WHEN LIFE GETS MESHY

WFH.

Looks like for many of us, Working From Home is the new normal. In fact, after being forced into setting up a home office in emergency circumstances, a lot of people are wondering why they haven't been working this way for years.

There are so many advantages; no commute, no car or public transport costs, no parking issues, more time to do the job because you're spending less time traveling. Oh - and you can spend all day in track pants if you want to.

There are disadvantages too, of course. Distraction is perhaps the biggest issue of all. Unless you can set yourself up in the right part of the house, away from other people, you can easily find yourself being drawn into non-work related problems like, "Mum! Where's the tomato sauce refill?"

Not what you want to be dealing with in the middle of a Zoom staff meeting.

That's if your connection is strong enough to keep you in that meeting in the first place.

Many of these challenges can be solved in about ten minutes, by setting a decent Mesh WiFi network...

The COVR-1102 AC1200 Seamless Mesh WiFi system from D-Link was designed to make upgrading your home or small-business network as easy as possible.

Right away, the first thing you'll notice is how compact the system is; the two COVR-1100 units the kit ships with are perhaps the smallest, most inconspicuous WiFi access points I've ever set up. If you're worried about cluttering up the house with a whole lot of extra, ugly tech gadgets this is definitely the option for you. Each unit is tiny, the shape of a Rubik's cube and not much bigger - but much, much easier to solve.

Not only are they small and subtle but there's only one minuscule LED status indicator in the centre of the top of each unit. Even this can be turned off once you've set everything up. The COVR-1102 is certainly the most invisible WiFi system I've seen so far... you won't need to hide it (which often causes connectivity issues) because you don't really notice it in the first place. It really is just two little white boxes.

Setting up the COVR-1102 is very easy, although I do have a couple of pieces of advice for you to help the process along. Firstly, be patient. The D-Link WiFi app has become extremely streamlined over the years and makes setting up any D-Link device foolproof. However, there are obviously some standard settings built into the app that allow time for devices to start up or reboot. In the case of the COVR-1102, these default times are clearly far too long; the LED changes from red to flashing orange to indicate it's ready for setup at least sixty seconds before the app will let you proceed to the next step. This is frustrating, as the setup process could be even more efficient than it already is. My point being; there's no use trying to rush things. Just do each step as prompted and you'll be fine.

Except...

On my first attempt at pairing the second unit, it simply didn't work. I was surprised to find the COVR-1102 units pair wirelessly, as previous COVR models have involved connecting each additional device via an ethernet cable to get them to sync. I reset both units and started from scratch, this time taking care to follow the app's suggestion to place the units face to face - in fact, I put them right in front of each other, almost touching. This seemed to solve whatever issue was preventing the pairing process first time round and I was then free to place the remote unit wherever I wanted.

And I do mean wherever - for such tiny little things, they provide surprisingly powerful coverage; up to 325sqm which is plenty for most homes. If you're lucky enough to live in some kind of castle or mansion, not to worry - you can buy extra units to add to your network. Remember, because this is a Mesh system, that means the same network name for the whole house. D-Link's Smart Roaming technology guarantees your devices will always connect to the strongest signal as you move around your home with no dropouts at all.

Smart Steering means your device will connect to whichever of the COVR-1102's dual-bands are less cluttered and most suitable for your needs; not everything needs the extra oomph offered by the 5GHz band but gadgets like smart TV's and gaming laptops do.

The COVR-1102 is also a WiFi certified EasyMesh system. This is a new industry standard that ensures your system is future-proofed to work with EasyMesh devices from other manufacturers too.

There's also an ethernet port on each unit if you need to hardwire something into your network, or you can use the COVR-1102 kit as a dedicated WiFi bridge - the perfect solution if your smart TV or gaming console is out of cable range from your router.

Discrete, powerful, whole-house WiFi, set up and ready to connect to in under ten minutes. If that's all it takes to move your home office off the kitchen table to the other end of the house, away from all those distractions, what are you waiting for?


Click here for more information and pricing on the D-Link COVR-1102 AC1200 Seamless Mesh WiFi System.