgrade their home network. It also impresses with its coverage. It is equipped with four external antennas with beamforming, which focus the Wi-Fi signal towards connected devices, enhancing signal strength and range.
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In terms of performance, the ASUS RT-AX1800HP performed pretty great with a wall between the router and the client but with two walls, we saw a significant drop. Nevertheless, the ASUS RT-AX1800HP is a solid budget-friendly option for those looking to step into the world of Wi-Fi 6.
Price: ₹3,199
The Tenda RX2 Pro emerges as a standout option in the budget Wi-Fi 6 router category, offering tremendous value for money. If you want to jump onto the Wi-Fi 6 bandwagon without breaking the bank, then the Tenda RX2 Pro is the ideal candidate. It might not sport more bandwidth than the top Wi-Fi 5 routers on the 2.4 GHz band but the fact is that more devices can be supported on the 5 GHz band means that you get better quality of connections across all devices. This gives it much more value for money and makes it an easy consideration compared to prevailing Wi-Fi 5 routers.
For more information on Digit Zero1 Award winners across various categories of products, please visit: https://www.digit.in/zero1-awards
