Linksys Announces Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System

[Chairman007]

Hub & spoke, star ... whatever you call it in lieu of mesh, orbi rocks. I decided to keep my orbi's (2 sats) and am loving it. Download speeds are routinely rock solid exceeding my plan with the cable company. I tried the 3 velop set-up as well due to the CES hype, but ended up keeping orbi as it just plain works ... exceeding velop results consistently throughout the far corners of the home by over 10%. The hardware is in place ... just waiting for Netgear to upgrade firmware to enable the USB for example.

 

[pete y testing]

In almost every test I see, Orbi outperforms the competition.

its a bit unfair to compare orbi to the traditional mesh systems as they will never compare well , however they do afford better extended coverage with meshing the nodes where orbi is only router and sat

 

[sfx2000]

its a bit unfair to compare orbi to the traditional mesh systems as they will never compare well , however they do afford better extended coverage with meshing the nodes where orbi is only router and sat

Orbi's a clever implementation - not true mesh in the 802.11s scenario - but it works...

 

[Chairman007]

Agree regarding orbi. In terms of mesh & extended coverage, as I scan reddit's sites for eero, google wifi, etc., most of the home sizes do not really appear to need the coverage that mesh extends. Plus there is something to be said of simplicity in providing solid coverage with 1 orbi router & satellite as opposed to 3 of the other mesh nodes. As sfx2000 indicated, it works, even though it's not a true mesh. Most consumers are likely looking for something that simply works. I tried the others including luma, eero, velop and orbi just blasts solid wifi without the buffering issues you read with some of these others. Re: true mesh, I read somewhere that it was something Netgear was considering applying to orbi as well.

 

[pete y testing]

Dong is incorrect. My test STA associated to both low and high bands during testing. There is no dedicated 5 GHz backhaul.

seems to be quite some confusion on this as trustedreviews also think its dedicated backhaul

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/linksys-velop-wifi-extender-is-a-netgear-orbi-alternative

maybe the linksys advertising blurb is incorrect

 

[pege63]

Yes some confusion is the right word, yesterday i saw a demomstration off Linksys Velop, there the dude said that it has 1x2.5GHz and 2x5GHz band there one off the 5GHz was backhaul.
Where one band was dedicated to 5GHz for communication between the nodes and that as long as the nodes could communicate between each other, it should work. The nodes did not needed to be connected to the router, as long they could communicate between each other.
On the package it says AC 6600, that would mean 2200 between each node x 3.
And he does not mention what the 2.5GHz band or the two 5GHz bands give out.
Small price at 700USD for 3 pack!
So the question is now, true or false?

 

[pete y testing]

So the question is now, true or false?

well tim suggested he could connect to both lower and upper 5 gig bands meaning one is not dedicated to the backhaul

i have attempted to contact linksys to ask the question but little response so far , plus im still confused why those 2.4 gig transmissions are hidden in the inssider graph as it suggests something different as the dedicated backhaul in the orbi is hidden

would be nice if a linksys rep could clear this up for us

 

[pege63]

Yes, i agree i wanted to ask the guy about the backhaul but there was packed with ppl and could not ask the 1 and only right question is there a backhaul and how fast is it (2200)?

And as he said: It makes Linksys Velop an extraordinary interesting alternative, as it uses the same format as Google Wifi. Velop is a tri-band router (2.4 GHz and dual 5GHz) with a maximum capacity of 2200 Mbit/s, which is both a router, wifi extender with mesh technology and wireless network bridge. It simply assume automatically the role that you plug it in as.

Linksys is quite secretive with how the system distributes traffic and how the devices communicate with each other - they just say that they use "advanced algorithms" to "optimize the flow of traffic" and other similar and quite useless buzzwords.

 

[Chairman007]

For sure, the original intro about the product on SNB at CES timing will then need to be revised as even it indicates dedicated 5 GHZ for backhaul.

 

[dunkin]

Just read the review. I'm surprised at its performance. I read an MacWorld article earlier. It seems work well in the MacWorld test. Just digged out the article: http://www.macworld.com/article/315...of-the-best-mesh-network-systems-to-date.html

Is it possible that the devices smallnetbuilder tested are defective, or need some special settings to enable the 3rd band backhaule?

 

[sfx2000]

Linksys is quite secretive with how the system distributes traffic and how the devices communicate with each other - they just say that they use "advanced algorithms" to "optimize the flow of traffic" and other similar and quite useless buzzwords.

Like the WRT's - which are ODM'ed, Linksys may have outsourced the Velop's to a third party - in any event, it's most QCA's tech inside that makes the special sauce work.

 

[thiggins]

For sure, the original intro about the product on SNB at CES timing will then need to be revised as even it indicates dedicated 5 GHZ for backhaul.

Done. The article also incorrectly stated eero has a dedicated 5 GHz backhaul radio. It doesn't. It used to have a shared 2.4/5 GHz and separate 5 GHz only radio. But eero has removed components to make the shared 2.4/5 radio 2.4 only.

 

[thiggins]

Just read the review. I'm surprised at its performance. I read an MacWorld article earlier. It seems work well in the MacWorld test. Just digged out the article: http://www.macworld.com/article/315...of-the-best-mesh-network-systems-to-date.html

Is it possible that the devices smallnetbuilder tested are defective, or need some special settings to enable the 3rd band backhaule?

It's possible, but unlikely that I had defective Velops. At any rate Linksys hasn't offered that as an explanation for the poor backhaul performance I saw. Instead, they suggested nodes were place too far apart.

This is certainly possible and the Kitchen node's light alternated between solid blue ("Node is working great") and solid yellow ("Note is too far away..."). But the Living room node's light was always solid blue and that node has only 20 Mbps backhaul.

My test method doesn't attempt to optimize node placement for optimum throughput. Instead, the locations are chosen to ensure the middle node sees a mid-range signal from the root node and the third node can't see the root node at all in 5 GHz and just barely in 2.4 GHz. The third node placement is intended to ensure that clients connected to it will travel two hops back to the base node, so that backhaul management / optimization is part of the test.

 

[thiggins]

pege and pete: What are you going to believe, advertising copy or test results? I have asked Linksys to clarify whether there is a dedicated backhaul radio.

I also don't know if you missed it, but the review stated that there is no cloud service involved in managing backhaul. I suspect the process is fairly simple and not very dynamic. And, at least by my test results, not very intelligent.

 

[pete y testing]

tim , not saying i dont believe you , im saying there is a lot of confusion on the market as to what this actually does as with page i have read quite a few other reviews who all stated its dedicated backhaul , seems some of these other so called reviews havnt put in the work and are just repeating whatever blurb they have been fed and in turn misleading their readers

they suggested nodes were place too far apart.

so if this was the case it would suggest you would need more nodes for the velop system than any other system you have tested although having the same hardware as others that would suggest their firmware or algorithms are not up to speed

still wonder what those hidden 2.4 gig transmissions are in the inssider graph

 

[NPMan]

Sorry for the noob question, I couldn't quite figure it out from the review. If I don't want to use the wifi backhaul, but instead want to connect each node to ethernet. Would the Velop then be better, would speeds improve?

Seems like a waste of frequencies/bandwidth to send everything back over air, when you have ethernet available. I was looking at the Orbi, but thought the Velop would be better because of the ethernet option.

 

[thiggins]

Velop supports Ethernet backhaul. It was mentioned in the review.

The point of these systems is to help the majority of Wi-Fi users who DON'T have Ethernet available to improve Wi-Fi range and throughput. They should also help buyers like you, who DO have Ethernet to more easily install and manage a multi-AP system.

 

[NPMan]

Velop supports Ethernet backhaul. It was mentioned in the review.

The point of these systems is to help the majority of Wi-Fi users who DON'T have Ethernet available to improve Wi-Fi range and throughput. They should also help buyers like you, who DO have Ethernet to more easily install and manage a multi-AP system.

OK, thanks. So the low speeds should definitely improve when using Ethernet then? You didn't happen to test that, by any chance?

 

[michael814]

still wonder what those hidden 2.4 gig transmissions are in the inssider graph

I asked about this a week or two ago and was told by Linksys that the hidden 2.4ghz networks are used for nodes to communicate configuration updates to each other.

 

[Pericynthion]

So purely for your own interest Tim, I'm currently working an issue with Velop support - although it shouldn't really affect your review, you might be interested to see what is 'under the hood' although not currently exposed in the admin UI.

Go to http://192.168.1.1
Click on the 'Velop' word logo (directly above the 'you must use the app' dialog)
Login using the local admin password
click on the 'CA' link (bottom of the page , next to the link for '3rd party licenses)

Theres a whole heap of extra functionality in there (ability to change DHCP info etc, support for dynami RIP routing etc) - as I say obviously outside the scope of what an end-user would experience, but thought it might interest you to poke around.

On the backhaul conversation there are clearly 2 x 5Ghz radios in there , but its not clear if either is dedicated for this purposes - they just look like 2 radios (one with low channels, and one with high channel support)