In a modern city, the space around us is littered with thousands of different interference from an infinite number of devices, which creates problems for the stable operation of the wireless Internet. There are dead zones where the signal weakens or disappears altogether. In houses with thick walls, even a powerful router in the next room may not reach the kitchen or bedroom. If we are talking about a studio or “one-room apartment”, it may still be fine, but in multi-room apartments or country houses, a stable signal everywhere is simply necessary not only for games, entertainment and work, but also for the implementation of smart home systems, which have now become available as never. To remove dead zones and strengthen the signal, there are special mesh systems that can work as a router and as an access point.
It is one of these systems from the company TP-LINK came to our editorial office for a test. This is about TP-LINK Deco X60consisting of three satellites. The price for this version in Russian stores is about 31 thousand rubles… We tested it in a three-storey country house with a total area of 156 meters.
APPEARANCE AND DELIVERY
TP-LINK Deco X60 comes in a white box with a paper pocket, which shows the devices included in the kit, indicating their basic functionality with a coverage area. You can also find information about Alexa compatibility with Deco X60 here. “Alice” is currently not supported, although it would be convenient.
Removing the cover reveals a white box that opens like a chest. Inside there are three access points, each of which can work in the format of a router or access point, and a short instruction for downloading and operating in conjunction with the application on Android and iOS.
The devices themselves come with one Ethernet cable and three network adapters – about a meter long. Not a very good solution if you decide to place the access point on the windowsill, and the socket is at the bottom or far away from the wall. However, this is tolerable – you can use an extension cord, but the internal esthetician requires a slightly longer cable. The satellites themselves are made in white and have compact dimensions: 110 × 110 x 114 mm.
BASIC OPPORTUNITIES
All three satellites have two Ethernet outputs, one of which on one of them will be busy as soon as you connect it to a modem or directly. Deco X60 works with Wi-Fi 6 for speeds up to 3000 Mbps – up to 2402 Mbps on 5 GHz and up to 574 Mbps on 2.4 GHz. And that’s important for the next generation of consoles. In addition, all satellites support OFDMA and MU-MIMO, quadrupling throughput for simultaneous transmission of data to a large number of devices. Inside each point are four antennas and a 1Hz quad-core processor from Qualcomm. Deco X60 does not have a separate radio channel for exchange between network points, but if you wish, you can implement such a connection via LAN.
WORK AND TESTS
Devices can be installed in any order. You connect any of the points to your router via an Ethernet cable, place them in the necessary areas of the apartment or on the floors of the house if you live outside the city. You can cable them through the Ethernet ports if you like, but this seems overkill to me.
After the physical installation, you simply download the application to your phone and restart your router. The system automatically configures itself and installs all updates. In the program, you can select the location of the satellites and mark the rooms for unlinking the smart home, if you have Alexa.
Without a smart assistant, you can check the Wi-Fi speed by saving or comparing the results with past attempts, enable BeamForming support (in this case, the stations will focus the signal on the device, which will make the connection more stable), select the router or access point mode, and also activate roaming mode, which will switch your devices between access points while on the move to maintain maximum performance.
We switched all our three satellites to access point mode by connecting one of them directly to the router. Tariff plan – dynamic connection up to 100 Mb / s.
Internal benchmarks in ideal conditions, when all devices are turned off, and no one except voice assistants and phones is using the Internet, showed results close to 90 MB / s. The signal persisted with small variations of 1–2 mb / s in different areas of the house, including rooms separated by thick walls.
When leaving the house, the signal remained stable within a radius of 50-65 meters. If you decide to use Deco X60 in a router format, then powerful tools for protecting points from electronic hacking, antivirus software and parental control with several color levels for each of the connected devices are activated here. The points themselves can be left in the display mode or turned off at night so that they do not glow in the dark and do not distract during a slow fall into sleep.
TOTAL
TP-LINK Deco X60 is a low-cost solution for multi-room apartments and country houses in its category, which provides smooth coverage and stable signal with support for Wi-Fi 6.
Author: Alexander Loginov (xtr)
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