Motorola MH7020 Mesh Wi-Fi Review: Better Coverage With Handy Networking Tools

| Updated: Tuesday, September 14, 2021, 15:52 [IST]

Most Indian households have traditional Wi-Fi setups comprising of a router offered by the ISP provider. These conventional routers are easy to set up but mostly serve well for less demanding use cases in houses with smaller coverage areas and limited smart devices. Things become difficult if you have a big house with multiple rooms and floors and a hoard of smart IoT-enabled devices.

Rating:

3.5/5

Motorola MH7020 Home Wi-Fi Mesh System First Impressions

PROS

Plug & Play Setup
Better Coverage Area & Stable Connectivity
Feature-Packed Smartphone App
Easy-To-Add Satellites

CONS

Expensive
Smartphone App Needs Some Refinement

A conventional ISP router fails to offer the best of networking performance in such cases leading to dead zones with poor or no wireless range at all. What could be the solution to the problem? A 'Whole Home Wi-Fi setup', commonly known as Mesh W-Fi system. The decentralized networking solution promises better coverage area, scalability, better network security among various other useful features.

One such system is the newly launched Motorola MH7020 Whole Home WiFi Mesh setup. The mesh Wi-Fi system is engineered by Minim, Inc., the creator of intelligent networking products under the Motorola branding. It is touted as the first integrated mesh Wi-Fi system in India and is available on Amazon India and Flipkart priced at Rs. 7,999 for a 1-pack system offering a mesh-ready Wi-Fi router, power adapter, Ethernet cable, and support for motosync smartphone app.

Motorola sent the MH7020 tri-band router for testing. Since we got the single unit for the testing purpose, which comes sans a satellite, we couldn't test the extended capabilities of the mesh system. However, we did some analysis of the router's features and most importantly, the motosync companion smartphone app. Here's what we found out.

Motorola MH7020 Set-Up Process

You don't need to be tech-savvy to set up the MH7020. The single-unit mesh router has a plug-and-play setup process and mostly relies on its companion smartphone app for smart functions. The app even guides you to set up the unit with simple steps. All you need to do is connect the MH7020 with your existing Wi-Fi router via the bundled LAN cable.

Once the Motorola logo at the front shows a stable green light, you can start following the steps on the motosync app to quickly set up the router. If you have purchased the satellites, you can add them during the set-up process for a better and wider connectivity range. The main unit has the SSID and password (that can be changed later from the app) that can be used to gain access to the network. If you have additional satellites, the same SSID and password will work across the network.

Motosync Companion Application

The main unit will start appearing ‘Online' post the set-up process. The main screen will show the number of devices connected to the network. You can change the default password by simply clicking on the right arrow toggle visible next to the main unit's SSID. Since the smartphone app connects to the router via the cloud, you can manage the network from remote locations, which comes in very handy.

Useful Networking Tools

The app allows you to keep an eye on the number and type of devices connected to the internet from anywhere in the world. Besides, there are some extremely useful features if you have kids at home with smart devices that need to be moderated.

Check how much data is consumed by the linked devices and even create additional networks (with new SSIDs & passwords) for guest devices.
Pause data access and set time limits to restrict internet access for any device on the network.
Create schedules to restrict internet access for specific times in a day.
Block harmful websites that you don't want a particular user to access.
Run internet speed tests and diagnoses.

Check Data Usage & Security Threats

The application even creates a graph to show how much time and data is spent on individual apps/websites from connected devices, a very handy tool to limit your internet access. Last but not the least; the app also warns of any potential security threats on the network by showing unknown devices that might have access to your network.

For some reason, the motosync app couldn't show in detail the five threats detected on the network. Also, the different sections and the tabs in the app take their sweet time to load and show all the sub-menus and features. The app feels a bit clumsy and could use some refinements.

Motorola MH7020 Coverage Area & Performance

The single unit of MH7020 promises better internet connectivity with a coverage area of 2,000 sqft. It works on AC2200 Tri-Band technology and has a claimed speed of up to 400 Mbps at 2.4GHz and up to 866 Mbps at 5GHz bands. Since we didn't get any additional satellite, we could only test the performance of the single unit, which ensured stable signals within the limits of the aforementioned coverage area.

I did experience better networking performance while playing games and during zoom calls in the spots where the internet connection felt somewhat weaker with the old router. If you have purchased additional satellites, place them midway between the router and the desired Wi-Fi coverage area for better connectivity.

Verdict

Motorola's Mesh Wi-Fi setup's strength is its feature-packed motosync app. It offers some handy tools (Parental controls, security features, user profiles, etc.) to make the most out of a Whole Home Wi-Fi setup.

I would recommend you to go for the 2-pack (Rs. 13,999) or the 3-pack system (Rs. 19,999) if you want a better coverage area and stable network stability in a big house with multiple internet users and devices. Yes, the price is on the higher side but the bundled features make the overall package worth considering.