Xclaim Wireless Xi-2 Dual-Band Indoor 2x2 802.11n Access Point Reviewed

[thiggins]

Review is up
Xclaim Wireless Xi-2 Dual-Band Indoor 2x2 802.11n Access Point Reviewed

 

[sfx2000]

Just read thru the review...

wow... so basically it's three year old tech at today's 11ac prices - and it's just at AP. 802.11n at that, two stream... electrically it seems very similar to the Apple Airport Express, and the AirPort Express is a bona-fide router as well as a pretty decent AP.

With an "Enterprise AP" Feature set that totally misses what home users are looking for, and expecting, at this price point.

Consider me underwhelmed - they could have done better here...

 

[kitsura]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I don't understand who Xclaim is being targeted to. If Ruckus is trying to go for home users than Asus (buggy as they are) would be a better choice. The SOHO or SMB crowd have better alternatives like Ubnt or even RouterBoard with a more mature product and equally competitive price range. Seriously removing the BeamFlex for whatever reasons is the deal killer, I was interested when they initially announced it but now I'm just meh.

 

[Vanburen]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I don't understand who Xclaim is being targeted to. If Ruckus is trying to go for home users than Asus (buggy as they are) would be a better choice. The SOHO or SMB crowd have better alternatives like Ubnt or even RouterBoard with a more mature product and equally competitive price range. Seriously removing the BeamFlex for whatever reasons is the deal killer, I was interested when they initially announced it but now I'm just meh.

Yeah, this product doesn't really make sense for home users. The only real use in a home context is if you want easy multi ap management, in the case one AP does not provide full coverage.

Regarding SME, I use UBNT APs at the moment. I also have a Xi-2 and Xi-3 on order.

The benefit of the Xclaim stuff over UBNT is that it doesn't need the java app to provision, this is not a big issue for IT people (especially as it doesn't need to be on all the time). But using a phone app for provisioning should be a lot more straight forward for non techies (however Tim's review highlights its a bit clunky, and I will be looking at this closely myself).

Also in terms of pricing, the Xi-2 and Xi-3 are cheaper then their comparable UBNT APs. (Xi-1 is more expensive):

Xi-2: £118.80 - UniFi UAP PRO: £171.19
Xi-3: £158.40 - UniFi UAP AC: £227.71
(Xclaim prices from http://store.xclaimwireless.com/, UBNT from http://linitx.com/)

It would also be interesting to see how the Xclaim stuff handles in heavier usage scenarios. They are rated to handle 100 users per ap, I have heard that unifi can choke on higher user numbers, but I have never had very high usage per ap myself, so won't be able to compare.

It would be awesome if Tim could set up some sort of multi-user stress test, to run on APs. But I imagine this would be pretty hard to do. Talking of which www.wlanpros.com have published a stress test before, I would be interested if anyone else has come across anything similar elsewhere.

 

[thiggins]

The WLAN Pros test was interesting for sure. With today's processors, APs should run out of bandwidth before they run out of ability to move packets reliably.

Would be interesting to see how Xclaim comes up with 100 users per ap. If we take the 150 Mbps 5 GHz maximum throughput (40 MHz B/W), that gives each connection 1.5 Mbps best case, less if you allow for throughput loss due to handling multiple clients. For a mix of applications (browsing, email, messaging, streaming) 100 could be possible, IF all were 2x2 devices, which is unlikely.

I have considered a stress test using a bunch of cheap tablets. Coming up with a realistic test scenario is the tough part.

 

[azazel1024]

I think if you wanted realistic, you'd probably have to have multiple scripts you could run on them.

I'd think for a fairly good stress test what you'd have is 10-20 clients that were connected and idle, 2 that were streaming video and 5 that ran a webbrowsing and email script were it visited a new page every 1-2 minutes and sent a 50KB email to itself and then pulled it down. Maybe 1-2 clients also downloading or uploading large files.

Then scatter them around with half at short distance, a quarter at medium distance and a quarter at long (but not extreme) distance from the AP/router.

I'd think that would be a pretty good and realistic stress test for what might be seen either in a very heavy use home or a small business.

As for the use for the AP here, dunno. I don't see a whole ton of uses.

Really what I'd just love to see is AP/router manufacturers of all stripes incorporate existing 802.11 standards for things like fast roaming and that sort of thing. It probably would not take all that much to incorporate 802.11r-2008 (and attendent .11i and .11x). The standards are there and from what I can see, most clients actually do support them. It is just routers and APs that don't support fast/seamless roaming.

Even if you wanted to move to a controller based model for APs/routers, again, I doubt it would take all the much to add the feature set and the ability to set a master/slave for an AP/router (either mechanically or in the admin page). I realize, this is all more firmware and more validation and support work for companies, but a lot of this path has been tread already. There are standards for a lot of this and I think a lot of even home users are starting to be interested in it, even if it is still relatively niche market.

Heck, it would possibly mean selling more gear. I can see the Asus box "Fast roaming and seamless multiple router wireless integration!" with a bit more box text doing the 3 sentence explination for a layman. 10 minutes later joe blow walks out of the store with 2 or 3 Asus routers instead of the 1 they went in there to buy.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the stress test suggestions. That's a lot of work for each product. Maybe it'll be possible for a one-time article.

Yes, APs should incorporate fast roaming, since they are typically installed in multiples. But home routers? Don't think so. First, the industry is focused on selling higher priced routers with a one-router-does-it-all message. So why complicate things (and increase support calls) promising features that only a minority want?

 

[Vanburen]

Here's a picture of the Xi-2 (on the right) and Xi-3 (on the left):
http://i.imgur.com/kI7dnMu.jpg

The Xi-3 is much larger than the Xi-2.

Tim, does the bottom cover of your Xi-2 rattle at all? Like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5zanyxq6fs6ijs/VID_20141204_171648.mp4?dl=0

 

[thiggins]

Tim, does the bottom cover of your Xi-2 rattle at all?

It does not rattle.

 

[sfx2000]

Thanks for the stress test suggestions. That's a lot of work for each product. Maybe it'll be possible for a one-time article.

It more of a testing methodology change - and a big step - one has to look at the traffic models in a typical home network:

1) VOIP - Skype is most common but there are others
2) Standard HTTP web browsers
3) Streaming - e.g. netflix, hulu, etc...
4) Peer to Peer - e.g. torrents and the like

Each one of these can be modeled out in a home network environment - and putting 10 or so clients into these models would characterize most home networks at this point.

It would have to be script-able and repeatable for consistent results - but a model like this would distinguish the strong from the weaker players in a single AP environment.

Chariot can do this, along with the test chamber you're using now.

Yes, APs should incorporate fast roaming, since they are typically installed in multiples. But home routers? Don't think so. First, the industry is focused on selling higher priced routers with a one-router-does-it-all message. So why complicate things (and increase support calls) promising features that only a minority want?

roaming - getting to be more relevant now with dual band routers, and many folks implementing 2 AP's for coverage - worth some study, but might be an excessive burden for testing/evaluation, as this would have to include many samples - while some might purchase two AC1900 class from the same vendor, others are adding on to an existing WLAN - so it might be out of scope for review - but an ask/answer question from the vendor, e.g. "do you support feature 'x'"

But I think Load/Stress testing might be of value to the SNB market - we've seen cases where Router/AP's look good in the Single Client/AP test environment, but fall flat on their face when hitting the typical load of multiple clients and applications.

 

[azazel1024]

Thanks for the stress test suggestions. That's a lot of work for each product. Maybe it'll be possible for a one-time article.

Yes, APs should incorporate fast roaming, since they are typically installed in multiples. But home routers? Don't think so. First, the industry is focused on selling higher priced routers with a one-router-does-it-all message. So why complicate things (and increase support calls) promising features that only a minority want?

Deffinitely a boat load of work for any kind of stress testing.

I guess, beyond me wanting it, that I see it as a good feature for router manufacturers, is it gives them a reason to sell more product if they market it right. A one router to rule the house is nice and all...but if they can get you to buy MULTIPLE devices from them, all the better.

 

[LoneWolf]

Just read thru the review...

wow... so basically it's three year old tech at today's 11ac prices - and it's just at AP. 802.11n at that, two stream... electrically it seems very similar to the Apple Airport Express, and the AirPort Express is a bona-fide router as well as a pretty decent AP.

With an "Enterprise AP" Feature set that totally misses what home users are looking for, and expecting, at this price point.

Consider me underwhelmed - they could have done better here...

Actually, a small number of them can be clustered. This is meant for small-business wifi networking, so the closest comparison is to Ubiquiti's Unifi access points and Cisco Small Business, but with support for less nodes. From what Tim mentions, it looks like the signal strength/range is better than Ubiquiti, but the management needs serious work.

That said, you're still right that they could have done better. This appears to be a product Ruckus should have refined before release. I'm really disappointed, as the XClaim Xi-3 has the potential to be the perfect home solution for me down the road. Guess I can hope they fix things up in 6-12 months.

 

[kitsura]

Actually, a small number of them can be clustered. This is meant for small-business wifi networking, so the closest comparison is to Ubiquiti's Unifi access points and Cisco Small Business, but with support for less nodes. From what Tim mentions, it looks like the signal strength/range is better than Ubiquiti, but the management needs serious work.

That said, you're still right that they could have done better. This appears to be a product Ruckus should have refined before release. I'm really disappointed, as the XClaim Xi-3 has the potential to be the perfect home solution for me down the road. Guess I can hope they fix things up in 6-12 months.

I won't hold my breath. Looks like they are going the lean support model of Ubnt and MikroTik.

Based on track record of UnFi AC I think they still have a long way to go. Ruckus might not want to commit so much resources to a product which has so little profit margin to them but I hope they can surprise me.

 

[spinkham]

VLAN fix was released Nov. 22

I don't have this product but I've been watching it, mostly because of interest the band steering support that Ubiquiti does not yet have.

Anyway, they released a firmware update on Nov 22 that claims to fix the VLAN problems mentioned in the review.

http://forum.xclaimwireless.com/discussion/87/xclaim-ap-firmware-update-1-0-0-0-35

 

[remixedcat]

app only... definitly a pass for most small biz.

 

[Vanburen]

app only... definitly a pass for most small biz.

They've just enabled a web interface with the latest firmware update:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/e8jywojea07eltq/xclaim--web-interface/index.html

 

[remixedcat]

Not much of a different feature set than a consumer class router and I don't understand the point of such a brand unless it was made to dispose of reject parts from ruckus like on networks is for netgear.

 

[Razor512]

Wow, that company makes the US government seem smart. That pricing for old tech, in addition to unnecessary software restrictions really makes you wonder if there was a massive chemical spill on the day they were making that product.

Given the competition in this industry, I don't see who would willingly pick one up for that price. Based on the specs and management, it seems squarely targeted at basic users who live in their smart phone, but it is priced so high that none of them would ever want it.

 

[inline]

From the spec sheet it doesn't look like it supports RADIUS. How is that enterprise class?

 

[mlg321]

App and firmware has been updated as well as a web gui:

New iPad version
Skip SSID setup
Set SSID per radio
Hide SSID per radio
Rate shaping per WLAN
Set channel width settings per radio

As well as brand new discovery module based on Bonjour and comm protocols between app and APs have been re architected around reliable https process.