Panel APs, distributed routing, power lines, dual-band wireless
Domestic decoration companies generally do a very poor job in terms of weak current, I have helped many friends connect the network in their new houses, most of the network panels are just installed, and there is no wiring in them at all, on the grounds that the water and electricity master will not. In this environment, the weak current design during decoration can only be solved by yourself, if it is not done well during decoration, it will only rely on WiFi without network cables in the later stage. Probably for this reason, in the past two years, the MESH system that was originally only used for commercial use has become a hot spot, and the AC+AP solution is also ready to move, and of course, there are many products that seem to be Mesh or AC+AP solutions, which makes many people at a loss.
My house is a gourd apartment type: the middle area is a narrow corridor, stairwell and bathroom, and the two ends are activity areas. This is a typical layout that is not conducive to WiFi coverage, but fortunately, the developer reserved network cables for most rooms, so they did not consider the Mesh system at that time, but chose panel APs for network coverage.
This is the weak current box hidden in the shoe cabinet in the corridor on the first floor, and you can see that the original developer left a lot of wires, network cables, telephone lines, CCTV cables, security lines, etc. are very complete, but except for the network cable, other cables are basically not used. I have too many devices that directly occupy this whole shoe cabinet, optical cats, routers and 5-port PoE switches are all wall-mounted, and two WD MYCLOUD simple NAS are also placed here.
The powerful Netgear R7000P is enough to cover the first floor area, and TP-LINK’s PoE power supply panel APs are used to handle the WiFi on the second and third floors. These panels also have 2 LAN ports, so the desktop in the two study rooms and the HD player in the audio-visual room are connected to the network cable.
This set of equipment covers the main area of the home very well, but the signal of the panel AP is really weak, you can only get the corresponding room, the wall is basically over, the WIFI signal in the bathroom area on the second and third floors is basically non-existent, and seamless roaming can’t be counted on.
1. Introduction of four sets of panel AP, Mesh, power line, and dual-band wireless equipment
I know that Mesh will not be suitable for my family, but I have always been a little obsessed with Mesh, so I often recommend it to my friends, and finally some friends couldn’t help but start and agreed to lend me a test. In the past half month of testing, other friends have actually made two other sets of similar equipment, so there is finally this horizontal review of the four sets of equipment.
1. TP-LINK panel AP plus PoE switch
AP plus switch is the most traditional network structure, and the AP and the switch are connected by network cables, as long as the network cable can be extended to the area, the AP can be used to achieve WiFi coverage.
TP-LINK’s panel AP comes out in many models, which can be installed directly on the 86 bottom box, providing WiFi signal and also comes with a network cable interface, the number of interfaces is 1, 2 and 4 options, I bought a product with 2 interfaces.
Behind it is a standard RJ45 interface, which is directly powered through the network cable and must be used with a switch or router that supports PoE power supply, which will naturally be equipped with a higher power supply. In terms of simplicity after installation, this is the highest of all devices. However, TP-link’s panel AP has a lot of strange products, such as 900M or even 1300M WiFi with 100M network cable port, the first panel I bought was unfortunately tricked, and now it is installed in the bedroom on the third floor only for mobile phones and iPads to surf the Internet.
The other three sets of distributed routing devices are placed independently, so they need an external power supply, which is definitely not as simple as panel APs, but they can be made more beautiful by working on the appearance.
The biggest difference between Mesh and traditional solutions is that it connects nodes through WiFi signals, and the nodes are also connected to each other, so they have strong self-healing: when one of the nodes fails, the signal can continue to be transmitted and covered through the surrounding nodes. The wireless coverage of large areas and self-healing properties have made Mesh very popular in commercial settings, but it did not start in the home field for a long time.
2. Netgear Orbi RBK50/RBK53
Netgear is the first brand to propose a wireless routing system, attaches great importance to Mesh products, and has made a separate Orbi brand to make Mesh products, RBK50 and RBK53 are actually the same equipment, but the number of extensions is different.
The main unit and extension of this device have exactly the same shape, the only difference is that the main unit uses a blue top cover, while the extension uses a white top cover.
The models of the host and extension are RBR50 and RBS50 respectively, which is also the only one of the three wireless devices that distinguishes between the host and the extension.
The interface behind it is also slightly different, the host has a yellow WAN port and three LAN ports, while the extension four are all LAN. In addition, the host and extension have USB interfaces, can be inserted into a USB flash drive for data sharing, of course, a better use is to connect to the printer to achieve network printing, data sharing I still prefer to buy a dedicated NAS.
3. Huawei routing Q2
Huawei Routing Q2 has a similar appearance to Orbi, the same oval cylindrical shape and floating top cover, but the soft curve is removed to become a straight type, which is somewhat “borrowed”.
The Q2 I borrowed is the flagship version of the three-mother equipment, and the three machines are all WS5280 models, and there is also a mother-and-child version from the official website. The parent router is connected through a hybrid method of power line + WiFi, while the sub-router is only connected through a power line, which is not a Mesh product, but it is still a bit similar in appearance.
There is a very conspicuous button on the front of the router, which is used in conjunction with Huawei’s smart home products, and it is clear that Huawei wants to promote its smart home platform.
Because the three machines are the same, there will naturally be no interface differences behind them.
The first time you see this network interface, it will feel strange, there is no distinction between WAN and LAN, but directly written WAN/LAN, which is automatically and dynamically recognized. In addition, the power supply part is also a direct 220V power supply, which is also the reason for the transmission signal of the power line.
4. Honor distributed routing
Honor actually did not have a model for this set of routing products, it was directly called Honor Distributed Routing.
There are also three machines, and the main engine in the middle is pasted with a sticker.
The self-adhesive says that it is configured from this machine, and it is naturally considered a host.
However, when I turned over the models, I found that the three machines were actually the same model: HiRouter-CD20.
The interface processing behind is also the same as Huawei Q2, WAN/LAN is automatically recognized, but the power supply becomes the interface of the transformer, and this set of equipment does not support power line transmission.
5. Lighting of four sets of equipment
Before moving on to the official test, let’s talk about the lights that don’t matter.
The Honor only has a small light on the front, the Orbi has a circle of lights around the top floating cover, and Huawei has moved the light to the bottom to make a half circle. During the initialization process, both Huawei and Honor have red lights, while Orbi has white lights.
When connected to the network, the lights turn green, blue, and lake blue.
However, after three minutes of network connection, Orbi will automatically turn off the lights, while Huawei and Honor need to go into the mobile app setting software to turn it off. Orbi will be much more friendly for those who like to sleep in the dark, and those who like light pollution should prefer Huawei because it can be always on, while Orbi does not have this option.
When the signal of the extension is too weak to connect to the host, the Orbi’s lights will turn purple, while Huawei and Honor are red.
TP-LINK’s panel AP only has a solid white indicator, so there’s nothing more to say.
2. Comparison of setting interface and functions
Orbi comes with a USB port that can be used as a network print server and data sharing device, which is the only one in several sets of devices that has this function, but this part is not intended to talk about this, but some of their functions as network devices. Because in addition to the panel AP, all three sets of devices not only exist as WiFi coverage devices, but also have the function of routers, how to integrate with other network devices in the home is very important.
Orbi’s settings page is exactly the same as that of traditional Netgear routers, supporting web page management and APP management. It has all the functions that a router should have, plus it has the largest number of LAN interfaces, making it the most suitable router among the three sets of equipment. It can also be set to AP mode to integrate into the original network system, turning it into a set of devices that simply perform WiFi coverage.
The only difference from traditional routers is the addition of the function of pairing extensions, which can be completed in two steps according to the prompts, and the operation is relatively simple.
The setting logic of Huawei and Honor is a bit strange, after connecting to the computer, it is not allowed to enter the settings page, but must be initialized through the mobile APP, obviously to force this “Huawei Smart Home” APP. But from this 1.7-star rating, it can be expected that the later settings will be a bit of a headache.
Both sets of devices will appear in the device list after the configuration is completed, but you must connect to the corresponding WiFi to click on the corresponding device for management, which is logically no problem. So is there a way to integrate these two sets of equipment? The answer is no, use whichever set you choose.
The management interface of the two systems is basically the same, so I won’t take screenshots of each other, the above is the main management interface, more functions and more applications. It seems that there are many functions, but there are not many settings related to the ability of the router, and many settings have to rely on web pages to operate.
In the management interface, Honor has a dual-network and dual-pass icon, and Huawei Q2 is hybrid and mesh networking, but dual-network dual-pass refers to the WAN port settings, and the relevant setting information cannot be seen in the APP for hybrid and mesh networking.
In fact, Huawei Q2 also supports dual network and dual access, which is a very practical function if you have two broadband at home at the same time. But the problem is, the host of both sets of equipment only has 3 network interfaces, and the two ports are occupied by broadband, so how can only one port be enough? What’s even more troublesome is that neither device supports AP mode, and it can’t be done if you want it to only care about the WiFi part, you have to use them as the main network device.
After completing the initialization of the router on the APP, you can finally log in to the management interface on the page, and the interface of the same two sets of devices is the same. The management interface is relatively simple, I can’t even find a place to add extensions, and no matter how many extensions there are, they will be integrated into “My Router”.
However, the good news is that in terms of Internet access methods, it was found that the Honor distributed router supports AP mode, but Huawei Q2 does not.
Another good news is that after turning off the 5G preferred function, Huawei and Honor’s two sets of devices can be named 2.4G and 5G respectively, while Orbi has not found relevant settings and can only use a one-use SSID. In most cases, this feature is useless, but very few smart home devices must provide an SSID with only 2.4G WiFi, otherwise they will not be able to connect to the Internet.
As mentioned earlier, the Huawei Q2 is a hybrid mode of powerline plus WiFi and extension connection, while the Honor only has WiFi connection. The WiFi part is obviously called “Zhilian Settings”, but there is a clear difference in the setting interface: Huawei Q2 can set a password while Honor does not have a corresponding option, which is confusing.
Huawei Q2 relative to glory is mainly this power line setting, to put it bluntly, it is to load the network signal on the wire at home for transmission, many years ago I used TP-LINK’s power cat product, the experience at that time was not good, how Huawei products this time depends on the later test.
Comparison of some advanced features
The basic features and settings mentioned earlier will be compared to the advanced features of these devices, which are the advanced features that make the WiFi experience better.
The image above shows the options in the Orbi settings page, where you can see several advanced features: dedicated backhaul, daisy-chained topology, Beamforming+, MU-MIMO, fast roaming, etc.
Dedicated backhaul only refers to Orbi supporting tri-band WiFi, two sets of 2X2 are specially used to connect clients, and a set of 4X4 5G signals are specially used for communication between masters and extensions, with a total bandwidth of 3000Mbps, while the other two sets only support dual-band, with a total bandwidth of 1167Mbps, which is difficult to load the entire traffic when transmitting high-traffic data.
Huawei Q2, which has only 1167Mbps wireless bandwidth, uses powerline data transmission as one of the backhaul channels, claiming to support 1G bandwidth, but actual tests are usually discounted.
Beamforming technology simply means to make the wireless signal directional, enhance the signal in the client direction, and improve greatly when the signal is weak over long distances, and Orbi is the only one of the four devices that supports this feature.
MIMO is to transmit data on multiple antennas, such as a 3-antenna router and a 3-antenna computer connection, which can be three times faster than a single antenna. Before MU-MIMO, SU-MIMO was popular, that is, single-user MIMO, which is a mode in which the router is connected to multiple devices at the same time, but can only transmit data to one device at the same time, and each device is queued in turn. If all devices can be at full speed like a router, this mode is not a downside, but if there are devices with low speeds, the entire network speed will be dragged down by them. MU-MIMO, on the other hand, can communicate with multiple devices at the same time to make full use of bandwidth.
Fast roaming is a technology that various network equipment companies avoid talking about in detail, large companies have basically developed their own fast roaming technology, but most of them are only used in commercial products, Mesh products may be the first to introduce this technology to home equipment, but not all Mesh products will add this technology. ORBI obviously uses its own fast roaming technology. Honor uses the standard 802.11v, which mainly provides a list of base stations, usually used with 802.11r to shorten roaming time and 802.11k to select base stations, but the product introduction does not mention the other two technologies. The Huawei Q2 did not mention specifications related to seamless roaming or fast roaming.
People often mention AC+AP wireless roaming, but in fact, it is only effective for AC+APs that support wireless roaming, and low-end panel APs like TP-LINK do not support these functions. The method used by low-end devices is to set a threshold to prohibit low-signal clients from accessing, and at the same time kick out low-signal clients and force clients to re-select APs with strong signals. The premise of this is that the coverage of the AP must start to overlap in the high-signal area, otherwise there will be a dilemma of being kicked on one side and not being able to connect to the other. On the other hand, these APs do not support fast roaming technology, let alone 802.11kvr-related standards, all they can do is keep the phone from hanging on to a weak signal. Including the TP-LINK TL-AC300, which is rumored on the Internet, its function is only to manage up to 300 APs in a unified manner, adjust frequency bands, and dynamically adjust the balance of AP load, but does not improve the roaming situation.
Finally, let’s summarize the functional differences of several sets of equipment.
3. Performance testing
Test equipment
The test equipment was mainly my desktop and laptop, as well as my family’s original network equipment.
My laptop only has WIFI, so I equipped it with a TYPE-C USB Gigabit network card.
In addition to computers, two phones will be used: the iPhone X and the Xiaomi Mi 8.
Finally, in order to facilitate testing, H3C gigabit switches are also used. After introducing the test equipment, let’s start testing item by item.
1. LAN-WAN transmission rate
Nowadays, the speed of home broadband is getting faster and faster, for example, Chengdu has basically popularized 300M optical fiber into the home, and many old routers have weak LAN-WAN transmission performance and cannot play the advantage of broadband, so it is necessary to conduct this test. The test method is relatively simple: the notebook is connected to the LAN port of the tested router through the network cable, and the desktop under the same switch is accessed through the WAN port.
The test software is still iperf3, but I made a graph to make the data more intuitive. Unexpectedly, Honor is the fastest transmission speed among the three devices, basically running the limit of the USB network card, while Orbi only reaches about 550M, and Huawei Q2 only reaches about 500M.
This test also confirms my previous fears: we don’t need to worry until the broadband speed at home exceeds 500M, but it may not be far away. If that day comes, the most practical way is to let the mesh or AP only be responsible for WiFi, that is, buy a wired router to connect all the devices in the weak current box, and connect the mesh or AP package to this main router. However, Huawei Q2 does not support bridge mode and cannot be integrated into other systems.
2. WiFi transmission rate
Connect the computer to the router under test, and the laptop is connected to the router via WiFi, which is closest to the limit of WiFi data transmission.
In the final test, I found that Orbi has a clear advantage in speed, and the WiFi speed gap between the other three devices is not too big.
2. WiFi signal coverage and speed
在进行全屋WiFi覆盖效果的测试前，我想先测试一下每套系统单个设备的信号强度情况。
TP-LINK’s panel has complained before, the signal is very weak, and you basically can’t access the Internet after leaving the room.
Orbi’s 5G signal coverage is not as strong as 2.4G.
Judging from the chart, the signal coverage of Huawei Q2 is the best, but the actual link speed and stability still need to be tested.
The signal of glory is similar to that of Orbi.
In this test, all four WiFi sources were in position A, and I measured the actual network speed in position B and position C.
Overall, Orbi and Huawei Q2 performed more stable, while Honor’s network speed in the C position dropped much more. As for the panel AP, I won’t mention it, it can’t be separated from the wall at all, and there will be no signal when I leave the room, otherwise I wouldn’t add an extra panel AP to the audio-visual room.
3. The wireless connection rate between the main extensions
This test was performed again on my desk, with the host on the right side of the desk and the extension on the left side of the desk.
The laptop is connected to the extension with a network cable, and the desktop is connected to the host, which is basically the speed limit between the host and the extension.
The Orbi’s transmission speed exceeds 400Mbps, which basically reaches the limit of single-line speed, while Huawei Q2 and Honor both have speeds below 300Mbps. Among them, the test of Huawei Q2 is particularly disappointing, with an 867Mbps 5G WiFi connection and a power line known as 1G, and the power supply is specially connected to the adjacent wall, which is far lower than Orbi’s wireless transmission.
4. Whole house coverage test
Finally, it was time to test the WiFi coverage effect of the whole house, although my house type was not conducive to the layout of one floor and one node, but each set only had three devices, and I could only test it like this.
All three hosts are put into the weak current box and connected to my home LAN through the switch, all of which use the routing mode.
The extension is placed on the countertop of the bathroom on the second floor.
The other extension is placed in the bathroom on the third floor. From the color of the lights, it can be seen that only Huawei Q2 still has a signal, because after the test is over, I have taken away the extension on the second floor, and the extension on the third floor cannot connect to the host signal on the first floor, so only the Huawei Q2 that passes through the power line still has a signal.
The layout is as shown in the figure, which is points A, B, and C.
On the web side of Huawei Q2, you can see the connection situation and connection speed of about 200Mbps.
Orbi’s admin page only shows good status, but not speed.
The signal of Honor’s device is obviously not as good as the previous two, and it often shows that the position is not good, and the connection is finally stable after adjusting the position angle many times.
1. The wireless connection rate between the main extensions
The first item is still to measure the wireless connection speed between the main extensions, but I can’t connect the computer to the LAN port of the router on the first floor, so it is all tested through the WAN port, and the LAN-WAN transmission rate of the three machines far exceeds the speed between the main extensions, and there will be no impact.
The measured data of the extensions on the second and third floors are shown in the table above. The wireless connection speed of Orbi on the second floor is far ahead, but the speed drops a lot after being transmitted to the third floor, and it seems that the attenuation of the WiFi signal on the floor is very serious, and the relative position interference on the second and third floors is also serious. The overall performance of Huawei Q2’s power line transmission is still a bit disappointing, but the signal on the third floor is actually stronger than the second floor, and it may have an advantage when there are more walls. The connection speed of Honor’s device is basically useless, if it is a jump, don’t think about it.
2. Roaming test
The coverage area of the panel AP is completely different from the other three, so I’ll take it out and test it separately to see how sad it is.
I only tested the roaming between the three APs on the second floor, the installation position is at the three points of A, B and C, the red line is the movement trajectory, the result of the test with the Xiaomi Mi 8 plus WiFi magic box. Walking around 4 times and losing packets 10 times, basically no roaming is left.
Finally, there is the roaming test of Netgear Orbi, Huawei Q2, and Honor, and the movement trajectory is shown in the red dot in the picture above, starting from the bedroom on the first floor, passing through the corridor to the bathroom on the third floor and then returning the same way. Originally, I wanted to use my mobile phone to record the live broadcast to see the delay, but I actually found that Orbi and Huawei Q2 basically do not lag, only Honor will often lag, so I finally chose the results of the WiFi magic box test.
After many tests, take the worst score as a comparison, and you will find strange things.
Orbi is relatively the most stable, all of which are roaming 4 times in one go, always connected to the 5G signal, in most cases will not drop packets, and the delay is mostly around 200-300ms.
Huawei Q2 roaming often skips the extension on the second floor, from the first floor directly to the third floor, or from the third floor directly to the first floor, but the overall Internet is still relatively stable, and lag is relatively rare. In good cases, the delay is not noticeable, but occasionally it will be disconnected for a few seconds as in the screenshot.
Honor can probably think from the previous test that the signal is not stable enough, and I feel that the cross-floor layout is still too loaded on it, whether it is packet drops or network speed cannot meet the requirements.
Test summary
1. Don’t have too much hope for panel APs, basically each panel can only manage one room, the signal in the bathroom and corridor light area is very weak, and it is very difficult to cover the whole house, let alone roaming. If you have high WiFi requirements, it is better to consider a ceiling AP replacement panel, which is a product designed for large-range coverage. But it must be noted: this is only a cheap solution, and this system can also provide a good experience by reasonably setting the threshold for AP access and rejection, but if you want to eliminate the latency caused by roaming, please choose a product that clearly supports fast roaming, which will be much more expensive.
2. If you plan to use distributed routing and pure Mesh products to achieve WiFi coverage, please choose a 3-band product with an exclusive transmission channel. Due to the limitations of the test conditions, the test items I did were relatively gentle, and the performance of the Orbi 4X4 channel was not fully squeezed, nor did it crush the glory of only 1167Mbps bandwidth, otherwise the comparison would be more obvious.
3. Mesh is just a networking method, if you want to have a perfect experience, you should also pay attention to the functions that come with Mesh products, just like low-end routers and high-end routers, the difference in function is still very obvious, Beamforming+, MU-MIMO, daisy chain (Daisy Chain Topology), fast roaming, etc. will only appear on high-end products.
4. Although Orbi’s Mesh system performance functions are very powerful among similar products, NAS, desktops and other devices that often transmit large amounts of data are still faster and more stable. NAS can be placed in a weak current box or TV cabinet, and the position of the desk must be determined during the design stage.
5. The actual speed of power line transmission in Huawei Q2 is disappointing, but it has a natural advantage in penetrating walls, and it is quite effective in certain situations.
