Recent times have shown that home offices are becoming increasingly important. The protracted pandemic has caused many of us to make heavy use of our home networks. As a result, it is worth taking a closer look at the heart of our home network, namely the Wi-Fi router. Undoubtedly, this is a very good time to think about changing our router, all thanks to the new Wi-Fi 6 standard. If your current router is more than three years old, and you care about both speed and security, the Wi-Fi 6 standard will give you that.
Probably most of us have a wifi router that complies with the Wi-Fi 5 standard. As of 2013, 801.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) is the leading wireless standard that can provide theoretical speeds of up to 5.4 gigabits per second. Anyway, we have already had the opportunity to
test Wi-Fi routers using the AC1200 standard.
Wi-Fi 6, or 802.11ax, opens up a whole new era of wireless networks, offering theoretical speeds of up to
9.6 Gbps. But it's important to remember that the Wi-Fi 6 standard isn't just about fast throughput. More capacity for the client, extended client battery life, better security and increased performance are also advantages of using Wi-Fi 6.
In this guide, you'll learn what you need to know to make an informed decision when buying a new Wi-Fi 6 router, and we'll provide a ranking of Wi-Fi 6 routers for 2022.
What is Wi-Fi 6?
If one is new to the Wi-Fi 6 standard, it would be good to describe exactly what the new 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) standard brings. Well, first of all, much higher throughput, which is up to 9.6Gbps. But as I mentioned earlier, Wi-Fi 6 is more than just higher speed, capacity for the customer, better coverage and less network congestion and power consumption.
Wi-Fi 6 is a tremendous new capability for our wifi routers. Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) protocol increases throughput by dividing Wi-Fi channels into subchannels and allows up to 30 users to share a channel simultaneously. Target Wake Time (TWT) is an energy reduction scheme that allows Wi-Fi 6 devices to decide when they will "come out" of power-saving mode to start sending and receiving data again. The technology is targeted at smart IoT devices such as security cameras and video doorbells. Of course, phones, tablets and laptops as well.
The Wi-Fi 6 standard also means greater channel width, from 80MHz to 160MHz. This makes it possible to create very fast connections between the router and clients. Another consideration is MU-MIMO streaming for both receiving and sending data, improved QoS and WPA3 encryption.
What features should I look for in a Wi-Fi 6 router?
Wi-Fi 6 routers are equipped with a very large number of features that will meet the needs of virtually any user. Of course, the biggest advantage is higher performance, but Wi-Fi 6 routers have many other benefits. Gaming routers, in particular, have features specific to this particular specialty, but it is important to remember that they may lack other useful features. So before buying, make sure that you are sure our router will meet all expectations.
If we are going to connect wired devices such as game consoles, home automation hubs NAS storage network drives, it is worth choosing such a router that will have a minimum of four LAN ports. You can also find routers on the market that support link aggregation, which uses two LAN ports, and in this way the router provides increased bandwidth for transferring large files and balances the load of network traffic.
If we want to connect peripheral devices like printers or external hard drives to our network, it is worth making sure that the Wi-Fi router 6 is equipped with at least one USB 3.0 port. Admittedly, two USB ports would be a better solution. Then we will be able to connect several devices at once, without having to unplug one to connect the other. By connecting an external drive to a high-speed USB port, we can build a secure NAS device that can be accessed both on our local network and from the Internet.
If children will be connecting to our Wi-Fi network, then it's a good idea to look for a Wi-Fi router 6 that comes with parental controls. It is also worth remembering that most routers are equipped with basic parental control. This allows you to create access schedules, block certain sites and deny Internet access to certain devices on the network. On the other hand, if we want detailed information about what content, what exactly our children are watching on the Internet, then we will need more detailed control.
We also often forget a very important aspect regarding the security of our network - visitors. Well, if we want to offer access to our Wi-Fi network to visitors, then it is worth restricting access to all connected devices. Virtually all modern Wi-Fi 6 routers offer guest network functions. Then we give access to our wireless network using a separate SSID and password. This limits access to other items connected to the network such as NAS devices, printers and all laptops and desktops.
Wi-Fi router specifications 6
Probably many of us are wondering about designations such as "AX1500" or "AX11000". Well, this is information about the total data transmission speed. For example, the dual-band AX1500 router is capable of up to 300 Mbps in the 2.4GHz band and up to 1200 Mbps in the 5GHz band. In comparison, the AX11000 tri-band router provides a total speed of up to 1148 Mbps in the 2.4Ghz band and up to 4804 Mbps on each of the two 5GHz bands. We must remember, of course, that these are only theoretical values, because in reality the router is only as fast as its fastest band. And even then, this value is achieved in laboratory conditions, not in real-world conditions.
It is also worth considering other specifications. The number of radio bands, the type of processor (CPU) and the flash and RAM the router is equipped with. As I mentioned earlier, dual-band routers use only one 2.4GHz radio module and one 5GHz radio module, while tri-band routers use one 2.4GHz band and two 5GHz bands. Tri-band routers are ideal for high-traffic networks. The advantage is that specific radio bands can be designated for specific applications. For example, you can send large file transfers on one 5GHz band, leaving the other bands for things like surfing the Internet or streaming video.
And another important consideration. It's worth considering whether we want just a Wi-Fi 6 router, or whether we need a mesh system based on the Wi-Fi 6 standard. While mesh solutions are relatively new to the IT market, they provide potentially easier setup and eliminate "dead zones" in our home.
Wi-Fi router comparison 6
In this ranking, we will take a look at comparing WiFi6 routers that run on the similar
AX1500/AX1800 standard and are in a similar price threshold (up to about
300PLN). We chose similar products, because this way our comparison will be more reliable.
We took the following models under the magnifying glass:
The above table illustrates a summary of the most important hardware features for each Wi-Fi router6. It is worth taking a closer look at this summary, as it will greatly help us in getting the most practical device for our home well. It is worth checking how many ports our router is equipped with, whether it has USB ports, what parental control features we can find and whether we can manage the device remotely. As you can see, all the devices we tested have similar functions, a similar number of ports and the same number of antennas. However, solutions from the manufacturer
Totolink and Fiberhome deserve special attention. They are the richest in various functions, support Vlans, support TWT and mesh network topologies. Of course, this is no indicator so far, so let's move on to the next stage of our tests -
coverage!
Signal strength
There is no doubt that the
range of our wireless network is extremely important. Every user wants us to have access to our network anywhere in our home. Therefore, we will check the range of each device in three different variants:
5m, 15m and 30 meters from our receiver. In addition, at a distance of 30 meters, the obstacle will be a wall.
What is important! In order for all tests to be authoritative, all devices work on the same channel and are in exactly the same location. The program InSSIDer was used as a tool for testing. Of course, the devices are tested each separately, so that the work of one router does not affect another. Below are the signal strength results of the individual Wi-Fi 6 routers. Please remember that the closer to zero the better, i.e. -30dB is much better than -50dB. Signal strength measured for the 5GHz band.
As you can see from the chart above, the results of the various Wi-Fi 6 routers are very similar. At distances of 5 and 15 meters, there is little difference in signal strength. On the other hand, a bigger difference can be seen when testing at a distance of 30 meters, where the obstacle was a brick wall. In this situation, the best performing devices were those from the companies
Totolink and
Fiberhome.
Totolink X5000R, Totolink X2000R, and
Fiberhome SR1041K showed the best signal strength compared to the other models. Of course, we must also take into account the fact that in each household we have a different layout of rooms and different thickness of walls, and this is of great importance.
Performance
The next step in testing our Wi-Fi 6 routers should be to check performance, that is, the speed at which the router operates. But! After all, we're testing devices that run on 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6), and as I mentioned earlier,
one of the strengths of Wi-Fi 6 is the OFDMA protocol, so Wi-Fi 6 routers can easily handle dozens of client devices at the same time. OFDMA divides a single spectrum into multiple blocks and allows different devices to share a single transmission stream, increasing performance and reducing latency. Therefore, testing routers with single devices misses the point. The
results will be comparable to the throughputs achieved by 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) routers.
Summary and conclusions
As a recap. As you can see, all the routers performed very similarly. However, several models deserve special attention:
- Totolink X5000R - is the only one with OpenWRT capability, which clearly sets it apart from the other Wi-Fi routers tested6. It also performed excellently during signal strength tests, and support for a VPN server, also speaks in its favor.
- Totolink X2000R - this router, in turn, is the only one that can operate in a mesh network topology. The results of signal strength are comparable, is the results of Totolink X5000R, and also deserve recognition, as they are at the top.
- Fiberhome SR1041K - another Wi-Fi 6 router worthy of attention. It is the only one with a USB port, which can be extremely useful if you want to connect a network NAS drive, for example. It also performed very well in signal strength tests, and even got the best result when tested at a distance of 30 meters. Moreover, it works in mesh mode.
Of course, all the routers selected are just our suggestion to help you choose the right Wi-Fi router 6. Generalizing. When choosing the right Wi-Fi router 6, it is important to think about what exactly we will use our router for, how many devices we want to connect, whether there will be a network drive, whether we want to connect a printer, and so on. Therefore, we leave the choice of the right Wi-Fi router 6 to
you, dear reader, and invite you to shop at
www.batna24.com
Author:
Leszek Blaszczyk
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
Click to enlarge!
