QoS or Quality of Service to use its longer name, is a feature on routers that prioritizes data from one connected device over the others. Normally, all traffic is treated equally on your network, so all the devices connected to your network get a very similar amount of speed. If you have a slower connection or want the smoothest possible experience, enabling QoS will ensure that data reaches your most important devices first.

Whether it’s for gaming, streaming, or working from home, quality of service can keep your most important connections running smoothly, regardless of how much internet your family is using. For example, if you’ve got to finish up a Zoom presentation for work, your presentation continues to look clear and sharp, even if your kids are in the next room streaming Disney+, downloading a new video game, or scrolling through social media at incredible speed. That is, as long as you’ve prioritized your work computer with QoS.

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What is QoS on your router?

Think of it as HOV or toll roads for your most important data

All the connected devices in your home share a single internet connection, which leaves it up to the router to make sure data is going exactly where it needs to. Your data is broken up into small packets of data which are sent out one at a time and are normally lined up in a first come, first served manner. The best Wi-Fi routers can handle dozens of connections at once without any trouble, but as we continue to add more connected devices to our homes and the queue gets longer, treating all web traffic equally doesn’t quite make sense.

One popular use for QoS is in gaming routers. These routers either prioritize gaming systems or recognize gaming connections to make sure those connections are always first in line. In online gaming, latency, also known as ping, is the amount of time it takes for your input to reach the server. While the majority of your latency lies outside your local network, shaving off a few milliseconds at home can still help.

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More importantly, though, a QoS can make sure your latency is consistent. As explained by 343 Industries following the rocky launch of Halo Infinite, many game servers can compensate for this lag to a degree, and having a consistent connection can help prevent high latency spikes that cause weird behavior in the game, desync, or disconnections. Most of the time, other users in your home won’t notice a small increase in ping from a QoS since a few milliseconds here, and there are easily absorbed by buffering in video playback or by optimizations in social media apps.

Many routers also allow streaming optimization, which aims to minimize buffering by providing a consistent flow of data to your streaming device. It can also help prevent video quality from dipping and getting blurry in the middle of a movie. Unfortunately, video quality can still be low during peak times due to the provider’s servers, but removing bottlenecks from your local network gives you the best chance of a faultless experience.

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How to find the QoS settings on your router

It's time to find your router's manual

QoS settings on an ASUS ROG Rapture router
The ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AXE16000 allows for QoS prioritization based on several categories.

If you’re looking to set up QoS on your router, your experience will depend on the type you have. Many modern routers, such as the best mesh Wi-Fi systems, will have a very streamlined QoS feature. For example, on an AmpliFi system, you can set a device as normal, streaming, or gaming, with the highest priority given to gaming. Some other systems may allow you to simply mark a device as priority. And finally, Eero uses what it calls Smart Queue Management to automatically prioritize, or rather, deprioritize connections such as large backups or downloads, so you can keep streaming or gaming.

This is known as an Adaptive QoS because it doesn’t place any hard limits on the speed available to each device. This is preferable for most users since it allows all of your devices to use all of your internet speed if it’s available. While you may want your PC backup to take a back seat while you’re streaming, you want it to go full speed when nothing else is using the network.

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In your router’s settings, QoS could be its own option or could be part of your device list. The best gaming routers, such as those from Asus ROG, might put it under a specific gaming section. If you're a competitive gamer, the margins between winning and losing an encounter can be very fine, so every packet matters. Finally, some gaming routers may even have an Ethernet port marked specifically for gaming, which is already prioritized.

A traditional QoS may also be available. This is more of a bandwidth limiter in which you set the maximum speed available to devices. This allows you to make sure there’s always some speed left over. In order to set this, you’ll need to conduct a speed test to get a good idea of how much speed you actually have to spare. While you might expect to get every megabit you pay your ISP for, the reality is you will probably come in a bit under. Many routers have a built-in speed test to help you set up your QoS.

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Should you just upgrade your internet?

QoS won't help much if your internet package is slow

Internet speed test on Galaxy phone home internet

While QoS can be essential for making the most of a slower internet connection, there’s more to it than that. Even a fast gigabit connection can get bogged down with multiple devices trying to download all at once. Even so, a faster connection will give you more overhead if your family is starting to use the internet more, such as migrating from cable TV to internet-based TV like YouTube TV. Also, if you’re a gamer, you’ve likely noticed that new games are bigger than ever, so your older entry-level internet package may be struggling to keep up.

Also, if you like to stream to Twitch or YouTube, and you’re constantly dropping frames, you may need faster upload speeds. While fiber and 5G-based internet often have plenty of upload speed compared to download, some cable packages are much slower.

For example, Xfinity’s gigabit plan upload speed (in my area) is a miserable 20Mbps (upgradeable to 35Mbps), which will struggle to keep up with a 1080p 60fps stream and online gaming at once. If at all possible, switch to a fiber provider, as those typically have symmetrical speeds, meaning upload speeds are a match for download speeds. Fiber internet also tends to have lower pings in general compared to cable or 5G.

QoS will make your home LAN better for all the devices on it

Before QoS was invented, the hungriest apps and devices took as much bandwidth as they wanted, and the rest of the network suffered. That's why you'd lag in online games if someone else started streaming video or downloading files, plus internet speeds were much slower back then. With faster internet, more users can download higher amounts of data at the same time, but only with QoS optimizing the flow of data will they all get a consistent experience.