What I Actually Look at Now Before Buying a Router

I used to buy whatever router had the highest number on the box. That approach cost me money twice before I figured out what actually matters for how a household actually uses the internet.

Start with how many devices you’re really running. Count everything — phones, laptops, smart TV, streaming sticks, smart plugs, cameras, a game console. Most households land somewhere between 10 and 20 once everything’s counted, which is more than people guess before actually counting.

Match the WiFi standard to that number, not to marketing. WiFi 6 is the sensible baseline now — it handles multiple devices talking at once far better than older standards, which matters more day to day than top theoretical speed ever does. WiFi 6E or 7 make sense if you want a clean band for one bandwidth-heavy device, but they’re not necessary for most homes.

Think about your actual square footage and floor count before coverage. A single router covers a small to mid-size home fine if placed well. Multiple floors or anything over roughly 1,800-2,000 square feet starts to genuinely benefit from a mesh system rather than one stronger single unit — coverage is a physics problem more than a hardware-quality problem past a certain size.

Check what your actual internet plan can use. There’s no point buying a router built for multi-gigabit speeds if your plan tops out at 300 Mbps — that money is better spent on coverage (a mesh node) than a router your connection can’t fill anyway.

Security features are worth checking, not assuming. WPA3 support, a guest network option, and automatic firmware updates should all be on the checklist — surprisingly not standard on every budget router even now.

If your ISP provides a router, check whether it’s actually limiting you before replacing it. Some ISP-supplied routers are perfectly fine; others are clearly basic hardware meant to just get you connected. If you want to use your own, ask about enabling “bridge mode,” which lets your ISP’s box just handle the internet connection while your own router handles WiFi.

What I’d actually tell someone shopping right now

Count your devices honestly. Measure your home’s actual size and layout. Match the router (or router-plus-mesh-node combination) to those two numbers rather than to whatever has the biggest number on the box. A mid-range WiFi 6 router serves most single-floor homes under 1,800 square feet perfectly well — it’s really only past that size, or with genuinely poor building materials in the way, that spending more starts paying off in a way you’ll actually notice day to day.

I replaced a router built for speeds I was never going to reach and one built for a house twice the size of mine before landing on something that actually matched what I needed. Measuring first would have saved both purchases.