Tech Focus
Regular Contributor
@L&LD
Thank you very much for thorough information/sharing of your professional experience. I like the step by step progression/evolution of the home network. It's really entertaining to read (yes I'm a geek).
I must have come across wrong way. I actually do agree with your points and internally, I actually do not feel we contradict in anyway. My whole point of this little write up was to share my experience to those who are thinking like I was. The latest technology (WiFi 6) is ALWAYS better than older technology WiFi 5. Another point, I really learned during this whole process is throughput is the easiest number regular consumers including myself can conceptually understand, but not necessary equates to the daily experience. To me stability is #1 factor after going through multiple iteration of this process, and perhaps your latency equates/dictates stability. Because I finally understood that or knew it all the time, but finally accepted, I moved on to UniFi (or could have been any other well built WiFi 5 system).
Strangely, webpage loads faster and instantly on UniFi even on the area with slower throughput measure than my former AiMesh. So I guess it’s better latency but Ax11000 was gaming router so I assumed it had really good latency (maybe I had to turn something on).
But I needed some evidence. In network world, I think the evidence based practice is somewhat harder because home environment/requirements are so different. As I could never get numbers that I see on web, especially super high numbers, or numbers I see are ones that bottlenecked by ISP, so I decided to conduct my own in my home, so I know it applies to me.
The 5ft (next to router test) is for me to see the peak performance/throughput. It is the number many talks about. But again, I do agree it shouldn't be the number we care the most, but I cannot let it go!! On the validity of this type of test for those who do, including me, in my opinion is it is indeed the max practical throughput you can achieve. Imagine when one really needs more than let's say 30-50 Mbps. It's when we are transferring large files/data. Not during video streaming, music streaming, game playing. So 200 vs. 700 Mbps in a single client device, do we care? No. most of time we just don't. It's just number. But again if you are going off by the number, you might as well look at the largest. But besides that if one is transferring large file, it is reasonable to think come close to access point and try to get near max speed for that short period of time than trying to download large file in backyard.
So for me practical measurement would be:
1. Peak Performance - Next to each router/AP
2. Midrange Performance - X ft (this is really depends on the person's home) but probably 15-30 ft
3. Extreme range performance - Corner to corner of the home or yard i.e. wherever user plan to use the WiFi.
If I can stream 4K video, Plex flawlessly, it suffice for me to consider my daily use demand is met. For this, we need 25-50 Mbps at most. In fact, with mobile device like cell phone, I don't think 4K video is even needed so considering that, we are probably looking 10-20 Mbps.
Then, self satisfaction of seeing big number, we have the peak performance measurement. I know nobody but I care about the number in my family...
It's cool that you are using 160 MHz, and its amazing AVERAGE performance is 750 Mbps, not peak/close distance performance. Having said that, the number is still not beyond what I expected and I was more surprised to learn myself WiFi 5 can get that speed. On my Unifi AP, I get 800 Mbps with my MBP 15'' 2016, which has 3x3 MIMO but its WiFi 5. I won't deny WiFi 6 has performance gain, I measured 30% at 80 MHz, Intel claims 40% at 160 MHz. But practical gain I measured (I just didn't post on this forum), 15 ft next room, was 13 %, which is inline with Duckware's claim of 10% practical speed performance gain on WiFi 6. Basically, I am convinced (at least myself) worst case I lose is 10% performance on one device in my home for now if I were to search for new network system that was not WiFi 6. Then I came up with hypothesis/excuse to hunt for new network system. The hypothesis was AiMesh efficiency ranged 50-60% but we all know reported efficiency of network system due to overheads as you said are usually 50-70% so what if I could find stable, WiFi 5 system that is 60-70% efficient. That can actually close the gap of WiFi 6 connection. But not only that, it will actually boost all but one WiFI 6 client in my home network to see the speed boost. This is how I started searching for WiFi5 network system. It just turned out UniFi here.
Again, I do agree. Peak performance is just one measure. In fact, following a extract from my actual write up on my home page.
"Although 30% gain sounds decent, this test is not the best reflection of the real world use case scenario for the most because the majority of my Wifi use happens not next to the router but rather a bit away from it.
This is why I conducted the second test using iPhone 11 Pro and iPad Pro 11”. The test speed test were performed in the room next to where the router is and in between there is a wall. Once again, both are 2×2 MIMO devices with iPhone 11 Pro being WiFi 6 and the iPad Pro 11” being WiFi 5 device."
I just didn't put this part in here.
The main limitation of my test are twofolds in my opinion.
1. 2.4 GHz band: I didn't test this at all. Because with AiMesh setup at my home, this was conundrum and so unstable, I really didn't care (hence I got to 4 nodes for 3800 sqft) to get 5GHz coverage most of home. But I didn't know the issue until recently with UniFi 2.4 GHz band actually working. Also 2.4 GHz is the band according to SNB where WiFi6 currently shines.
2. Multi-device throughput: WiFi 6 sales point is indeed multiple device.
This is interesting topic of discussion on its own. Again, part of me say 3 is better than 2! But in reality, I never used the third band on my AiMesh setup because AiMesh did not allow the band to be part of smart connect. I tried to use it for separate SSID for forced 5 GHz network, but it didn't have expected performance (though I didn't tweak much other than activating it). Having said this, I think for the wireless mesh the third band can substantially improve throughout so long as it is stable.
Thank you for interesting reads!!!
Thank you very much for thorough information/sharing of your professional experience. I like the step by step progression/evolution of the home network. It's really entertaining to read (yes I'm a geek).
I must have come across wrong way. I actually do agree with your points and internally, I actually do not feel we contradict in anyway. My whole point of this little write up was to share my experience to those who are thinking like I was. The latest technology (WiFi 6) is ALWAYS better than older technology WiFi 5. Another point, I really learned during this whole process is throughput is the easiest number regular consumers including myself can conceptually understand, but not necessary equates to the daily experience. To me stability is #1 factor after going through multiple iteration of this process, and perhaps your latency equates/dictates stability. Because I finally understood that or knew it all the time, but finally accepted, I moved on to UniFi (or could have been any other well built WiFi 5 system).
Strangely, webpage loads faster and instantly on UniFi even on the area with slower throughput measure than my former AiMesh. So I guess it’s better latency but Ax11000 was gaming router so I assumed it had really good latency (maybe I had to turn something on).
But I needed some evidence. In network world, I think the evidence based practice is somewhat harder because home environment/requirements are so different. As I could never get numbers that I see on web, especially super high numbers, or numbers I see are ones that bottlenecked by ISP, so I decided to conduct my own in my home, so I know it applies to me.
The 5ft (next to router test) is for me to see the peak performance/throughput. It is the number many talks about. But again, I do agree it shouldn't be the number we care the most, but I cannot let it go!! On the validity of this type of test for those who do, including me, in my opinion is it is indeed the max practical throughput you can achieve. Imagine when one really needs more than let's say 30-50 Mbps. It's when we are transferring large files/data. Not during video streaming, music streaming, game playing. So 200 vs. 700 Mbps in a single client device, do we care? No. most of time we just don't. It's just number. But again if you are going off by the number, you might as well look at the largest. But besides that if one is transferring large file, it is reasonable to think come close to access point and try to get near max speed for that short period of time than trying to download large file in backyard.
So for me practical measurement would be:
1. Peak Performance - Next to each router/AP
2. Midrange Performance - X ft (this is really depends on the person's home) but probably 15-30 ft
3. Extreme range performance - Corner to corner of the home or yard i.e. wherever user plan to use the WiFi.
If I can stream 4K video, Plex flawlessly, it suffice for me to consider my daily use demand is met. For this, we need 25-50 Mbps at most. In fact, with mobile device like cell phone, I don't think 4K video is even needed so considering that, we are probably looking 10-20 Mbps.
Then, self satisfaction of seeing big number, we have the peak performance measurement. I know nobody but I care about the number in my family...
It's cool that you are using 160 MHz, and its amazing AVERAGE performance is 750 Mbps, not peak/close distance performance. Having said that, the number is still not beyond what I expected and I was more surprised to learn myself WiFi 5 can get that speed. On my Unifi AP, I get 800 Mbps with my MBP 15'' 2016, which has 3x3 MIMO but its WiFi 5. I won't deny WiFi 6 has performance gain, I measured 30% at 80 MHz, Intel claims 40% at 160 MHz. But practical gain I measured (I just didn't post on this forum), 15 ft next room, was 13 %, which is inline with Duckware's claim of 10% practical speed performance gain on WiFi 6. Basically, I am convinced (at least myself) worst case I lose is 10% performance on one device in my home for now if I were to search for new network system that was not WiFi 6. Then I came up with hypothesis/excuse to hunt for new network system. The hypothesis was AiMesh efficiency ranged 50-60% but we all know reported efficiency of network system due to overheads as you said are usually 50-70% so what if I could find stable, WiFi 5 system that is 60-70% efficient. That can actually close the gap of WiFi 6 connection. But not only that, it will actually boost all but one WiFI 6 client in my home network to see the speed boost. This is how I started searching for WiFi5 network system. It just turned out UniFi here.
Again, I do agree. Peak performance is just one measure. In fact, following a extract from my actual write up on my home page.
"Although 30% gain sounds decent, this test is not the best reflection of the real world use case scenario for the most because the majority of my Wifi use happens not next to the router but rather a bit away from it.
This is why I conducted the second test using iPhone 11 Pro and iPad Pro 11”. The test speed test were performed in the room next to where the router is and in between there is a wall. Once again, both are 2×2 MIMO devices with iPhone 11 Pro being WiFi 6 and the iPad Pro 11” being WiFi 5 device."
I just didn't put this part in here.
The main limitation of my test are twofolds in my opinion.
1. 2.4 GHz band: I didn't test this at all. Because with AiMesh setup at my home, this was conundrum and so unstable, I really didn't care (hence I got to 4 nodes for 3800 sqft) to get 5GHz coverage most of home. But I didn't know the issue until recently with UniFi 2.4 GHz band actually working. Also 2.4 GHz is the band according to SNB where WiFi6 currently shines.
2. Multi-device throughput: WiFi 6 sales point is indeed multiple device.
This is interesting topic of discussion on its own. Again, part of me say 3 is better than 2! But in reality, I never used the third band on my AiMesh setup because AiMesh did not allow the band to be part of smart connect. I tried to use it for separate SSID for forced 5 GHz network, but it didn't have expected performance (though I didn't tweak much other than activating it). Having said this, I think for the wireless mesh the third band can substantially improve throughout so long as it is stable.
Thank you for interesting reads!!!
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