Linksys MR9600 Mesh Router Review

Linksys MR9600 Mesh Router Review

Buy it at Amazon: Linksys MR9600 Mesh Router [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Faster speed, simple setup, broad coverage.

Thank you to Best Buy for sending me this product for free to review. You’ll receive the MR9600 router, a power adapter, and Ethernet cable. The unit measures 11” wide, 7” deep, and 2” tall. The unit has 4 built-in antennas on it which articulate out and also rotate forward and back. On the back of the unit you have the power switch, power input port, 4 Ethernet ports, Wan input port, two USB 3.0 ports, and reset button. On the right-hand side of the unit is the WPS button for quick device pairing. On the bottom are four rubber feet as well as four keyhole mounting points for securing to a wall or vertical surface. You’ll also find the network name, password, and recovery key on the sticker on the bottom as well as WPS password, serial number, and MAC address.

My current router doesn’t really have the range and speeds to deliver a reliable WiFi experience throughout my home and when benchmarking its speed, I found that it was giving me an average of 200 Mbps download speeds and 17 Mbps uploads. Setting it up the MR9600 pretty straight forward. After plugging it in and powering it on, I connected the WAN port to my modem then waited for the status light at the front to turn a solid blue. Then download and install the Linksys App on a mobile device to complete the setup. You’ll select Mesh WiFi Router, then confirm that the LED has changed to a blinking purple. Once connected, the router will be added to your account and you can choose a network name and password. Then you can connect your devices to the network, which operates on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies.

When performing the speed test with the MR9600, I was seeing speeds over 300 Mbps, nearly 50% higher than before. We also now have the option to plug in external network attached storage via the two USB ports on the back of the router. This lets us access files on those drives from any device on the network. We can update the firmware right from the app or set it to do so automatically as well as manage the network, customize advanced settings like setting it to bridge mode. There is an optional guest network that you can enable and parental controls like URL blocking and scheduling or pausing internet access to specific devices. You can select up to 3 devices to prioritize traffic for, if you have limited speeds and bandwidth. There are even a few advanced setup options like Dynamic Frequency Selection, port forwarding, and MAC address filtering. While you can’t manually choose the channel frequency, you can use the “channel finder” tool determine which one to use for optimal performance and least interference.

Once the router is online, you can enter the router’s default IP address into a browser on a connected device to access its settings remotely using the recovery key printed on the bottom of the unit rather than logging in. Enabling Linksys Smart Home in your Alexa skills, lets you execute some voice commands too, using a specific voice profile, for example pausing internet access on a specific device. The coverage area of this router is really good, and although this router can be expanded as a mesh network with child node, I haven’t found the need to do so, but I’m happy that option is available if I need to down the line.

Overall, the MR9600 performs great as a router. It was quick and easy to setup, has improved my internet download speeds, and reaches all areas of my house without leaving any dead spots. I hope you enjoyed this review. You can ask me any questions in the comments. I’ll put a link to the product in the description below. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel and join me next time.

Buy it at Amazon: Linksys MR9600 Mesh Router [Affiliate Link]