Luma Surround Wi-Fi System Reviewed

[thiggins]

The Luma Surround Wi-Fi System has some growing up to do.

Read on SmallNetBuilder

 

[whsbuss]

Great review. Have you looked into Open Mesh and UniFi AC ??

 

[TheLostSwede]

Looks very broken in terms of Wi-Fi performance. I really, really wish companies would stop shipping products with half baked firmwares...

 

[thiggins]

Great review. Have you looked into Open Mesh and UniFi AC ??

No to both. Ubiquiti is in line before Open Mesh.

 

[NomadTech]

I see another potential problem. Port 5001 is used by Slingbox. It will conflict with Luma.

 

[whsbuss]

No to both. Ubiquiti is in line before Open Mesh.

Okay - looking at the Ubiquiti forum seems lots of problems with their AC1900 AC Pro dropping packets and disconnects, particularly with apple devices.

 

[thiggins]

I had a good call with a Luma engineer and agreed to do more testing. Bottom line is I found the Intel STA was changing bands during testing. So I've removed Luma from the wireless charts for now and removed the results from the review. I'll update once I can get valid test runs.

BTW, I can't find a way to make the STA stay put. I tried the wireless mode, preferred band and roaming aggressiveness driver advanced settings and none work. I also installed the Intel PROset Wireless Connection Utility and created a profile allegedly enabling only a single band. But the STA still changes bands.

So I will need Luma to help me enable only one band at a time for testing.

 

[sfx2000]

I see another potential problem. Port 5001 is used by Slingbox. It will conflict with Luma.

That's also the default TCP/UDP ports for iperf (which Slingbox will conflict with)

 

[sfx2000]

I had a good call with a Luma engineer and agreed to do more testing. Bottom line is I found the Intel STA was changing bands during testing. So I've removed Luma from the wireless charts for now and removed the results from the review. I'll update once I can get valid test runs.

BTW, I can't find a way to make the STA stay put. I tried the wireless mode, preferred band and roaming aggressiveness driver advanced settings and none work. I also installed the Intel PROset Wireless Connection Utility and created a profile allegedly enabling only a single band. But the STA still changes bands.

So I will need Luma to help me enable only one band at a time for testing.

Hmmm... interesting - we can discuss this on the forums, or we can take it offline - pretty curious here as to what's going on...

(taking offline isn't intended to quash any discussion, mostly to reduce the noise factor)

 

[thiggins]

What specifically is interesting?

 

[sfx2000]

What specifically is interesting?

You're using the intel driver, which version? And just to confirm, you're still using the AC7260?

 

[sfx2000]

In the ProSET util, create a new profile for the WLAN, including the SSID/Credentials - then go into the Advanced Section of the ProSET utility, you should see an item for "Mandatory Access Point", and put the MAC address of the AP there... permitted values are the 0-9, and A-F

This used to work in the past to lock the NIC onto a specific AP within the associated BSS

And, since this is dual-band testing, you'll have to update the MAC address in the profile to test the other band.

 

[thiggins]

It's the AC 8260 and I have the ProSet utility loaded and see the setting.

Luma is working with me on workarounds right now. After we get tests done, I'll try your method. Thanks.

 

[theramenman]

I think startups will start to notice very quickly that unlike other markets, consumer wifi isn't nearly as easy to disrupt. Most of the solutions coming out of new trendy companies selling mesh products seem underbaked or broke in some manner, overpriced and just perform worse than expected. Hopefully they smooth things out as I really do like the idea of just having to tell grandma to buy a few eeros or lumas or w.e. and spread them throughout her house so she doesn't have to worry about strategically placing the router so "the wifies dont die".

 

[whsbuss]

I think startups will start to notice very quickly that unlike other markets, wifi isn't nearly as easy to disrupt. Most of the solutions coming out of new trendy companies selling mesh products seem underbaked or broke in some manner, overpriced and just perform worse than expected. Hopefully they smooth things out as I really do like the idea of just having to tell grandma to buy a few eeros or lumas or w.e. and spread them throughout her house so she doesn't have to worry about strategically placing the router so "the wifies dont die".

Or tell grandma to buy the new AmpliFi - Ubiquiti's enterprise experience will shake up the startups in the soho space.

 

[sfx2000]

Or tell grandma to buy the new AmpliFi - Ubiquiti's enterprise experience will shake up the startups in the soho space.

The vendors in the small/medium enterprise space have similar challenges that the startups have when going into the consumer space - between the ramp up to support that class of customer/user base and the basic issue with retail and shelf space, it's a very different business model. It's not a technical issue, it's a business issue...

Not the first time that SME vendors have tried - this tends to happen from time to time...

 

[whsbuss]

The vendors in the small/medium enterprise space have similar challenges that the startups have when going into the consumer space - between the ramp up to support that class of customer/user base and the basic issue with retail and shelf space, it's a very different business model. It's not a technical issue, it's a business issue...

Not the first time that SME vendors have tried - this tends to happen from time to time...

Yep I agree. But some (not all) startups and more interested in the business model and not the engineering side. You need a balance of both.

 

[thiggins]

Both Luma and eero have been retested and results posted.
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tool..._4-ghz-profile-dn/2563-eero-a010001/2706-luma

Thanks to SFX' suggestion and help from Luma, I was able to keep the Intel STA on the intended band for the entire test run. I was also able to limit the STA to 20 MHz B/W in 2.4 GHz. So now the products are fairly compared.

The short story is performance is similar for downlink on both bands. Advantage goes to eero for uplink on both bands.

Luma review will be updated tomorrow.

 

[thiggins]

Updated review posted.

 

[sfx2000]

Updated review posted.

indeed - credit accepted...

"A helpful reader also tipped me to the Mandatory Access Point advanced properties in the Intel PROset Wi-Fi utility that I was able to use to ensure the client would not change bands for another eero retest."