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The MSI Roamii BE Lite is a two-piece Wi-Fi 7 mesh system that offers multi-gig connectivity and free parental control and network security software. At $299.99, it’s one of the more affordable ways to expand a Wi-Fi 7 network, but it lacks a 6GHz radio band and doesn’t support 320MHz channels. You get both, and superior performance, with our Editors’ Choice winner in the category, the TP-Link BE63 BE10000 Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi 7 System.
Design and features: Two plain pillars
The Roamii BE Lite system comes with two identical white triangular mini-tower nodes measuring 9.4 by 4.3 by 4.7 inches (HWD) and providing a total of 5,800 square feet of coverage. Each node has a 2.5GbE WAN/LAN port and two 1GbE LAN ports, but unlike the TP-Link BE63, they do not offer USB ports. You can use the LAN ports for wired backhaul or let Wi-Fi do it.
The nodes are equipped with four internal antennas and are powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core CPU, 2 GB DDR4 RAM and 256 MB flash memory. It is a Wi-Fi 7 system that supports Multi-Link operation (MLO), 4K QAM, beamforming, MU-MIMO, Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) data transmissions and 240MHz channel bandwidth, but unlike most Wi-Fi -Fi- Fi 7 systems: This does not offer a 6GHz radio band nor does it support 320MHz channels. It is a dual-band system that can achieve theoretical data rates of up to 688 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band and up to 4,323 Mbps on the 5 GHz band.
In addition to your regular network, you can create a guest network, an IOT network for smart home devices, and a child network that allows you to limit internet usage times with a separate SSID and password.
Speaking of kids, the Roamii BE Lite comes with free parental control and network security software powered by Trend Micro. The suite, called FortiSecu, offers age-based web filters, online time limits and alerts when an inappropriate website is visited. Network security tools scan all connected devices, block known ransomware and malicious links, and send alerts when a vulnerability is detected.
The Roamii system can be managed via the mobile app or with a web console. The first opens to a dashboard screen that’s packed with information, including a network map, upload and download speeds, a QR code that makes it easy to share Wi-Fi credentials, and separate panels for IOT, child, and guest networks. Each of these panels has a power button that allows you to enable or disable the specific network. When you tap the panel, you can change the security and access settings for the network. By tapping any node on the network map, you can see which devices are connected and what the average upload and download speeds are for that node.
At the bottom of the screen are the Dashboard, Security, Parental Controls and Advanced Settings buttons. The first takes you back to the dashboard, wherever you are in the app, and the Security button opens a screen where you can request a scan of all devices, see which devices are online, view device vulnerabilities and blocked attacks, view threats. and ransomware attempts. The Parental Controls button opens a screen where you can create user profiles, assign web filters, view blocked website attempts, check network restriction status, and see how many inappropriate apps have been used for each user.
Advanced settings include Wi-Fi and LAN settings, IPTV/LAN options, VPN server settings, system management tools, LED management, and a link to the web console.
Installation and configuration: Mesh without the hassle
Installation was easy. I downloaded the app, tapped “Get Started,” and used my phone’s camera to scan a QR code taped to the back of the node. I followed the instructions to connect the LAN cable to my modem and to the 2.5GbE port on the node, connected my desktop PC to a 1GbE LAN port on the node and turned everything on.
When the LED started flashing blue, I tapped Next and connected my phone to the Roamii’s Wi-Fi. The app found the router right away, so I gave it a location and tap Connect. I had to manually connect my phone to the router’s SSID and enter the password, select DHCP as my connection type, and create an administrator account and password.
Then I confirmed the Wi-Fi SSID and password and tap Next to create the new network. After about a minute I was prompted to connect to the new network and add another node. I connected the satellite node and when the LED turned white it was automatically added to the network. After a quick firmware update, the installation was complete.
Testing the MSI Roamii BE Lite Mesh system
In our throughput performance tests, the Roamii BE Lite couldn’t keep up with our Editors’ Choice-winning Wi-Fi 7 mesh system, the TP-Link Deco BE63. This isn’t surprising, as it lacks several features you get with the Deco, such as a 6GHz band, support for 320MHz channels, and a 2.5GbE LAN connection on our testbed. (The Roamii system has a 2.5GbE port, but this is designated as a WAN connection.)
The Roamii router node scored 937 Mbps in the proximity test, while the TP-Link Deco BE63 router node scored 2,288 Mbps. In the 9-meter test, the Roamii router achieved 524 Mbps compared to the Deco’s 780 Mbps. The Roamii satellite node achieved 561 Mbps in the close-proximity test, while the TP-Link node achieved a score of 1,688 Mbps. At a distance of 9 meters, the Roamii node delivered 441 Mbps and the Deco BE63 node delivered 950 Mbps.
We test wireless signal strength using an Ekahau Sidekick 2 diagnostic device linked to the company’s Survey software. Together they generate a heat map that shows the WiFi signal strength throughout our test house. The circles on the heat map represent the router and node locations, and the colors represent signal strength. Dark green indicates the strongest signal, lighter yellow a weaker signal and gray indicates a very weak or no measurable signal. As the heat map shows, the Roamii system did a great job of providing strong WiFi signals throughout the home.
For the most part, the app worked as intended, but it should be noted that it generally took over a minute for any settings changes to take effect, and the app would occasionally close and restart.
Verdict: Wi-Fi 7 is not quite at level 11 yet
With the MSI Roamii BE Lite you get a reasonably priced Wi-Fi 7 mesh system that delivers excellent signal coverage and comes with free parental control and network security software. What you don’t get are 6GHz transmissions, 320MHz channel bandwidth and multi-gig LAN, all of which are necessary for the kind of great Wi-Fi 7 performance you get with more expensive systems. If you want to take advantage of everything Wi-Fi 7 has to offer, our top pick remains the TP-Link Deco BE63, which offers significantly faster performance, as well as multi-gig LAN and USB connectivity. You can find it for about $100 more than the MSI kit.
