I have been an IT Systems Engineer for over 14 years and have dealt with technology for quite some time longer, particularly in the areas of networking and gadget. I am going to write this review as non-technical as possible, then dive deeper into the more technical aspects later.Like many of you, you probably considered buying something like this Linksys Velop (or Eero Pro, Google WiFi, Orb, etc) because you have dead spots in your house where WiFi signal is either weak or non-existent. I have had that problem at my house where my outdoor security cameras would often freeze due to loss of signal, requiring a manual reboot every other week, and most importantly: I did NOT get enough WiFi in my bathroom to read my news! Nearly every man here reading this probably agrees that this is IMPORTANT!PREVIOUS SOLUTIONSSo, I tried improving coverage by setting up an additional WiFi router on the other side of the house, but that would require us to manually switch to the appropriate WiFi name (SSID) that gives us the best signal wherever we are. This worked well for years, but for some reason I had to often reboot my router/modem from time to time when the internet connection broke. I had also tried a WiFi Extender, but that only worked well for a month or so before I gave up on it entirely. Next, I bought one of the "Editor's Choice" Asus routers -- it was quite expensive, but it was very powerful. It has advanced firewall/protection capabilities, parental controls, antivirus filtering, and what not. It really has a LOT of advanced options that I was looking for. But, it still could not cover the whole house.WHAT'S A MESH WIFI?In comes the Mesh WiFi system that popped up in recent years. The enterprise/business world has had this technology in use for a very long time that allowed employees to roam between floors and buildings seamlessly. However, they were quite expensive. Eero was the first company I heard of that tried to bring this technology to the average consumer in a friendly, easy-to-use way. What is a Mesh WiFi system? First, a mesh network requires 2 or more devices to talk to one another. These devices are in constant communication with one another, relaying information from one to the other and vice versa. You can add more devices to that system, and each one of them can pass information to the nearest device.So, what does that mean? Imagine you're standing in your living room and you are trying to tell your children upstairs to come down for dinner -- no matter how loud you shout, they can't hear you. (That's a dead WiFi spot -- the signal can't reach them or it's too low to be heard.) Now, what if you could have your husband (or wife) be standing at the stairs? Now you tell your husband to tell the kids that dinner is ready. The husband tells the kids to come down. The kids tell your husband that they heard it and are coming. Your husband now tells you that the kids are joining soon. That's a mesh... kind of. Let's take this example further.You're in a big park. You are trying to tell your children to come join for the birthday cake cutting, but no matter how hard you shout, they can't hear you. So, you ask every parent near you if they can tell the other parents that you're looking for your children. From parent to parent to parent, your word travels until it reaches the children. They have received your message and are now telling parents nearest them that they are coming, and those parents now pass the message on to their nearest parent until it reaches you. That's a mesh network. It's a spiderweb where the WiFi signal travels freely from neighbor to neighbor to the farthest reach of your house. Each parent in the spiderweb is represented by one of these Linksys nodes. The more you have, the larger area it can cover. In my home of 4 bedrooms and 2 stories, I have 3 nodes set up -- one in the family room, one near my stairs, and another upstairs. I now have a strong WiFi signal throughout my entire house AND I can stream videos and read my news perfectly well in my bathroom! Miracles do exist!A Mesh network also is designed to provide you with just a single WiFi name (SSID) so you don't have to keep switching between different WiFi as you travel through the house. All the major mesh systems also promise automated updates/upgrades of your system to add functionality and reliability.EERO PRO or LINKSYS VELOP?I started my research by reading reviews on Google WiFi, Orbi, Linksys Velop, and the Eero Pro. I had certain criteria in mind:1. Great performance2. Great reliability3. Advanced configuration settings (DHCP, DNS, Separate SSIDs - more on that later, Guest WiFi network, parental controls, Firewall/Port forwarding)4. Price5. Ease of use and at-a-glance monitoring (via an Android/iOS Apple app)After reading a lot of reviews, it ultimately came down to the Linksys Velop and the Eero Pro. Eero was praised for its performance and ease-of-use, and Velop was regarded as the best bang for your buck. I chose the Eero Pro. Then I ran into issues with my Yi/Kuna security cameras AND my Honeywell thermostat would not connect to the Eero. This issue is due to the compatibility issues between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio frequencies, but I'll write more about those technical details later. I ended up returning the Eero Pro.I now have the Linksys Velop (3 nodes), and it resolved the issues I had with the Eero Pro after doing some advanced configuration. To summarize in layman's terms, both the Eero Pro and Linksys Velop are designed to be simple to use and set up. They both are here to help you strengthen your WiFi signal throughout your whole house and beyond. However, compatibility issues with the Eero Pro made me decide to keep the Velop instead.WHY VELOP OVER EERO?To understand why I chose the Velop, I have to dive into the technical details. WiFi today operates on 2 major radio frequencies: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The 2.4 GHz gives you the largest coverage in terms of distance AND gives you the best compatibility because it's an older standard. The 5 GHz gives you the best WiFi speed BUT at the expense of distance -- your WiFi signal gets weaker faster than 2.4 GHz. Most newer devices, especially computers, phones, and tablets support the 5 GHz standard just fine.Both the Eero and the Velop combine the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios into a single WiFi name (SSID) to simplify things for the user -- to allow you to move around the house freely without having to worry about which node you are connected to. The mesh system would automatically choose the best node for you to connect to at either the 2.4 or 5 GHz frequencies. At least that's in theory. None of the systems will choose the "best" (closest) node at this time, but that will surely improve over time as the manufacturer fleshes out the calculations/programming to give you the most optimized connection.So, with both radio frequencies now presented to WiFi devices via a single SSID, it is now up to the device to choose the appropriate radio frequency to connect to. With laptops, phones, and tablets, that is not a problem. Where the problem lies is with devices designed to ONLY work with the 2.4 GHz frequency, such as my Yi and Kuna security cameras and the Honeywell thermostat.The Yi and Kuna cameras both had difficulty staying reliably connected to the Eero Pro, and the Honeywell thermostat flat out refused to connect at all. A search on the internet revealed that many others had the same problem. One workaround would be to separate the SSID into two: one for the 2.4 and another for the 5 GHz bands, such as "HomeWifi" and "HomeWifi-5G" where the latter indicates it's the 5 GHz frequency. Then you would assign the problem device to connect to the "HomeWifi" SSID (running the 2.4 GHz frequency), and the rest of the house could run on the "HomeWifi-5G" for the best speeds.The Linksys Velop allows you to set up separate SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5 GHz via a hidden method that I will detail later. The Linksys Velop app does not provide that option. Once I separated my networks into two SSIDs, all the compatibility issues I had with the Honeywell thermostat went away (as I forced it to connect to the 2.4 GHz SSID). The Eero system does NOT allow you to separate the SSID -- in fact, their customer support forum questions why there's a need for it, cites that the Eero is not designed for it, and said to buy another system if you want to have separate SSIDs. That is exactly why I decided to go with the Velop. It works exactly how I want.ISSUES- Once in a while, I see one of my nodes show as being Disconnected. I then go to the Devices view to see if there are any devices connected to that specific node (and there are), and when I go back to Velop Administration, that node shows as Connected again. It's an odd behavior.- When I connect a network cable to the remote Velop nodes (not the parent one), that node stops working until I disconnect the cable. I have absolutely no idea why. The way my network is set up is as follows:Internet <-> Modem <-> Asus Router with Wifi disabled <-> Velop 1 (Parent in Router mode + DHCP server) <-> Netgear ProSafe GSS108E 8-port switch <-> Netgear ProSafe GSS116E 16-port switch <-> Wired devices that are throughout the house.If I connect the remote Velops to any of the Netgear switches, that Velop no longer works and blinks a red light until the cable is disconnected. I haven't engaged Linksys tech support for it yet. [EDIT 8/4/2018: I have been in touch with Support to diagnose this issue. It is being escalated all the way up to their Engineering team. Support has also been very proactive in reaching out to me. This assures me I have made the right decision to go with Linksys. UPDATE 10/10/18: Escalation support has determined that my Netgear switches are Managed ones. As such, I'd have to disable Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and, if possible, enable LLDP on the Netgears. Velop may work without LLDP, but Linksys can't guarantee that. I have not yet found out how to disable STP/enable LLDP on the Netgears, and so the Wired option won't be available to me with the Velops at this time. Support has found that turning off STP and enabling LLDP with switches they had tested, including their own Linksys ones, would fix the issue with Velop.]VELOP TIPS- Each Velop node supposedly can cover up to 2,000 sq ft. Of course, the further out you are from the node, the weaker the signal. The closer the Velop nodes are to one another, the stronger it is able to amplify the signal to the other nodes throughout the house. So, if you have a two-story house with 4+ bedrooms, Linksys suggests having 3 nodes: one for downstairs, upstairs, and another somewhere in-between. Place it like a Zig-zag pattern (Z) or a sideways V (>)- I set up a Guest WiFi network to put all my smart home devices on (Yi and Kuna security cameras and electrical outlets). What is a Guest WiFi? It's a separate network that's isolated from your main one to prevent unauthorized access to your home/main network. That way, if the security cameras get hacked, the hackers won't easily be able to enter my main network where all my laptops, computers, and so on are connected to.- The Guest network cannot have its 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands separate into two SSIDs. There's a single SSID for both. Oddly, the Yi, Kuna, and Honeywell devices are able to connect to this Guest network fine (whereas the Honeywell completely failed to connect with the Eero)- Advanced: To create a separate SSID, you will have to use a computer browser (like Internet Explorer or Google Chrome) (or request the "Desktop site" option on your mobile browser) and go to https (colon slash slash) 192 (dot) 168 (dot) 1.1 (the IP address of the parent node -- you can find it in the Velop app under "Velop Administration". I can't post the link since Amazon blocks it). From there, go to Router Settings > Wifi Settings > "Separate Wifi Settings" > "Show more". Provide a name for the 2.4 GHz and another for the 5 GHz (such as "HomeWifi" and "HomeWifi-5G"). You will be warned about setting up different Wifi names. Click on "Use different names". The Velop will restart, and you will now have two SSIDs- In the Advanced configuration specified above, you can also modify the DHCP and Firewall settings- Diagnostic page: you can enter that section via your web browser by going to http (colon slash slash) ip address of the node (slash) ca- Systems Logs page: you can enter that section via your web browser by going to http (colon slash slash) ip address of the node (slash) sysinfo (dot) cgi. Username is "admin"I am very happy with the performance, advanced configuration option, and price of the Velop and recommend this system a lot. Coverage is so strong, I'm able to walk 3 homes away and still have signal (although a very weak one). It has also been very reliable and hasn't needed a reboot.Hope you found this Helpful!