WEBVTT

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It is finally time for Wi-Fi 7, but

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probably not for the reasons that you'd think. See, TP-Link sponsored this video

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to show off their Deco BE67 3-pack, and

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one of the headline features, like any Wi-Fi 7 setup, IS OF COURSE THE BLAZING

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FAST WI-FI speeds of up to 14 gigabit

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per second thanks to multi-link operation.

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But, I offer an alternative reason to go

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Wi-Fi 7, and that is

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nowhere on the front of the box, not on the top.

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No. No, no, no.

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Ah, there it is. I have to go all the way to the side of the box to find it.

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Support for up to 6 GHz Wi-Fi. And look

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at that, and up to 320 MHz channel widths. Although, that has

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the same issue as a lot of the conversation around multi-link

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operation, in that a lot of clients, especially things like

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iPhones, don't necessarily support it. But, what they do support is 6 GHz, and

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as we actually showed recently over in a video on LTT, moving to 6 GHz can be a

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huge benefit to both the speed, and especially the latency of your network.

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And, it is now getting to the point where it is quite broadly supported.

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Even the MacBook Neo, Apple's new $600

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laptop that I've been daily driving lately, and not going to lie,

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absolutely loving, has support for 6 GHz, and offers huge real-world

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benefits, especially in congested environments like apartment buildings or

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campuses. Let's come back to the BE67 3-pack,

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though. This is not designed to run a campus, but TP-Link says it should be

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good for up to an 8,100 square foot house.

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Um, yeah, I'd say if you have a house that big, then the $700 cost of this

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3-pack should be no big deal for you. And, it's got a lot of great features to

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justify that price. It has three Ethernet ports on board, a 1 gigabit per

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second port, a 2 and 1/2 gigabit per second port, and a 10 gigabit per second

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port. This gives you options in terms of how you want to deploy it. Say for

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example, I had a home server. I might plug that into the 2 and 1/2 gigabit per

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second port, then [music] I might grab a 10 gigabit per second uplink switch, and

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then run this port out to that to connect all of my client devices. Or if

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I had super fast internet, I might plug that into a high-speed uplink, and then

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use the 10 gigabit per second port to run a backhaul connection to one of my

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other base stations. I could do that wirelessly, but a wire is never a bad

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idea, even when I'm doing a sponsored video for a Wi-Fi solution. It's wired

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where you can, and Wi-Fi where you can't in my [music] life.

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Wi-Fi, you can't live with it, can't live without it.

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Wi-Fi, not wife. Wife.

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You gone? We're good. Uh let's have a look at what we've got in terms of accessories here.

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Power.

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Power. And just to mix it up,

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an Ethernet cable. And power.

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Hey, that's fun. In a world where hardware reset buttons seem to be going

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away, TP-Link includes a little poker for it.

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>> [music] >> You love to see it. Boop. Oh, I missed something before.

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It's got a USB 3 type A port. Paint your home in Wi-Fi.

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>> [snorts] >> This is actually a really important point. I like that TP-Link points out

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what size of square footage these kits

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are designed to cover, and [music] you really do need to take their word

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for it. If you have a, you know, 2,000 square foot house, just get one.

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Don't buy three kits, unless your walls are made of lead or something like that,

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because more Wi-Fi is not necessarily better, and more Wi-Fi is a huge part of

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why we've ended up in the awful mess that we're in today around 2.4 and even

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to a degree 5 GHz. So, if we just

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judiciously apply our 6 GHz Wi-Fi, hopefully we won't need to keep

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frequency creeping. Looking for Deco.

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Okay, blue light. Oh, look, there it is. It's found. It's solid blue. Yes.

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Fine, I'm fine, everything's fine. I got it. I got it.

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Okay, I'm going to put I'm going to put this one here so you guys can see what's going on.

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Set up a Deco. Connect with an Ethernet cable. Don't mind if I do.

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Where do you place this Deco? >> [music] >> ShortCircuit. This app-based setup

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process has gotten better. Got to give TP-Link credit for that.

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That was uh That was very painless. Oh, placement

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guide. Okay, single floor, do it like this.

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Two floors, do it like that. Three floors, do it like that. That's

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some >> [music] >> good simple advice. So, you don't want

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them right above each other. They do a really good job of covering that off.

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And you want to spread them out across your various floors as much as you can.

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Place out in the open. Away from large appliances.

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Love it. Okay, uh BRB.

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We're going on an adventure. 8,000 sq ft they say.

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There we go. All right, fine.

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Nope, not there. This is near a large appliance as well. >> That's just near a large appliance.

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Um okay.

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There.

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All right, while we wait for that to boot up downstairs, we can take a look at some of the other features of the

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app. TP-Link has a lot of smart home devices, so you can add those here. They

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also have their security platform as well as parental controls. Oh, app

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management. That's actually pretty useful. It is a subscription service,

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but trying to keep track of whatever the heck it is that your teenagers are up to

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is uh It's up to you whether that's worth it

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or not. The parental controls also include things like time control as well

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as analytics. Ah, and you can set up different profiles by age.

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>> [music] >> Very nice. I should also probably their home shield

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subscription. This includes [music] the parental stuff as well as their security

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plus, which is to help with network security, derp, [music] and whole home

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VPN. That could be a cool feature. Instead of installing it on your phone,

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your computer, your wife's computer, you can just install it on your router, and

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then it applies across your whole network. Although, it is worth noting that depending on your VPN, [music]

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sometimes there can be inconveniences in

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general browsing, so your mileage may vary. That out of the way, as much as I

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said before that it's not the most important feature of Wi-Fi 7,

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it can be pretty fast depending on your client. Theoretically, my phone supports

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MLO, at least some form of it. The upload is fast. Good gravy.

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Oh, I wonder if that's just people using our connection right now. [music] Our

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uplink tends to not be as saturated. Not really as high as I was expecting.

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Let me go into our settings here. Well, hello there. Enable MLO.

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That couldn't hurt. Oh, they want to create a separate SSID for

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that just in case you have legacy clients that get derped up by it. We

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peaked at over a gigabit, but it's slowing down now.

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And it's going back up again.

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Can we get over 1 gigabit? Yeah, we can.

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Again, I can't emphasize enough that over 2 gigabit per second on the upload.

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Can't emphasize enough that you're not doing anything on your phone that needs

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these kinds of speeds. The latency is probably going to matter more for most

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of the things that you would download on a phone, but it also, you know,

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doesn't hurt. Now is probably as good a time as any to

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maybe I don't know. How do we want to test the roaming between the different

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>> [music] >> base stations? They apparently have AI assistance, whatever that means.

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So, why don't we Why don't we go between them? I mean, I could just jump on a

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Teams call. I'm going to call Sven. Okay.

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Okay. Sven, you can come sit here, and then we'll grab the iPhone.

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Goodbye. I ShortCircuit. >> All right. Well, he's back on set. I'm

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going to do everything in my power to not be connected to that access point

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and see if we can save this call. Hey, Sven, how you doing? I can still hear you, chopped up a little bit, but sounds

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better now. Oh, interesting. I wonder if I transitioned over already. I think you

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did, yeah. I think as soon as it chopped it, you transitioned. [music] I'm on 1180. Yeah, this one's still

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green. Nice. Is that a new one?

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That's I believe this one. Yep. Nice.

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>> Huh. Okay. Oh, yeah. Going to go >> if I go on to another one here.

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I'm just, you know, >> still talking. Yeah.

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Still good. >> Yeah, no. Yeah. No chop. I got my other one here.

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Man, I think this one's still going to be in Oh, man, this is still in range of

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the one downstairs. That's tough. But, if I like go behind things that kind of block

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Wi-Fi a bit, um Yeah, no. You haven't chopped at all

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throughout this. It's kind of amazing. Pretty good. Oh, no, I'm on F99E now.

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Okay. So, I should be on this one right here. Bam.

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And there we go. Roaming between hotspots has

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gotten better. It is worth noting that some of this AP

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switching behavior can be impacted by your device itself, but that was a I

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mean, I don't know what more of a demo you can possibly do to show that. That

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was a pretty seamless experience and they did a good job of handing off

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rather than being too sticky and staying on a really far away access point um

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when it would be more optimal to be on a closer one. Very cool. On the subject of having

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older devices on your Wi-Fi network, it is worth noting that TP-Link has done a

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pretty good job of maintaining cross-generational compatibility for

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their Deco models. So, if you wanted to add, you know, one more device to your

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kit for instance, then picking one up on Facebook Marketplace might not be a

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terrible idea as you build out your network. And that's it. Subscribe to Short

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Circuit. Thanks TP-Link again for sponsoring this video.