I’m using it in Europe to change connection location and keep using my subscriptions from before moving country.
My set up is:
1) fibre
2) router from service provider
3) Aircove
4) Mesh WiFi
Installation is simple:
1) plug in Aircove – it comes with an electric socket for US, UK and EU
2) connect to it via wifi or cable on your computer/phone/tablet
3) visit its short URL to customise what you want, like:
· the wifi name and password
· the name of your devices connected to it
· which connected devices will connect to VPN when you turn it on and which won’t be affected by it
Interface
If you’re using a smartphone or tablet, there is no app to access the router, but if you add the web page to your home screen (share button), it will feel like an app.
As your connected devices appear on the list, you might not recognise their names so I recommend connecting them one by one and renaming them as they appear, so that you know which is which between, say, the TV, the game console, your work laptop, the tablet or the phone.
To move them from a category (say, “connect to VPN”) to another (say, “never on VPN”), just press/click and hold on the device name on the list, and drag it left or right.
Connection Speed
Because connecting to a different location literally means your internet signal going to THAT location and back to your place, you WILL lose speed, but it’s not bad, but even before we switched to 900 Mbps fibre, when we were on a 76 Mbps connection and the VPN cut it in half, we could still stream in 4K 🙂
If you’re testing the speed, I recommend trying different locations, as some could be closer to you and maintain greater speed.
WiFi
If you just use the WiFi from your Aircove, then it will recognise each device individually and for each you can select if you want it to connect to VPN or not.
However, as I use Mesh WiFi, the Aircove only sees the Mesh WiFi connected to it, it does not see the devices connected to the Mesh WiFi. Therefore if you want to choose what to connect to VPN and what not to, with Mesh WFi this will happen at the WiFi level. So on the ExpressVPN menu, I have 1 device for the whole Mesh WiFi network, it’s all or nothing in that case.
What’s Mesh WiFi, you may ask. If you struggle with WiFi signal in certain places in your home, I recommend it if you can afford it (great Christmas present!), you have one pod per location where you want to expand the signal, it broadcasts its own WiFi signal and each pod you buy will expand that same signal further, meaning that, contrary to WiFi extenders where if you’re talking on WhatsApp it will cut and connect you to the extender, the Mesh Wifi is the same signal everywhere.
Separate Router
I have a separate router connected to the Aircove, for the TV and the 2 game consoles because I couldn’t figure out how else to connect 3 devices on the 1 network cable running from the Aircove in the house entrance to the TV unit in the living room, but the Aircove still recognises each device individually through that other router which is great.
If you’re “upgrading” with Aircove from an older router where you had custom-installed ExpressVPN, and want to use both on the same network, then I recommend looking for the original firmware of your older router and bringing it back to its original set up. Else the two ExpressVPN routers won’t work well together, you’ll never know which the “app” is accessing and it’s a nightmare.
Report