In April last year, the first WiFi wireless network device of the Fluorite brand "Fluorite Whole House Wireless Coverage Solution W5C" was officially unveiled, which adopts the combination of AC + AP, designed for medium and large apartments and villas, and solves the problem of signal dead ends. After a year, the Fluorite Whole House Wireless Coverage Solution has once again ushered in a new member - Fluorite Wi-Fi6 Panel AP W5X.
Compared with the previous generation of fluorite W5C panel APs, Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X has achieved a full range of improvements, including the maximum theoretical transmission rate from 1200Mbps to 1800Mbps, and also built-in patented 4 antenna design, a single panel AP can cover 120 square meters of room, and also added a fat thin mode, which can be used with AC or can be used alone.
The Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X also has a built-in 256MB of high-capacity independent RAM capable of processing more data simultaneously, with a maximum bandwidth of 128 devices.
As a member of the fluorite family, the AP also supports fluorite camera acceleration, fluorite IoT products one-click network distribution, and so on.
IT Home has already got this product, and now IT Home brings the experience of this product to small partners.
Part I: Fat Thin Mode and AC Controller
Unlike the previous generation, this time, the Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X also added a fat, thin AP mode switch, which means that the Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X can be used without relying on the AC controller.
In order to better facilitate everyone's understanding, here are two brief knowledge points:
1. About the AC controller
The so-called AC controller can be regarded as the control center of the AP, which is used to centrally manage all the APs in the intranet.
Fluorite AC controller
The Fluorite AC controller is available in 5-port and 10-port specifications, which can provide standard PoE power supply, and use a network cable to complete the signal transmission and power supply functions. Among them, the 5-port version provides 1 Gigabit WAN port, 4 Gigabit POE network ports, 1 AC controller recommended access to no more than 32 panel APs, and a maximum access of 100 panel APs.
2. About fat and thin AP
The so-called fat thin AP, fat AP usually has its own complete operating system, is a network device that can work independently, without the need to use with the AC controller. Thin AP is to remove the routing and other functions, can not work independently, need to be unified through the AC controller centralized management.
The fat AP working mode is more suitable for small area wireless coverage, such as small merchants or small office scenarios, and the thin AP working mode is more suitable for larger area wireless coverage, such as supermarkets, hotels, attractions, etc.
The second part: appearance, installation, networking
The Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X is basically the same size as a traditional inlet outlet. Multi-color removable shell, can perfectly fit different home decoration styles, after the shell is disassembled, below is a one-click reset button, fat thin mode switch, above is the status indicator.
A Gigabit ethernet port is reserved at the bottom of the panel, which means that you can not only access the wireless Internet access provided by the panel AP, but also access the network cable on the panel AP to meet the needs of some end gamers.
The installation process is also relatively simple, the box provides screws for fixing the panel AP to the 86 box; after the fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X is removed, there is a separate product QR code, download the fluorite cloud video, scan it and bind.
Because it is a PoE power supply method, there is no need to consider additional power access problems, only the network cable is reserved in the wall (provided that the network cable is connected to the AC or POE switch), and the AP that meets the installation conditions can work normally.
The so-called PoE power supply is a technology that can also provide power to such devices while transmitting data from IP-based terminals (such as IP telephones, wireless LAN access pointSAs, network cameras, etc.).
In the networking mode, Fluorite provides a variety of modes, such as when the network egress bandwidth does not exceed gigabits, AC can be used as a gigabit egress router, and when the network egress bandwidth exceeds gigabits, AC can also be used side-by-side.
The AP can be directly connected to the AC (that is, thin mode), or directly connected to the POE switch (that is, fat mode), of course, how to network the connection, but also depends on the actual environment you install.
IT home here are selected is a thin mode, the specific connection method is: Internet - AC controller - AP panel. That is, the AC controller connects to the Gigabit router, and then the panel AP is directly connected to the 86-box in-wall network cable (that is, connected to the AC), and finally forms a complete network.
Part III: Performance Measurement
Note: The test environment is a public office area, subject to other signal interference and other factors, the test results are for reference only.
Compared to traditional wireless routers, the Fluorite Whole House Wireless Coverage solution can provide a stable and consistent wireless Internet experience in signal coverage.
Traditional routers want to bring a better Internet experience, first installed in the central area of the office to achieve better signal coverage, but the internal scene of the office is complex, there are always areas that the signal cannot cover, such as warehouses surrounded by load-bearing walls, and so on.
AP networking is a good solution to this problem, AP networking scheme is mainly through the installation of AP in different areas, rooms to achieve wireless network coverage, each AP can transmit wireless signals, when each room, each area are installed ap, the signal can achieve full coverage.
In this part of the performance measurement, we only choose to install an AP, and the test environment is an office with an area of about 200 square meters.
In order to better display the performance of the Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X, IT Home also selected the veteran network communication equipment supplier TP-LINK AX1800 dual-band Gigabit Wi-Fi 6 wireless panel AP (TL-XAP1800GI-PoE) for speed measurement and comparison.
(TP-LINK AX1800 Wi-Fi6 wireless panel AP on the left)
Paired with the TP-LINK AX1800 dual-band Gigabit Wi-Fi 6 wireless panel AP, it is TP-LINK's PoE AC all-in-one Gigabit router (specific model TL-R470GP-AC), which also provides 10/100/1000M WAN ports, 4 10/100/1000M LAN ports, and can uniformly control up to 20 TP-LINK APs.
(TP-LINK AX1800 Wi-Fi6 No Panel AP Set, AC Controller in Black at the top left)
(TP-LINK, fluorite)
The specific configurations of the two products are as follows:
The test environment (office) is about 200 square meters, with partition walls in the room on the left and load-bearing walls on the side near the corridor.
The room structure is roughly as follows:
(The AP mounting position is inside the frame above)
The test equipment is vivo X60 Pro+ equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, which supports WiFi6.
The test software is SpeedTest and WiFi Magic Box.
In order to ensure accurate data, Fluorite AP and contrast TP-LINK AP are installed in the same location, the AC of both products is connected to the same Gigabit router, and the test network is Qingdao Mobile 100 Megabytes.
The test areas are the central location of the office, room 1, room 4, outdoor corridors, etc., which is convenient for everyone to understand intuitively, and each test area in the above figure has a corresponding logo correspondence.
In each test area, test twice to select the highest score.
The WiFi band is selected as dual-band.
The specific performance of the two APs is as follows:
As you can see in the chart above, both products are performing quite satisfactorily, with mobile 100 megabits of broadband running out of 130Mbps. Logically, 100M bandwidth, in theory, even if there is zero loss, the maximum download rate is 100Mbps, and the test results can appear as large as 140Mbps, the reason is that the operator has accelerated.
This phenomenon actually existed in it's previous Redmi router AC2100 experience review of IT House. But why can the AP used before run up to 100Mbps? The main reason is that the previous AP performance ceiling is not high, and there is no acceleration condition.
Returning to the comparative data, with the configuration advantages of four antennas and large RAM, in the download and upload tests, the Fluorite Wi-Fi 6 AX1800 panel AP is almost completely ahead of TP-LINK. Moreover, this advantage is that the farther away the distance and the more complex the environment, the more obvious the advantage is.
In addition, IT House tested the roaming effect of two panel APs.
In the process of using AP, there is a more common scenario, that is, the roaming of AP, such as from room A to room B, from upstairs to downstairs, in this process of movement, mobile devices such as mobile phones will slowly move away from the first access AP and switch to the AP device that is closer.
If the roaming ability of the AP is strong, the user cannot feel the change in network signal strength during the process.
IT House here adopts a more intuitive method, that is, testing while walking. Install an AP in room 3 and 4, and the specific "roaming" path is shown in the figure above.
Obtained through a simple test, Fluorite obtained a qualified test score in 10 different points, with a pass rate of 100%, of which roaming occurred in the process from point 5 to point 6. The TP-LINK pass rate is 90%, which is equally excellent, but in the relatively harsh test environment of the office corridor, the signal strength has dropped significantly.
Overall, both APs perform quite well, but Fluorite's advantage is more pronounced.
Next, IT Home conducted a load test on the Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X, and when more than 14 networked devices were connected at the same time, the download speed could still reach 17.55MB/s, far exceeding the original 100 megabit broadband speed, which can be said to be quite satisfactory.
Finally, under the premise of a large number of terminal access, big data traffic concurrency, IT home also conducted a simple test of the heating of the Wi-Fi6 panel AP of Fluorite, in general, the traditional AP will have a serious case of shell heating in the case of extreme load, and it will be more hot to touch, but Fluorite's Wi-Fi6 AP shell feels very good, and it does not feel obvious heat for a long time to touch, it seems that Fluorite's Wi-Fi6 panel AP has also made sufficient efforts in heat dissipation.
Part IV: APP Management
When IT Home tested the previous generation of Fluorite AP last year, the author also complained that the function of the Fluorite Whole House Wireless Coverage App at that time was too simple. However, less than a year later, the Fluorite whole house wireless coverage app ushered in a dramatic change.
In the App, you can carry out AP management, terminal management, network speed optimization, equipment upgrade (AC, AP), system diagnostics, channel planning and other functions of the configuration, Fluorite's function design is very simple and easy to use, most of the functions only need to be configured through one or two steps of operation, and the design and layout of the operation interface is also very user-friendly, even if there is no network basic knowledge of the user can easily get started, very friendly to novices.
Not only that, the App also added Fluorite's exclusive IoT product linkage function, such as fluorite camera one-click network distribution, fluorite camera network acceleration, etc., fluorite wireless camera with fluorite wireless AP can be used together to get better network acceleration, friends who have fluorite cameras at home can not miss Fluorite's new Wi-Fi6 AP Oh.
In AP management, you can set the name of each AP, and you can view the current status of each AP, including access devices, download and upload speeds, and so on.
In terms of terminal management, you can also set up online reminders, blacklists, speed limits, etc., as well as the "parent management" function that parents need most, which can limit online terminals, limit Internet access, and so on.
In addition, the toolbox also provides functions such as LAN settings, secondary roaming, repair logs, Internet mode and so on.
In the past, the Fluorite Cloud Video App still has too many toB attributes, which is not very friendly to ordinary consumers, but now, Fluorite can be said to have made up for the biggest shortcomings, and for the first configuration of Xiaobai, it can also be easily done through the App.
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Compared with the previous generation of panel APs, the upgrade range of the Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X is very large, high-performance quad antenna, large RAM, its performance completely exceeds the author's expectations, and it is completely possible to achieve an AP covering the entire 200-square-meter office.
Even compared with the old TP-LINK, the Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X is not inferior, the price is lower, and the latecomer advantage is quite obvious.
Whether it is a small and medium-sized apartment, a villa, or a complex large apartment, or even a company, the Fluorite Wi-Fi6 panel AP W5X is a very suitable choice.