Devolo GigaGate: 2 gigs per second, cheaper than Netgear Orbi

published 24 January 2017

As well as Wi-Fi extenders, powerline AV and ever more powerful routers, there's a new weapon in your anti-deadspot arsenal: high-end Wi-Fi bridges.

Netgear has Orbi, BT has Whole Home Wi-Fi. Now Devolo has GigaGate, which uses a slightly different approach to solve the same problem: that your router is in a basement or cupboard, far away from your mega-techy multi-media setup.

The key thing in GigaGate's favour? It's available now for 220 quid, while BT and Netgear's rival systems are £300+.

You plug the GigaGate Base station into your router, plug the GigaGate Satellite in your lounge, games room, 'man cave' or whatever.

The Base connects to the Satellite via Wi-fi. But not just any old Wi-Fi, uh-uh. This is point-to-point, beam formed, 4x4, 5Ghz AC, ooh yeah.

You then use trusty, boring old ethernet to connect your TV, console, streamer and so on to the Satellite.

The GigaGate has one Gigabit ethernet output for speeds of 'up to 2Gbits per second' (with a following wind, downhill, in optimum conditions) and four fast ethernet ports for up to 300Mbps-ish

That is quite enough for video and audio applications and the gaming habits of people who don't own liquid-cooled PCs in a case shaped like a Terminator skull, with external graphics cards.

You can also use the GigaGate as an N Wi-Fi extender, but its primary purpose is to ferry data to AV and gaming kit via wired connections.

So far, we've got as far as plugging in our review boxes and in just two attempts, they did indeed 'plug and play'. Now we shall wait a few hours while the beam forming Wi-Fi magically acquires the fastest possible connection.

A review will emerge at some later date.

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."

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