The proportion of wireless network equipment used in daily life has become higher and higher. As the access point of wireless devices, wireless routers have become one of the bottlenecks in the user experience of wireless devices. In the complex wireless router market, how to choose a suitable Wi-Fi router? Today we will briefly discuss this.
Single-band router or dual-band router, which one should I choose?
What needs to be clear is that when discussing wireless routing, the 5G we are talking about refers to the 5GHz carrier frequency band, not the fifth generation of mobile communications. As discussed in the article Why is the 5G router faster than 2.4G router?, the 5G frequency band can provide larger bandwidth and lower latency than the 2.4G frequency band. But correspondingly, the wall penetration of 5G is much worse than 2.4G.
What is MIMO? Will it affect my Wi-Fi rate?
In the specifications of WLAN products, you usually see an indicator item M×N MIMO, which is used to indicate the number of antennas in MIMO, M indicates the number of antennas at the transmitting end and N indicates the number of antennas at the receiving end. For example, 4×3 MIMO means 4 antennas for transmission and 3 antennas for reception.
Figure 1: MIMO transferring
Most home wireless routers on the market can see several antennas, and one antenna can often support receiving and sending, so you can simply judge based on the number of antennas. The number of antennas is the value of M and N. For example, a wireless router with 4 antennas can be considered as 4x4 MIMO. Of course, the product specifications shall prevail. Generally, the more antennas, the higher the performance and the more expensive the price.
In a MIMO system, if the number of transmitting and receiving antennas is not equal, the number of spatial streams that can be transmitted is less than or equal to the smaller number of antennas in the receiving/transmitting end. For example, a 4×4 (4T4R) MIMO system can transmit 4 or fewer spatial streams, while a 3×2 (3T2R) MIMO system can transmit 2 or 1 spatial streams. Sometimes we will see an infinite router with 8 antennas.
According to the above statement, the mobile phone usually only has 1-2 antennas, which is much smaller than the number of antennas of the router. Does this mean that the router's performance is wasted?
In fact, MU-MIMO will give full play to the performance of the router in this case. MU-MIMO allows the router to transmit signals to multiple mobile phones at the same time until the total number of antennas of the mobile phone is equal to the total number of antennas of the router, thereby reducing connection delay. Therefore, MU-MIMO can improve our connection experience when multiple devices are connected.
Wi-Fi 6 vs Wi-Fi 5
We have discussed Wi-Fi 6 a lot, and we even have a special topic dedicated to discussing Wi-Fi 6 related technologies (Wi-Fi 6 -Collection). Here, we will not discuss Wi-Fi 6 too much. Only give relevant conclusions:
Wi-Fi 6 has better latency performance than Wi-Fi 5;
Wi-Fi 6 can provide greater bandwidth;
Wi-Fi 6 supports concurrent access of more devices without causing large delays;
Wi-Fi 6 has a lower power consumption
Figure 2: Wi-Fi 6 connection identification
Determine if Wi-Fi 6 is right for you:
Is there any delay-sensitive business;
Whether there are a large number of connected devices;
Does the terminal device support Wi-Fi 6
Whether the export bandwidth is no longer the bottleneck;
Other functions
In addition to the regular wireless connection performance, the router also assumes additional roles, including port forwarding.
Please confirm whether you need the following features:
1. Port forwarding. Allows you to access the equipment at home from the external network.
2. Sufficient number of ports. Make sure you need a limited number of connected devices. Believe me, don't add other devices in your home without special needs. Try to ensure that all wired devices are connected to the router. This will look more concise.
3. Additional plug-in extension functions. The plug-in extension function allows you to add different functions according to your actual needs, making it more convenient to use the network.
Summary
Choose a dual-frequency router instead of a single-frequency router;
Choose a router with MU-MIMO function;
If necessary, choose Wi-Fi 6 router;
Determine other required functions, such as port forwarding, number of RJ45 ports, extended functions, etc.
