D-Link M30 Mesh Router Aquila Pro AI Review

The M30 is definitely not the first router with AI capabilities. In fact, almost all new routers on the market are now powered by AI in some form. The D-Link M30 is no exception, and its AI capabilities are powering the performance behind these units in the background, continuously optimising to eliminate interference and maintain reliable connections at any cost.

D-Link M30 Aquila Pro AI Review – Unboxing and Packaging Contents

D-Link M30 Aquila Pro AI Review – Design and Features

The M30 units are kind of special in terms of design and manufacturing because they are made from post-consumer recycled materials. They are designed to reduce the environmental impact without sacrificing performance. They look pretty unique as well as mesh router units and pretty slim in terms of dimensions. There are no visible antennas here as all five antennas reside internally. It has an advanced antenna design to create a 360-degree spherical coverage, perfect for those who live in a two-storey house. Its design also allows you to mount it on the wall, saving even more space in the house.

The M30 is an AX3000 Wi-Fi 6 dual-band router that delivers 574 + 2402 Mbps in total. It’s definitely not as advanced as the tri-band’s COVR-2022, but it has pretty decent speed for most people (especially since most people are only using a wireless router for browsing, playing games, and watching movies).

It has four Gigabit Ethernet ports so you can plug in a variety of devices like a network printer, smart hubs, and more. One extra port is reserved for the Internet.

The setup is pretty easy, including adding an extra unit to build the Mesh Network. If you like, you can purchase additional AQUILA PRO AI devices in the future, adding more to your network and extending it. You can check and do a few things through the app, but you can also do the traditional way by using your web browser to access the router’s interface.

Apart from seeing your network as a whole and all the connected devices, you can do more things like setting up Parental Controls, QoS, Port Forwarding, VPN, and more. But if you are not a techie, using the Aquila Pro AI app is more than enough to manage your network easily like enabling the Guest Network or tweaking your Parental Control settings.

The Parental Controls are quite advanced as well, and there are easy-to-use presets for families with young children, such as scheduling when to block or give access to certain devices and even to quickly block internet access during bedtime. You can do filtering based on devices that are connected to the network too.

Supporting 160MHz bandwidth and 1024-QAM, the AQUILA PRO AI M30 can deliver extreme speed up to 3 Gbps. The AI bit helps in optimising traffic to reduce buffering and congestion within the network. For example, it continuously scans the network environment and switches to the most efficient Wi-Fi channel if it needs to. There is an auto path optimisation to ensure optimised performance no matter where you are in the house, and there is a self-healing capability for reliable network connectivity.

The AI features are working continuously behind the scenes, so most of the time, you probably won’t notice anything unless you really want to check things manually (such as monitoring if your device stays on the same Wi-Fi channel, etc). However, it’s great that you don’t actually need to monitor or turn these features on and off. All you need as a user is having the most stable, reliable, and fast-performing network, and the D-Link M30 delivers these excellently in our house.

D-Link M30 Aquila Pro AI Review Conclusion

D-Link M30 Aquila Pro AI offers an easy-to-set-up, easy-to-use mesh router with advanced AI capabilities focusing on delivering a stable, solid, fast wireless network at home. It may not be as advanced as higher-priced routers out there that have strong signal strength and more than two bands, but the M30 offers good performance, network reliability, and expandability in the future. The app is also easy to use, and the Parental Controls have great features that are easy to set.

D-Link AQUILA PRO AI AX3000 Wi-Fi 6 Smart Mesh System (2-Pack / M30-2PK) retails for A$399.95 and is available now at retailers around Australia.

Disclosure: D-Link M30 2-pack review sample was supplied for reviewing