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Forum Discussion
Orbi RBK852 Experience
Just wanted to share my experience so far with the new RBK852. I have two devices that have WiFi-6, so thought I'd take the plunge and see how things went. I went through the app installation pr...
Round Two:
Well, I swtiched back over to the RBK852 system again today and got entirely different results. I don't know what to think.
First, when I logged into the Orbi system there was a new version of the firmware, so I updated that and then went about testing speeds again. This time around, I got similar speeds to what I already had with my previous generation Orbi RBK53 system. Weird! Before the RBK852 only gave me about half of the speed that the old system got, but now it's working entirely differently. I don't know if the firmware update did this or not. The update hasn't been posted to the support site yet, so there are no release notes to check to see what's different.
I tried using WiFi SweetSpot as recommended by FURRYe38, but I get strange results with it and there's nothing that documents how it is measuring the throughput, so I'm not particularly impressed by it. I will get an average throughput in one area of about 100 Mbps on SweetSpot, but then do a Speedtest and get aroun 300 Mbps, so there's no match up between the two applications. So, I'm more inclined to go with Speedtest. The only issue with Speedtest is that it won't tell me if I'm connecting at a higher rate than my 300 Mbps Internet speed. I'm considering whether to upgrade my Internet speed to 1000 Mbps, but if I'm not generally going to see a boost in throughput in most locations in the house, then there's not much point in it.
At least with the current better performance of the system, I will go ahead and keep it online for the time being and see how things go over the long term. I really do like the faster bootup time of the system and working in the GUI is much more responsive, so the new processor really seems to help things out.
Hopefully things will continue to work better and I can enjoy the new system and some stability in my network.
WiFi SweetSpots is ONLY for checking the connection rate between the RBR or RBS and your mobile device. Connection rate only. This differs from actual speed bandwidth throughput flowing from the mobile device to the RBR or RBS. Reason for checking the connection rate, is to see if your mobile device is connected at it's maximum connecction rate to the RBR or max rate of the RBR if the RBR has a lower connection rate compared to a mobile device. Most should have same or similar max connection rates.
WiFi sweet spots can help you trouble shoot if your device doesn't seem to be getting max thruput speeds, check WiFi Sweets spots with the device, for example if you notice that speeds are slow, and wifi sweet spots reveals your device is connecting at 300Mbps, then you might figure that the mobile device maybe connected at 2.4Ghz at 300Mbps when it should be connected at say 1300Mbps on 5Ghz, if the device supports that connection rate speed.
It may also point to a problem with the main wifi signal as well. If you know your device connects at higher rates and all of a sudden you don't see this while connected to the home routers wifi, can point to a problem with the wifi system as well.
It's just a stepping stone or useful troubleshooting tool to help you in wifi speed issues on mobile devices. Again, just connetion rates for this app. Bandwidth testing is handled by Ooklas speed test app.
Yes, I understand that WiFi Sweet Spot is attempting to show me the connection rate, but my experience with it shows it not to be accurate at all. It would show me connection rates averaging 100 Mbps, but when doing actual throughput tests using Speedtest, I would sometimes get just over 300 Mbps.
Unless I am not understanding something, I really shouldn't get throughputs above and beyond the connection rate. As another example, when you Option-click the WiFi icon an a Mac, it will display the transmission rate, which should be equivalent to what WiFi Sweet Spot is attempting to display. With my Macs, I never get actual throughputs that exceed this transmission rate. They are always slightly lower due to overhead.
Because of this, I don't think that WiFi Sweet Spot is providing me with accurate or useful information. This just my own personal experience with the app.
- Wi-Fi SweetSpots is not meant to provide connction rates or measure internet speed, it’s a tool that uses the relative instantaneous wifi speeds to “observe how Wi-Fi connection speed fluctuates over time, and locate the fastest and slowest Wi-Fi spots in your home!
You can use Wi-Fi SweetSpots to discover the perfect spot for your wireless router, access point, or wireless gaming console.”
