COVR (C1203 for those playing at home) is a WiFi mesh systems that is designed to expand your WiFi range around your home, simply by plugging it into your router and feeding it some power (USB-C). The proposition is simple, the question is, do you need it?
Personally our house is a 34sq single story and link many, the FTTP NBN connection comes into the home in the garage which is where our router is located. This means the internet has to travel a decent distance to reach the far corners of the home. Even the best routers suffer some drop-off over distance as the signal drops. If you’re in the back room of the house, and want the best speed, then Covr may be a great solution for you.
Design
Each COVR device (the pack comes with 3, but you can add more) is a rounded-off triangle design. The key here is that the device is small, so the actual design doesn’t matter that much. If you want to extend WiFi to a room, then you’ll park this in a low-line unit or on a shelf, somewhere close to a powerpoint, so its unlikely COVR is something that’ll actually be seen much, if it is, its slick, with changable colour plates that’ll help them integrate with your interior design.
In terms of the business end (the back of the triangle hockey-puck), there’s an ethernet pass-through and a power port, its simple and effective.
Performance
Covr setup is easy, using the mobile app, taking your existing Wi-Fi SSID and broadcasting it further, meaning there’s no reconfiguration of devices to connect to COVR rather than your distant router.
After adding COVR to our home network, the network speed tests became consistently fast throughout, regardless of where you consumed WiFi. Tests regularly achieved more than 95Mbps where before COVR, usually seen a drop of 20-30Mbps.
Depending on your house configuration, you may be able to use this system to extend WiFi out to your alfresco or even your back shed, avoiding the need and expense of trying to run cables.
Features
The Covr Seamless Wi-Fi System (COVR-C1203) key features:
- MU-MIMO Technology: Efficiently handles large numbers of concurrent devices
- AC1200 Wireless Speeds: Watch movies and stream audio over a fast Wi-Fi network
- Smart Roaming: Keeps devices connected to the strongest signal so users can move freely throughout their home and always stay connected
- Smart Steering: Automatically directs a device to the optimum wireless band for reduced buffering and lag
- Easy Setup: The free D-Link Wi-Fi app allows for easy set up and management of the Covr System
- Firmware Update Push Notifications: Always keeps the Covr System up to date
- COVR Changeable Colour Plates: Includes three Rose Gold, one Ocean Blue and one Gold Covr plate to match any home’s décor
- Warranty: Includes D-Link’s industry-leading warranty, customer service and support.
Price and Availability
The D-Link COVR-C1203 Seamless Wi-Fi System is available now from dlink.com.au It costs A$449.95. Given this system build on top of your existing router, not replace it, the cost feels pretty high to solve internet range in your home.
If you’re building a new home and considering if you need to pay for CAT6 connections and wiring throughout the home, the answer is no. With 802.11AC, combined with mesh networking technology like D-Link’s COVR, then you can access internet at speeds that arrive in your home, not ones impacted by distance from your router.
Overall
Mesh networking is certainly not unique to D-Link, but the COVR system is well designed and performs well. Just find a powerpoint in the room you want to extend internet to and you’re COVR device will connect to the next closest device and deliver the traffic at speeds you pay for.
WiFi devices like laptops, gaming consoles, mobile phones, set top boxes, TVs and other IoT devices all want to connect to the internet via WiFi and COVR allows that to happen. If you have a small house, this issue likely isn’t one you face, but if you have a double storey (or more) and are trying to get your internet throughout your home, then its definitely worth considering this bit of technology wizardry.