forum threadPennyFound | Staff posted Yesterday 03:06 AM
Item 1 of 3
Item 1 of 3
forum threadPennyFound | Staff posted Yesterday 03:06 AM
ARRIS Surfboard Thruster Wi-Fi 6E Gaming Router Acceleration Kit $39.76 + Free Shipping
Walmart
Get Deal at WalmartGood Deal
Bad Deal
Save
Share
Leave a Comment
8 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
I just received it today and got it set up minutes ago, so naturally the first thing I do is come here to comment... was going to post on the original comment thread where I learned about this thing a few weeks ago but since this is a new post.. I'll dump thoughts here.
Setup was easy. I didn't download the app until after I had powered both units on and tested ethernet connectivity on the satellite. The app will try to guide you, but it's plug and play so you can skip all the introductions.
You can't set up the SSID in the arris app, I had to do it through w6b.local url that it creates. That was all fine and good. This is the first wifi6e anything that I own.
Units are 20 feet apart line of sight for my unboxing and testing, and I'm maxing out a 1gbe USB-C dongle plugged in to my macbook using OpenSpeedTest on a server computer with a 2.5gbe nic. That is to say.. like 950-970mbps up/down. I need to find my 2.5gbe USB-C adapter to see if those speeds can increase.
WIRELESS though... eh. Now that I have the SSID set up, 10ft from main unit unobstructed, I'm getting 820 down, 500 up. There's no traffic on the satellite (I unplugged from it for wireless test.) I can do better on my Asus AX86U 5ghz network @ 80mhz from 50ft away through walls and on a different floor. Wireless tests were consistent between wifi6e macbook and wifi6e iphone.
So... uhh yeah maybe I can try some different channels, it's on Auto now and chose 21. 160mhz width set in web UI by default. I don't have any neighbors or any weird things that could be causing interference, so I'm kinda stumped. I expected the fastest wireless speeds I had ever witnessed.
Firmware says its current out of the box.
TL;DR this seems like it'd be an awesome solution for gaming if you can't run wire. The satellite's ethernet is blazing, but I'm still 20ft line of sight so eh. I don't even need the bridge part since I wired my house, so not stomping my 5ghz wireless speeds is kind of a bummer.
Edit found the 2.5gbe thunderbolt adapter and re-did tests. Identical to my gigabit adapter.. so hmph. It's as if this unit has gigabit ports despite being advertised as 2.5gb, or they throttle the 6e experience between main and bridge, to prevent overheating? Not really sure. 970mbps up/down is plenty fast, but since I can't even outperform my 5ghz network connected to the main arris as an AP, I really wanted to get a 6e experience - somehow.. and I can't.
DOUBLE EDIT I'M AN IDIOT I had plugged the main unit in to a gigabit port lol. Corrected that, and now wired to the bridge with a 2.5gb thunderbolt dongle I'm getting: 1723mbps down, 1743mbps up. Hell yeah. So my first wifi6e experience, while through the bridge only, is a success.. and the fastest technically wireless transmission I've ever witnessed. Still poopy performance connected to main unit's SSID even worse than before, 369 down, 577 up. Macbook shows TX rate of 2100mbps. Not sure what's going on with that, still.
And update, wireless performance got better. iPhone and Macbook @ 20ft line of sight wirelessly connected jumped to nearly 1600mbps down, most I saw up was 1300. So I can finally say I've exceeded gigabit speeds wirelessly directly from my phone or computer. Though there was that one time when Verizon 5gUW was giving me over 1300mbps.. wish that happened more often.
<$40 to learn that wifi6e kinda sucks was worth it. I moved to my bedroom directly above the main unit and my macbook and phone were both testing at 500-700 down and ~200 up. I would wager floors are more difficult to broadcast through, and the antennas in these likely aren't prioritizing sending signal straight up. Going through a thinner 2x4 wall would pbb be better.
So, the use case for this device was set. It'll sit by my upstairs TV (2.5gb wired up here) and give me fast speeds as I loaf in bed on my laptop and phone less than 10 feet away. The satellite will do something TBD even if it's only 100-200mbps.
One thing I noticed on 6ghz is my ping to local device (my speed test server) is 1-2ms faster, and my jitter is averaging 0.2ms instead of 1ms. So that's cool too even though it doesn't really matter at all for my use case.. or anyone elses that I can think of. Just proof that there's less interference maybe?
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Leave a Comment