Portal Goes Mesh

[thiggins]

Ignition Design Labs announced its PORTAL router now supports mesh Wi-Fi.

IDL said its "enterprise-grade" Mesh 2.0 "dynamic smart mesh" technology "consistently outperformed first generation static-Mesh solutions, such as Eero and Luma, with up to 10x faster speed, 4x greater coverage and 3x lower gaming lag".

Portal is a QCA-based AC2350 / 2400 MU-MIMO enabled router with a dedicated radio module and cloud service that enables "zero wait" DFS channel switching.

This announcement makes Portal the only Wi-Fi mesh system supporting DFS channels and the only with 4x4 802.11ac radios connecting to client devices. NETGEAR's Orbi has a dedicated 5 GHz 4x4 backhaul radio that does not support DFS channels.

The PORTAL Twin Pack is currently in stock at Amazon for $319, with a single PORTAL on sale for $180, down from its normal $199.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Looking forward to seeing you prove them right/wrong

 

[thiggins]

They have offered to send me product multiple times. I was waiting for working mesh firmware. So should be getting product soon. Can't promise review will post before I head to CES, though .

 

[sm00thpapa]

Glad I held off of this mesh system / Orbi stuff as I see many other companies coming into the mesh arena.

 

[DanH]

Yeah I'd be interested in seeing how this fares compared to the orbi.

 

[thiggins]

Yeah I'd be interested in seeing how this fares compared to the orbi.

With dedicated 4x4 backhaul on Orbi vs. shared on Portal, my money is on Orbi. 4x4 for clients provides little to no throughput advantage for most devices.

 

[DanH]

With dedicated 4x4 backhaul on Orbi vs. shared on Portal, my money is on Orbi. 4x4 for clients provides little to no throughput advantage for most devices.

That makes me feel better, thanks!

Ed note: The Intel Puma 6 question and related posts have been moved here.

 

[DanH]

We are off topic - but the Puma 6 mention is something anybody should note - once the mob gets into a frenzy, there's little chance of getting a good solution, as the product will always be suspect... even if the product is not at fault.

except this mob is running the appropriate tests, and it doesn't look like the issue is fixed , but yes we are off topic.

back on topic, I am interested to see how this marketing speak pans out in tests:

"FastLanes™ – Patented multi-channel, zero-wait DFS technology that provides access to multiple uncrowded fast channels in the radar-protected portions of the 5GHz spectrum, yielding between 3x and 5x more wireless capacity than conventional retail routers today"

 

[thiggins]

"FastLanes™ – Patented multi-channel, zero-wait DFS technology that provides access to multiple uncrowded fast channels in the radar-protected portions of the 5GHz spectrum, yielding between 3x and 5x more wireless capacity than conventional retail routers today"

This just refers to the fact that the ability to access mostly unused channels via DFS is an advantage.

 

[sfx2000]

This just refers to the fact that the ability to access mostly unused channels via DFS is an advantage.

Some vendors do avoid the DFS channels, as testing is long and complex, and costly as a result - the DFS itself is normally controlled by the RTOS in the WiFi chipset, and normally this is a flag to enable/disable.

QC-Atheros has done some nice work with regards to DFS on their 11ac chipsets, esp. the Wave2 capable ones - probably anticipating the rollout of VHT160, which in many regulatory domains, may require some level of DFS anyways.

 

[sfx2000]

With dedicated 4x4 backhaul on Orbi vs. shared on Portal, my money is on Orbi. 4x4 for clients provides little to no throughput advantage for most devices.

Esp. these days with smartphones/tablets - there's still an advantage to be had with 4*4:4 on the AP side - where diversity in both the analog RF band, along with pre-coding in the digital domain can help out quite a bit...

Saw that Intel has rolled MU into their AC82** series chips - would be interesting to see how well they play compared to QC-Atheros..

 

[onedollarinmywallet]

Hi, just wondering if you had a chance to review the Portal? I've been using one (was one of the early bird Kickstarter supporters) but from my experience so far, it's very much a "version 1.0" product in terms of features in their firmware and I'm running mine in "AP Mode" (or what they call bridge mode) since I'm using my ASUS RT-AC68U as the primary router. At least Portal seems to be refining and updating their firmware fairly often (on a monthly basis from what I can tell).

 

[thiggins]

Review should be up next week.