The first comment that Wi-Fi 6 X Mesh is ahead of MR7350.

Hello, everyone, I'm KC, the first WiFi6 experience of an N-line digital player has finally arrived, and this time I bring you the first evaluation of Linksys MR7350-AX 1800. What happens when WiFi6 meets Mesh? What is the performance gap between wired backhaul and wireless backhaul? I hope this article can give you some meaningful reference.

If you are a PC/ laptop user only a few years ago, you will be impressed by Centrino, a wireless mobile computing brand launched by Intel, which integrates CPU, motherboard chipset and wireless network card. Although this bundled sales affected the sales of third-party chipsets and wireless network card suppliers, the Centrino platform composed of three I's (Intel CPU+ Intel chipset+Intel WiFi) did promote the popularity of wireless technology.

The early Wi-Fi alliance used different suffixes to name technologies, such as 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax. For ordinary consumers, such naming rules are obscure and inconvenient to remember. Therefore, in 18, the Wi-Fi Alliance revised the naming rules and readjusted the naming in a way similar to the X-generation communication technology. Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 4 correspond to 802.1/ax, 802. 1ac and 802 respectively. 46436

Although at first glance, Wi-Fi6 only improves the speed, in fact, Wi-Fi6 carries many new technologies, including:

Although Wi-Fi6 has not brought the 6Ghz frequency band (1200Mhz spectrum space) at present, with more and more devices supporting Wi-Fi 6, it will be more suitable to choose future-oriented Wi-Fi 6 when the price of newly purchased routers is not much different.

▼ OFDMA introduced by Wi-Fi 6 allows multiple users to access through different subcarrier segments at the same time, which improves the channel utilization.

▼ Although many articles introducing Wi-Fi 6 will put forward TWT (Target Time Wake-up) uselessness theory, when routers and devices support TWT at the same time, the battery life of mobile devices can be extended to some extent.

Mesh Wi-Fi is a kind of Wi-Fi coverage system, which generally includes a main route (master node) directly connected to Optical Cat and one or more satellite routes (child nodes). The main route (master node) and child routes (child nodes) can be connected in a wireless/wired/wired+wireless mixed mode.

Compared with common bridging schemes, one of the characteristics of Mesh networking is distributed networking (multi-hop interconnection). There is not a simple point-to-point connection between the master node and the child nodes, and each node will form its own network for data transmission according to the signal strength. Even if one of the nodes fails/is removed, the other nodes can automatically reconnect to maintain data transmission. Another advantage of Mesh is that the whole family can use the same SSID and stay in the same network segment, which is more convenient for intranet to access data and use NAS, and can realize seamless roaming conveniently.

As an upgraded version of Linksys AC 1300, MR7350 was upgraded from AC 1300 to AX 1800, with a maximum rate of 574Mbps for 2.4G and a maximum rate of 120 1Mbps for 5G. As a Wi-Fi 6 router, the MR 7350 naturally supports complete (uplink and downlink) 2x2. CPU is a quad-core chip in Qualcomm, clocked at 1.2Ghz, which can easily cope with high-traffic applications at home (video transmission/continuous copying of large files, etc.). ). Nominal single router area150m2, supporting wireless/wired/wireless+wired hybrid mesh. Intelligent backhaul 2.0 technology can also realize the mixed networking of Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 devices.

▼ Smart backhaul 2.0 can realize the mixed networking of Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 devices, and the existing Wi-Fi 5 devices in the home can continue to play the residual heat.

This time, MR7350 was installed in a drawer, and the opened box still contained the classic router, warranty card, installation guide, power adapter, gigabit network cable * 1.

▼ The power of the power adapter is 24W( 12V 2A).

The MR7350 is designed with foldable dual antennas, and the front panel is designed with mirror paint similar to that of a mobile phone. The embedded indicator light is good even if it is usually placed on the desktop. As the interface part of the Mesh router MR7350, it is relatively rich, followed by 1000M LAN*4, 1000M WAN* 1, USB3.0* 1 (supporting SMB), WPS, Reset, DC In and power switch. For users who need to share storage, connecting a USB flash drive or a mobile hard disk to the router can facilitate storage sharing in the LAN through the SMB service of the router.

In the heat dissipation part, MR7350 has designed a large area of holes on the upper and lower sides of the fuselage. The front and back of the router are all hollowed out to improve heat dissipation efficiency, and hanging holes are still reserved at the bottom to support wall-mounted installation.

The installation guide of Linksys products is believed to be familiar to many users. Download the official APP, turn on the Bluetooth of the mobile phone, and follow the instructions to easily complete the installation and configuration. The illustrated installation guide is not difficult for white users.

After the main route configuration is completed, the Mesh networking can be completed by connecting the nodes according to the APP prompt. For wireless backhaul users, the master node and the child nodes should not be separated by more than one wall as far as possible, and the networking configuration takes about 5~6 minutes.

The venue of this test is a new photography studio opened by a friend, with a total area of about 300 square meters, which is larger than the daping building of ordinary families. The large horizontal span leads to the barrier between the inner and outer rooms.

▼ Real map

Two MR7350 are used at hand, and wired+wireless hybrid networking forms a mesh network. In order to cover the internal room, a wired interface is provided for the PC in office area 2, and the nodes are placed in office area 2, so wireless can just cover the internal studio area.

In the testing part, a speed testing server is built on NAS to test the uplink and downlink speed of the intranet. The test terminals are magic book Pro(Wi-Fi 5) equipped with Intel AC 9560 wireless network card and OPPO Find X2 Pro(Wi-Fi 6) equipped with Snapdragon 865 SOC.

▼NAS Qnap TS-25 1D, build a wired 1000M speed measuring server.

Firstly, the performance of LAN port is confirmed by wired 1000M, and the measured download speed is 998.57Mbps, and the upload speed is 10 18.98Mbps running 1000M LAN port at full speed.

3. 1 wireless backhaul and wireless+wired backhaul

Many friends asked me before, is it important to pay a return visit by telegram? This test only compares the uplink and downlink rates of sub-route coverage area (office area 2), separate wireless backhaul and wireless+wired backhaul. From the measured data, both the upload speed, download speed and jitter have been greatly improved, especially the upload speed has increased by nearly 59%. For users with embedded network cables at home, it is suggested that the child nodes should be connected to the wired backhaul as much as possible when the wired backhaul can be used, so as to improve the transmission speed.

3.2 Performance test

As there is no laptop supporting Wi-Fi 6 at hand, the performance comparison between Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 is tested by using a laptop supporting Intel AC 9560 network card and OPPO Find X2 Pro (Snapdragon 865) supporting Wi-Fi 6.

First of all, the AX 9560 of Wi-Fi 5 was tested in office area 1, studio, office area 2 and studio. The uplink and downlink rates measured by the master node and the child nodes basically exceed 500Mbps (except that the upload rate of studio is slightly slower).

After switching to a mobile phone supporting Wi-Fi 6, the maximum download speed of office area 1 is 95 1.74Mbps, which is very close to the limit speed of wired gigabit network, and the upload and download speed in the studio with the weakest signal is also over 600Mbps. The experience of MR7350 when using Wi-Fi 6 devices is very close to gigabit wired network.

▼ Data test summary

In the part of signal strength test, because the notebook is not easy to move, the signal strength of four points is tested by mobile phone. Because the office area 1 and 2 are close to the master/slave nodes, the strength of 5G signal is basically around -40dBm, while the studio with the weakest signal is only -58dBm. The 5G coverage of the whole house is above -65dB, and the performance of MR7350 in signal coverage is still good.

3.3 Wi-Fi5 and Wi-Fi6

The actual performance prediction limited to the size of mobile phone antenna is weaker than that of notebook computer using AX200, but even under such test conditions, the uplink and downlink rates of devices supporting Wi-Fi 6 are ahead of those of Wi-Fi 5 devices at office area 1, studio, office area 2 and studio.

In order to compare the performance differences between Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 devices, the original data above are normalized to 100% by the average of four-point test data of Wi-Fi 5, and the upload and download rates of Wi-Fi 6 devices are 48% and 19% ahead of Wi-Fi 5, respectively. Moreover, in addition to the advantages of uplink and downlink speed, Wi-Fi 6 devices are only 56% of Wi-Fi 5 in Ping and 45% of Wi-Fi 5 in jitter. In the case that the price of Wi-Fi 6 equipment is becoming more and more close to the people in 2020, it is really necessary to put Wi-Fi 6 in the compulsory project when the equipment is upgraded.

Choose Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6 router in 2020? I believe that after reading the test data of this article, you should have the answer in your heart. As an upgraded product of AC 1300, MR7350 CPU has good performance, and its stability and ease of use have maintained the consistent level of Linksys. It is a worry-free device that white users can easily configure. The hybrid networking of intelligent backhaul 2.0 support and Wi-Fi 5 devices also makes this product more backward-compatible, and as a new generation of Wi-Fi 6 devices, it can also ensure future scalability.

Finally, briefly summarize the advantages and disadvantages of this product:

Advantages:

Disadvantages: