The era of ugly, insect-looking routers festooned with antennas may not be over, but you don’t need a plastic Wi-Fi cactus planted in the middle of your home to get a good signal. In fact, you are better off without one. Wi-Fi 6 Mesh systems can swaddle your home in a warm blanket of Wi-Fi much better, but they are usually expensive — a “cheap” system might cost $150 on sale. So you can imagine how incredulous we were when Vilo announced a $20-per-node mesh Wi-Fi solution. And, after over four months of testing, I can't help but recommend it.

Vilo delivers mesh-based Wi-Fi with AC1200 speeds at a too-good-to-be-true price. But after four months of testing, we can't help but recommend it.

Key Features
  • Mesh Wi-Fi
  • $20-28 per node
  • App-based management
  • Wireless or wired backhaul
  • AC1200 speeds
Specifications
  • Range: 1,500 square feet per node
  • Wi-Fi Bands: Dual-band
  • Ethernet Ports: 3 per node (with caveats)
  • Supported standards: 802.11 1/b/g/n/ac (i.e., Wi-Fi 5), dual-band
  • Speeds: AC1200 (up to 300Mbps on 2.4GHz, 867 Mbps on 5GHz)
  • Security: WPA2
  • Chipset/memory: Unnamed 999MHz MIPS, 128MB RAM & 16MB NOR flash
  • App requirements: Android 8.0 or later, or iOS 9.0 or later
  • Dimensions: 70 x 70 x 150.6mm, 319g (per node)
  • Misc: "4 internal antennas," MU-MIMO, Beamforming, Proactive band steering
Pros
  • Disturbingly cheap pricing.
  • Ridiculously easy set up process
  • Good-enough speeds for most.
Cons
  • Not a lot of advanced networking options.
  • Wi-Fi calls stutter moving between nodes.
Buy This Product
Vilo Mesh Wi-Fi Router

Design, hardware, what's in the box

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Vilo's mesh Wi-Fi system has neither a snazzy product name nor design. It's a simple plastic rectangular prism with rounded edges, hidden vents, and a logo on the top. It doesn't have that ostentatious "xtreme" look high-end routers targeting gamers seem unable to avoid, but it isn’t quite so chic as Google’s curvy Nest Wifi. Still, it should blend in easily with other hardware in your office, on a table, or at the top of a shelf.

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There aren't any obnoxious lights on the front, just a single status indicator and a “mesh” button (that’s what Vilo’s documentation calls it) that you’ll never touch unless you need to add a new node to the network. That status light is just bright enough to see in full daylight but small enough it isn’t distracting at night. (You won’t have an obnoxious blue halo emanating from behind your computer if you’re working in the dark.) The light flashes red when there’s an issue and flashes blue if the wireless signal is marginal or weak when connecting to the primary node.

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On the back, you’ve got Ethernet and power, plus an extra reset button you’ll probably never need to use.

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There are two LAN ports per node and one “WAN/LAN” port. The LAN ports let you wire a device or switch into the mesh network and still take advantage of the wireless backhaul. The WAN port is for connecting to the modem, but can serve double duty as a LAN port on satellite nodes that don’t need to connect to a modem — that’s three Ethernet ports you can use per satellite node and two on the main unit. (All Vilo units are the same, the primary/main router is simply whichever you opt to set up first or assign that function to.) A barrel connector on the bottom supplies power.

Plug the barrel connector in, wire up your modem, and you’re off and running, following a super simple and easy setup process.

Setup and software

In our coverage of the announcement, I stressed that this was the “fastest setup process I’ve personally seen in a mesh system,” and that’s true. Getting all three nodes up and running took me almost no time — and I barely had to do anything.

Just install and fire up the Vilo app, register an account, tap “+ Add Vilo,” and follow the instructions, which are self-explanatory and hard to deviate from. In short: you’ll need to plug in your primary node to your modem, connect to the Vilo_xxxx network that it starts slinging once it has power (the password is on the bottom of the router, and iPhones can scan a QR code on the bottom to connect), and give your network a name and password.

If you have just one Vilo, the basic setup process is done! If you have more than one from the same package, the extra Vilos set themselves up, which is tremendously convenient. Literally, just plug them in where you want them. If they’re in range, they’ll automatically connect to other units from the same package, no attention or work on your part required. It’s the simplest mesh Wi-Fi setup process ever. If you buy an extra node later or opt for single-packaged units, the process is a little more complicated in that you do have to manually connect them to your setup, though — but that’s basically the same as all other mesh routers.

When I first started reviewing the router, it had some noteworthy issues — you couldn’t even have a space character in the SSID for the network name, which was pretty dumb. Wi-Fi calling also didn’t work at all, and updating from the pre-release firmware simply wasn’t possible. Thankfully the company fixed all those problems.

Vilo’s app handles all your configuration settings, firmware updates, parental controls, and device management, but it is very basic. You can’t do semi-advanced things like set a static/reserved DHCP for a network device. Some printers, for example, can have issues if they don’t always get the same internal network IP, and that means they might not always work well on a Vilo network. (Update: Vilo tells me the feature is coming, but it isn't ready yet.) If you have a static IP through your ISP, the Vilo setup process may not work, but you can switch to a static IP after that. You can’t even manually assign network channels or channel width, so far as I can tell, but band steering between 2.4 & 5GHz is supported. Everything here is about simple and basic functionality. In short: If you’ve ever used the “advanced” tab to change settings on your current router, you won’t be happy.

The app does offer guest network functionality, basic Wi-Fi setting configuration for things like SSID, security, and password, notifications for newly-connected devices, and DHCP/PPoE/Static IP switching. Vilo does actually one-up some of its competitors (cough Linksys) by easily showing signal strength for each satellite node as connected to the primary hub. I’m currently reviewing the $1,200 Linksys Atlas Max 6E, and with all the backhaul connection issues I’ve been experiencing on it, I find it hilarious that a $60 mesh Wi-Fi system with tons of configuration shortcomings still has better tools for finding ideal satellite placement.

Vilo claims to offer per-device usage reports so you can see how much data different devices might be consuming, but you have to remember to turn the feature on, otherwise it just reports zeros (rather than disabling that view entirely). Parental controls are limited: You can gate devices by a schedule or blanket on/off or block specific URLs. Scheduled router restarts can also be configured.

Performance

This might be mesh, but this Vilo system uses an “older” set of Wi-Fi standards, supporting only Wi-Fi 5/ac at best. If you were hoping to enjoy Wi-Fi 6 features, you’ll have to spend more for a higher-end system. Still, it’s viable, supporting up to dual-band AC1200 speeds — that’s a theoretical maximum around 300Mbps on 2.4GHz and 867Mbps on 5GHz. That also means that wired devices using the nodes for backhaul will never see maximum gigabit speeds.

It’s not the fastest system out there by any means, but it should be enough for most people and fast enough for most customers’ home connection speeds. Unless you have a particularly fast connection — say, 300-500Mbps or more — or need faster in-network speeds for things like a NAS or other big local file transfers, this should be fine (for now). And if you didn’t understand any of that, then this is definitely enough for you.

Anecdotally, I used a three-node Vilo system at my little cabin in the woods for the last four months or so, and I was able to max out a domestic 100Mbps connection without issue both wirelessly and on a device connected wired to a satellite node. Stress-testing, it handled up to 30 devices without any issue, and in-network file transfers were able to hit multi-hundred megabit speeds.

Vilo doesn’t outright state what hardware is powering the mesh router, but rumor has it it’s a Lexra-based Realtek chipset. For most of our readers, that means nothing, but network enthusiasts should take note: That essentially precludes good third-party firmware support. You won’t be flashing DD-WRT or OpenWrt on a Vilo.

The only issue I had that wasn't resolved was some stuttering with Wi-Fi calls when moving between nodes. Vilo tells me it’s aware of the issue, but it’s proven hard to track down, though it’s working on it. I didn’t really observe any other lingering problems in my own testing, but it’s possible that issue could manifest in other ways as well when moving between nodes. And, to be fair, a three-node system is extreme overkill for my little 900 square foot single-story cabin, which could be causing odd behaviors. Vilo claims one router can serve up to 1500 square feet, with its three-node package rated for 4,500 square feet.

Vilo, for whatever reason, doesn't recommend that you use wired Ethernet backhaul for the Vilo three-pack, claiming you could run into "performance issues" due to pre-configured settings. The same warning ostensibly extends to mixing and matching the three-pack with an extra unit. However, in my testing following the workaround documented on Vilo's site, I was able to get wired backhaul working for a short testing period. However, almost the entirety of this review used wireless backhaul, which is probably the most common use case. If you’re new to the idea of mesh Wi-Fi, the short version is that each satellite station needs to connect to the base, and that can be done either wirelessly or with a dedicated ethernet connection. A wired connection can typically provide better and more reliable performance, but that requires that you run wires to each location where a node will live. Most people use mesh systems wirelessly, as it’s far more convenient.

This might be a little concerning, but I should point out that the Vilo app has disappeared from the Play Store once already. The explanation was innocuous enough: Vilo told us its privacy policy wasn’t explicit regarding your uploaded profile photo, and Google apparently took issue with that. Following a rewritten privacy policy, Google reinstated the app, and Vilo took the opportunity to more firmly define its policies from top to bottom. Although the advertising details in there sound concerning at first glance, Vilo has explicitly confirmed to us they pertain to perfectly normal programmatic ads from visiting Vilo’s website on any device or network, not anything crazy like redirecting traffic or replacing ads while using their products.

On that note, there was some concern from our readers that this “too cheap to be good” mesh Wi-Fi router might be doing something nefarious like phoning home to China, as Vilo is up-front that this is a white-label product that it has built out software and infrastructure for. The folks at Firewalla were kind enough to lend me a Firewalla Gold to monitor all traffic in and out of my network — its logging includes geographic data tied to IP blocks off the bat, which makes it just a little simpler and faster to set up compared to Wireshark. I’m far from a network security expert, but so far as I can tell, the only traffic that the router nodes themselves send is the very occasional ping to Vilo’s AWS-leased domestic servers.

When it comes to user data that is collected, the company has previously said:

“We collect 3 types of data from users and their app for the purpose of operating and optimizing their Wi-Fi network: Data related to network/routers: Wi-Fi name, channels, Internet connection type, signal strength, MeshlD, firmware version, and other Wi-Fi settings. Data related to connected devices: IP address, MAC address, signal strength, device name/type, online/offline status, etc. User information: email address, nick name, iOS or Android version, time zone settings in your phone, etc.

We do not track the websites users visit, or browse/search history, or any other content users access on the internet.”

None of this sounds particularly nefarious to me, and I can’t find any evidence sniffing around network traffic details to refute its claims. So far as I can tell, Vilo isn’t doing anything strange or concerning.

Should you buy it?

Yes, absolutely, but only if you don’t have complicated requirements from a mesh Wi-Fi system or need faster speeds. Some of us at Android Police are so impressed with it, we're considering buying a set for our parents in the next year or so, and I think that's pretty high praise. As usual, we consider price a feature, and at this level of value, Vilo's mesh Wi-Fi system easily merits our Most Wanted award.

At $20 per node (seemingly somewhere around $28 at some vendors when including shipping), this is a screaming deal, but it does have a few small drawbacks, like limited configuration settings and occasional hiccups like the Wi-Fi calling node handoff. To be fair, issues like these are actually very common early in a router’s release cycle — it often takes a year or two for most random router problems to be ironed out in subsequent firmware updates, and buying a brand-new just-released model is objectively a bad idea if you value stability on your home network. But, we review products as they are, not as they will be, and you might see a few little issues like that.

Anecdotally, the Vilo worked very well for me, and though it isn’t the fastest router out there (“Wave 2” 802.11ac hardware dates back to 2014), it’s still practical in 2021 if you don’t have high requirements or specific use cases that demand faster speeds. If all you care about is “getting the internet” and making sure signal strength everywhere is good enough, you should be very happy. Oookla’s Speedtest report for September claims the average US home internet speed for fixed broadband is 200Mbps. That’s almost certainly an overestimation, given the folks that run speed tests are more likely to have a faster connection to begin with. But even then, this router should be enough.

I’m not saying you can’t spend more money for a faster router — you absoutely can, and many of our readers should. I’m just saying you probably don’t need to. And if you’ve been missing out on the benefits of mesh Wi-Fi, picking up a three-pack of these for $60 is a no-brainer.

Buy it if:

  • You want cheap and decent whole-home Wi-Fi.
  • Super-fast speeds or more precise network controls aren't a requirement.

Don't buy it if:

  • You need granular network configuration controls for things like static DHCP, channel configurations/width, etc.
  • You need super-fast Wi-Fi speeds or have a high budget.