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If you're still suffering dead spots and slow Wi-Fi at home or your office, it could well be the hardware you're using to build the network. A single base station has fundamental problems and even adding repeaters is only so good. The latest tech for strong, even coverage is what's called a Mesh Network and Zyxel has a strong entrant with its Multy X AC3000 system.
Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ tested it out by deploying the Multy X system in his own home, a complex network topology with over 30 different Internet of Things and security devices online. Here's how it worked and what features - including parental controls - it offers...
Learn more: https://amzn.to/2GYDHV5
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can this solve all your Wi-Fi challenges
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let's find out
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[Music]
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Dave tale here and I'm looking at home
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and office Wi-Fi networks now I'm in my
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home and I have a really pretty
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complicated home Wi-Fi installation
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because I have 30 to 35 different
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devices connected at any given time this
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is the secret challenge of a smart home
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she's got a lot of devices so I've tried
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a lot of different Wi-Fi networks and
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most of them haven't worked very well
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it's like they work up to a certain
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number of devices and then they just
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start to sort of sputter and run out of
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steam which is why I was interested to
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try this now this is one of two units
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this is the XY's l multi ex-ac 3000
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tri-band Wi-Fi system it's a mouthful it
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is a mesh network and there are two of
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these and they're in fact the exact same
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device which is kind of interesting but
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one of them you set up as the base and
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the other one and actually you can have
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two more they work as we'll call them
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repeaters but they're not repeaters
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because the whole thing becomes what's
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known as a mesh network and a mesh
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network is way cooler than having one
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really powerful unit or having repeaters
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and we'll come back to that now let me
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tell you about the XY's L units
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themselves because they are pretty
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sophisticated they run off of a qualcomm
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IP q 401 9 quad core cpu with 512 Meg of
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ram and 4 gig of flash memory they have
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nine internal antennas so you look at
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this and you're like yeah but mine has
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these cool antennas coming out of the
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back so this is not as good now this is
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way better and you don't need those
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antennas to be sticking out if we pop
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this thing open I'm confident we'd see
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all sorts of antennas all over the place
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also on the back has a USB 2 port and
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here's what's more interesting and so it
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also runs Bluetooth so the configuration
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is really super easy you plug this in
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you start up your smart phone app and it
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sees the device and then does basically
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all the configuration almost all the
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configuration automatically then you can
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do the fun stuff like
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what the name of your networks gonna be
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and set your password you should always
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have a password I don't even want to
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hear that you don't have one and then
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the app gives you lots of other features
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too so for example I can see all of my
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connected devices and I can choose one
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and here's Ben's phone if I want I can
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go ahead and put on parental controls
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that are based on time or based on where
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they access and such so I can turn off
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his phone access to the Internet
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via our network at 10 p.m. every night
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if I want so even if he sneaks his phone
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he's still not going to be able to use
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it so that's pretty cool the other thing
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you can do is you can run speed tests
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and one of the interesting things about
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the speed test is that they have what
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they call a back-channel and this is a
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super important part of the whole mesh
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network sort of topology is that when
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you have two of these one of the really
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important issues is how fast do they
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communicate the idea of a mesh network
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overall is that devices are handed off
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seamlessly to the most powerful unit
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based on where they are and where your
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units are so if I have my laptop or my
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phone and I walk around the house it
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should just magically transition back
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and forth between units which is cool
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but that means the connection between
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the base unit and the satellite unit
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need to be really fast and not only does
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the XY's l actually have really fast
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connectivity there and the back channel
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is actually running at about 966
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megabits per second at the theoretical
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maximum but you could do a speed test
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and you can find out so you know you
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have two different networks running and
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you have a third secret one just between
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the two devices to make sure
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everything's as fast as it can be now
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let's see what else can I tell you so
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it's a 5 gigahertz back channel between
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them and five gigahertz you can also use
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that for connecting and you should for
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any devices like a laptop or a streaming
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television unit anything that needs a
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lot of bandwidth because 5 gigahertz
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runs at a theoretical maximum of just
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under watt one gigabit per second so
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it's 966 megabits per second
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by contrast the 2.4 gigahertz Network
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which is sort of the old-school Wi-Fi
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and that's perfectly good for most of
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your IOT your speaker systems you know
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all of that kind of stuff is gonna work
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just fine that runs at a theoretical
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maximum of 400 megabits per second so 5
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gig is more than double the speed mod
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you know depending on how you have it
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set up in your home depending on what
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you're have coming in in the first place
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but these units are gonna give you lots
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and lots of speed now the app like I
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said has all sorts of really neat
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capabilities on your smart phone and it
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also gives you diagnostics and it's all
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remote - so if I'm away from home and I
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just have this sense that my kids are
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going crazy online I could shut down my
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entire network now that would be
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probably a little bit overly aggressive
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because all the IOT this the alarm
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system the motion sensors all of that
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would then go offline - so there's that
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works with a unified name and password
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for the Wi-Fi system so you don't have
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to worry about
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oh wait well I'm upstairs so I think I
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need to collect or connect to satellite
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one you just don't worry about it and it
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just works magically and it
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automatically connects to the fastest
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unit super-nice in fact when I unplugged
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this satellite unit everything in the
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house just connected to the base unit
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even if it was slightly slower because
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it was further away so once I plug this
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in it will reconfigure itself and all
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the devices will reconnect at the faster
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connection rate now what else can I tell
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you it has a built-in firewall it's ipv6
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compatible important for the future
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network monitoring Diagnostics all there
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here's one that's really important it's
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Auto firmware updates and that's
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important because every so often there's
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an exploit in the wild that ends up
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being a problem and so this will make
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sure that your devices are updated as
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quickly as possible I already said that
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it has some really good parental
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controls and it also lets you set up a
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guest Wi-Fi which then sort of separates
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that out from all of your main Wi-Fi
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connections and all of your devices
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that's a smart idea
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on the back you can see that it has a
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that's either power reset button it has
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three ethernet jacks and one that you
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use to connect it to your for example
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cable modem and then you have that USB
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2.0 and I can't show you here but
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there's actually different colors that
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it gives you feedback it'll turn orange
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or blue or white and so you have a
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little bit of feedback on the device too
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but generally it's just gonna sit under
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your table under your office desk
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whatever it is it's there just gonna be
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mostly just hidden away and zipping
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along it is also integrated with Alexa
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so you can actually say Alexa do this do
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that
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turn off the network things like that I
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haven't actually done that because I
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don't want my kids doing that just as an
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experiment you know you gotta be careful
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with that stuff and they say it supports
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up to a 5,000 square-foot house I do not
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have any 5,000 square-foot house that is
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a lot of square footage but really to me
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the more important question is how many
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devices does it support and I've had up
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to 40 devices on it at one time and it
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seems like it works just fine so I also
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want to point out that the package you
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get actually contains you can see on the
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side here it's two different units so it
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comes as a set and it's ready to roll
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and there's no real complicated
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configuration you unplug your existing
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Wi-Fi base station you plug one of these
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in you put the other one wherever you
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want in your house and then you use your
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smart phone with the multi app to
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actually configure the whole thing via
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low-power bluetooth and that's done by
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you know I did I just let my phone sit
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on the device until it actually
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synchronized up but it just has to be
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within a couple of feet and then it's
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all super easy with this and you're good
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to go I would guess from out of the box
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to up and running maybe five or ten
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minutes depending on how complex your
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configuration is possibly even faster
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and then you're done and that's it
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that's all you got to do so I am a big
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fan this is working really well in our
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office and our home and it's giving us a
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lot of nice connectivity so
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what I got for you now before I tell you
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the price can I ask if you can click on
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that subscribe button really appreciate
8:57
when you subscribe to my channel cool
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now
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the XY's l multi ex AC 3000 tribe and
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Wi-Fi system mesh network will cost you
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two hundred and ninety-nine dollars for
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the two units starter set
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that's this so you'll get two of these
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and you will be good to go with your
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mesh network
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super easy two hundred ninety nine
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dollars at amazon.com go read the
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reviews to people like this thing so
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this is Dave Taylor
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I better go plug this back in and
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maximize the performance of my own
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network which means I'll catch you in my
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next video
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[Music]
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