Google Nest Wifi Pro announced: Some new features and some taken away

Google first jumped into the mesh router game with the original Google Wifi. It had a primary router node with optional additional nodes available. These nodes allowed you to easily expand your network coverage. Google eventually launched the similarly designed but more capable Google Nest Wifi.

Today, Google is announcing the third and newest entry in the series: the Google Nest Wifi Pro. This is the first “Pro” model router from Google.

The most notable aspect of this new model is Wi-Fi 6E support. Since the router operates on the 6GHz spectrum and supports this latest Wi-Fi standard, it will be very fast, very stable, feature low latencies, and be somewhat future-proof.

Unfortunately, Google felt that upgrading the device to Wi-Fi 6E gave it a license to then remove features we saw on the regular Nest Wifi. That includes backward compatibility, meaning you can’t use Nest Wifi nodes with the Nest Wifi Pro router. This will force you to do a full upgrade of your home network hardware should you already own a Nest Wifi. On top of this, the Nest Wifi Pro does not feature smart speaker integration. So if you rely on your Nest Wifi nodes for smart speaker controls, you’re going to need to replace those with standalone speakers or displays.

Elsewhere, the Google Nest Wifi Pro system has a slightly new design. The nodes and router hub all look exactly the same and you can use Ethernet with any of them. The design itself is slightly taller and shinier than the previous iteration. Finally, you can get four different colors: Snow, Fog, Linen, and Lemongrass.

The Google Nest Wifi Pro is available for pre-order now. It will become generally available on October 27. The router itself with no nodes will cost $199, while a package with the router and two nodes will cost $399.