With the rapid development of smart phones, it can be said that we are increasingly inseparable from the Internet in our lives, and wireless routers have long been standard in users’ homes. With the rapid development of smart homes in recent years, more and more smart products have begun to enter the homes of ordinary users. There are more than 30 smart devices in my home. As most of the current smart devices need to be connected to the WiFi network, To achieve intelligent control, in addition to requiring stable signals and wide coverage, there are higher requirements for the amount of routers.
Since the launch of the Xiaomi router in 2014, the Xiaomi router team has brought us a new generation of home routers after a lapse of 5 years. The Xiaomi router Mesh has 4 built-in independent amplifiers and adopts Mesh technology. The mixed channel network can easily solve the network coverage problems of various home environments. I am fortunate to have the Mesh public beta version of this Xiaomi router in advance, and I will take you to understand it in detail below.
Exterior
Different from the first generation of wooden box packaging, the Xiaomi router Mesh uses a black packaging box. The front side is stamped “MiWiFi MESH” and the Xiaomi LOGO. The side is printed with the words “Xiaomi router Mesh metric plate”, the overall design is high-end atmosphere .
After opening the lid, at the top is a brochure of Xiaomi router, which contains the introduction of all models from the first generation of Xiaomi router to the latest Xiaomi router Mesh. It is very good in paper and printing.
The bottom of the box is placed with two identical routers. Unlike other parent-child routers, Xiaomi router Mesh is not divided into parent-child routers. It can be used as the main router regardless of appearance and hardware configuration.
In addition to the router in the box, the accessories are relatively simple. It is equipped with two three-phase power cables and a gigabit network cable. Compared with other routers, it also uses a power adapter. The Xiaomi router Mesh is more compact.
In terms of appearance, the Xiaomi router Mesh continues Xiaomi’s consistent simple design style. The vertical design occupies less space, and the pure white body is easier to integrate into various home environments.
There is only one round key on the front of the router, and there is a circle of indicator lights with a hidden design. You can learn the current working status of the router according to the color of the indicators. The indicator light is always blue under normal work.
On the side of the fuselage near the bottom is the golden “MiWiFi MESH”, and on the other side of the fuselage near the bottom, the engineering machine number is also printed. The first public test model should be 200 units. The number in my hand is 104. Still very memorable.
The top design of the router is very simple. Only the silver “MI” logo is retained. The edges are surrounded by strip-shaped heat dissipation holes. The design uses a “chimney” heat dissipation structure, plus a specially treated metal substrate and high radiation. The large heat sink combined with special nano-materials can make the router have better heat dissipation capability, effectively reduce chip temperature, and improve system stability.
The bottom of the router is a large area of rubber non-slip, which can make the router more stable and adapt to more different desktop environments. The edge is a circle of bar-shaped heat dissipation holes, which can improve the heat dissipation effect of the whole machine.
The interfaces of the router are concentrated on the back of the fuselage, equipped with 3 Gigabit Ethernet ports, and use automatic network port identification technology. There is no need to distinguish between WAN port and LAN port. Above the network port is the Reset hole and below is the power interface. The Xiaomi router Mesh this time is not equipped with a USB interface. Unlike the first Xiaomi router, it is no longer possible to connect external hard disks.
Measured
The installation method of the Xiaomi router Mesh is also very simple. Connect any network port of the router to the optical cat or insert a network cable, then connect the power, and then download the Xiaomi WiFi APP through the mobile phone to quickly complete the router configuration operation. Little white users can easily set it up.
Download the Xiaomi WiFi APP on the mobile phone, click “Set up a new Xiaomi router”, select the Xiaomi router that needs to be configured, and then just follow the system prompts to complete the setup operation. If you are accessing the Internet through the light cat, during the setup process You also need to manually enter the broadband account and password. After the setting is successful, the mobile phone will prompt “Created successfully”, and the indicator on the router will turn blue.
After the main router is set up, you can perform network expansion operations. The setting operation of the sub-router is also very simple. You can follow the system prompts. After the setting is successful, there will be a prompt of “the network extension is successful.” The light will also turn solid blue.
After the router is set up, it will enter the router management interface by default. Here we can not only check the upload speed, download speed, network status and connected devices in real time, but also add devices, mesh device management and one-click speed measurement. A hybrid network can be implemented between the two Mesh routers through 2.4G, 5G, network cables, and power lines, which is more flexible to use.
Enter the “toolbox” interface, which has 7 options: one-click speed measurement, WiFi optimization, anti-snack network, routing settings, routing weekly report, upgrade assistant and more tools, you can test the mobile phone’s network speed, optimize the WiFi network and turn on smart Speed limit and other functions.
Enter the “router settings” interface, you can see that there are 10 setting options here, which is convenient for users to quickly perform the corresponding setting operations on the router. You can modify the WiFi name, password, and signal strength, restart the router, unbundle the router, and restore. Factory settings, etc. And unlike other wireless routers, the Xiaomi router Mesh combines the 2.4GHz and 5GHz signal bands. With Band Steering spectrum navigation technology, the system can automatically select the appropriate network signal connection for the device.
In addition, through the “Toolbox” option on the main interface, we can also view the weekly routing report. The system will automatically generate the Xiaomi router transcript based on the usage of the past week, so that users can have a simple understanding of the router’s working week; “Upgrade Assistant” can view the current system version of the router and mobile phone applications, and can also perform system detection and update operations; in “More Tools” there are 3 options of in-depth speed measurement, intelligent speed limit and custom Hosts, users can Need to make a selection.
The background design of the Xiaomi router Mesh’s background management interface is concise, and the functions in it have been optimized. Some functions that are often used by most users are retained. The connected devices will appear on the “router” interface, and for some Xiaomi The device can also jump directly to the control interface.
After reading the appearance design and various functions of the Xiaomi router Mesh, I believe that everyone should pay more attention to its wireless signal coverage and transmission rate. Xiaomi router Mesh has two built-in 2.4GHz and 5GHz signal amplifiers, plus PA (power amplifier) and LNA (low-noise amplifier), which can make the signal transmission distance longer and cover a wider area. In addition, it also supports LDPC (low density Parity check code) error correction algorithm can improve signal transmission efficiency.
Here is a test of the router’s signal. The home is equipped with 100M broadband telecommunications. Although the area of the home is only about 120 square meters, the light cat in the home can only be installed in the Xiaomi router Mesh (main) due to conditions. In the room, although several wireless routers were replaced, the secondary bedroom and toilet signal coverage at the door have not been ideal. In the end, whether this Xiaomi router can bring surprises, let’s go to the actual test together.
Here, 4 test points are selected, and the Wi-Fi analyzer on the mobile phone is used for signal testing, and the network speed test included in Xiaomi WiFi and another professional speed measurement software are used for network speed test. Here we first tested the 2.4GHz WiFi signal of the Xiaomi router Mesh.
It can be seen through the WiFi analyzer that the Xiaomi router Mesh actually has 2 signals, of which the blue is the “main route” signal and the red is the “sub route” signal, but in actual use we can only see one, the router will Automatically select the signal according to the location of the device for better connection. Through testing, it can be seen that except at the B test point, the signals at other locations are “sub-routes”, and in the past, the signal coverage was poor at points C and D. The optimized signal strength also reached about -55dBm. And -65dBm, it can be said that you can maintain smooth Internet access in any corner of the entire house.
Here we also tested the 5GHz signal of the Xiaomi router Mesh. The “main route” is a yellow curve and the “sub route” is a blue curve. You can see that at points A and B separated by a wall, the 5G signal is There is obvious attenuation, but the transmission rate can be guaranteed, and normal Internet access or watching video can be guaranteed. However, at points C and D separated by two walls, the signal is not only unstable, but the signal attenuation is serious. Of course, the problem of weak 5G signals passing through the wall is limited by the current technology and other reasons, and there is currently no perfect solution.
Through the above test, you can see that the improvement in signal coverage is still obvious, but good signal coverage does not mean that the network speed is also very good, because the network speed will inevitably decline after wireless relay. Here we first tested with the system’s built-in speed measurement function. The download speed at point A is 8.84MB / s and the download speed at point B is 8.49MB / s. Since these two locations are close to the router, the system automatically selects the connected one. It should be a 5GHz signal; and at points C and D, you can see that the system indicates that a 2.4GHz signal is connected at this time, where the download speed of point C is 4.41MB / s and the download speed of point D is 1.96MB / s. It is basically the same outside point D. In addition, please note that many speed measurement software use Mbps by default, and MB / s is about 8 times Mbps. Convert the specific value yourself.
The network speed test was performed again through a “Speedtest” professional speed measurement software. It can be seen that the test results have not changed much from the above, and are basically consistent. This time I was most satisfied with the toilet location at point D, because in the past it had to pass through two load-bearing walls, which can be said to be the absolute dead end location of the WiFi. I used to browse the webpage before, the video was basically invisible, and now even ultra high-definition video Can also watch smoothly. Moreover, it can be seen from the test data that the Xiaomi router Mesh can automatically switch to a better WiFi network according to the location of the device, and can also automatically switch between 5G signals and 2.4G signals to achieve seamless roaming throughout the house.
In order to let everyone have a comparison, the “sub-route” is specifically powered down here, and only the “main route” is reserved for use. The third-party professional speed measurement software was used to perform the network speed test. Through testing, it can be seen that the equipment should be connected to 2.4G signals. Among them, points A and B separated by a wall will not affect the daily use of users, and points C and D separated by two walls. The speed attenuation is still very obvious, only 0.41MB / s and 0.62MB / s. See if the webpage and high-definition video should still be ok. Comparing with the above data, you can see that the speed increase is still very obvious.
After the above tests, it can be seen that the performance of the Xiaomi router Mesh is relatively satisfactory in terms of signal coverage and network speed transmission. In particular, the 2.4G and 5G frequency bands are combined, and the device can be automatically guided by the spectrum navigation technology. Access better signals to make users more worry-free. In addition, the Xiaomi router Mesh also supports gigabit power line composition. Even the thickest wall can be easily handled, making the signal transmission better.
If you have a lot of Xiaomi smart home devices in your home, the Xiaomi router Mesh will make you more worry-free. It will allow you to set up Xiaomi smart home devices to access the network through the Mijia app, without having to manually enter a password, it will automatically fill in the password. Make it easier for devices to access the network. In addition, when using the Xiaomi WiFi APP to change the WiFi password, the Xiaomi router Mesh can also automatically synchronize to Xiaomi smart home devices, no need to set one by one. If there are many smart products in the home, it is not necessary to reset the device after changing the password. small.
Conclusion
Through the use experience these days, I personally feel that the Xiaomi router Mesh is still very good. It not only has a simple and stylish appearance, simple and fast settings, but also supports multi-channel hybrid networking, which can easily cope with a variety of complex home environments. Dual-frequency integration and spectrum navigation technology make users more worry-free. In addition, there is a secret-free input function tailored for Xiaomi smart home devices and a maximum of 248 device connections, making Xiaomi smart home users more worry-free to use, which is its advantage over other routers. If there are any shortcomings, it is the lack of some professional functions, and the cancellation of the USB interface and the lack of a built-in hard disk, so that the remote download function is not supported. I believe that many people should now be more concerned about pricing and when it will be sold. I wonder what do you think of this Xiaomi router Mesh?
