We tested 15 Wi-Fi 7 routers in our lab - this one had the best coverage

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.

We all depend on having a reliable Wi-Fi connection to get work done, to connect with friends and family, to power our smart home devices and streaming services, and so much more, so it's essential to have a Wi-Fi router that works. And even more important than Wi-Fi speed is Wi-Fi coverage, so that areas of your home, like your basement, are still able to get a signal when you need it.

ZDNET tested 15 Wi-Fi 7 routers from popular brands like Netgear, TP-Link, and Eero in our Louisville-based lab . The lab team's goal was to evaluate the coverage performance of individual Wi-Fi 7 routers by measuring signal strength in decibel-milliwatts (dBm) across strategically chosen locations throughout our 12,500 sq. ft. lab.

The study is designed to characterize performance not only near the router but specifically as distance and physical obstruction increase, since far-field behavior is where routers most meaningfully differentiate. Based on all of this, the router with the best 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi coverage was the Netgear NightHawk RS700S .

To test these Wi-Fi routers, lab engineer Samantha De Leon used NetSpot, a widely used Wi-Fi site-survey and signal-mapping tool, to collect one signal strength reading (in dBm) at each of the 61 fixed, numbered test points distributed across the lab. Point numbering was held constant across every unit under test (UUT) to preserve comparability and repeatability. The router was located at a single fixed origin for all UUTs.