I was able to view high-definition video on an iPad Pro tablet while a Macbook Air played an Internet radio station and a ThinkPad T470 was set up to play Spotify music.
With all three units in place, it filled my home with Wi-Fi.ĭuring a week of testing that included downloading files, getting and sending email, playing games and watching videos, the Velop AX4200 performed reliably. In other words, it works equally well in a horizontally-oriented ranch home as with a more vertically-oriented town house. With the second Velop AX4200 satellite set up a floor below the router and the test system 40-feet away, it managed to move 276.5Mbps versus the eero Pro 6’s 190.2Mbps. Only the RBK852 set did better at 405.5Mbps, while the RBK752 moved 209.4Mbps and the eero Pro 6 managed 189.3Mbps. Later, with the satellite set up a floor above the router and the test system situated 50-feet away, it registered a throughput level of 329.2Mbps. The eero Pro 6 was closest at 142.3Mbps but the Orbi RBK852 and Orbi RBK752 were well back at 87.7Mbps and 39.1Mbps, respectively. When I set up the Velop AX4200 satellite 50-feet from the router on the same floor and the test system placed another 40-feet away, it moved 161.1Mbps, leading the pack. With the test system set up in a bedroom directly above the router, the throughput fell to 437.5Mbps, which is on a par with the eero Pro 6’s 430.9Mbps the RBK750 fell back with 281.0Mbps of bandwidth available, while its larger cousin, the Orbi RBK752 blasted 670.1Mbps of data. Only the Netgear Orbi RBK852 did better at 782.9Mbps.
With the receiving test system 25-feet from the router and on the other side of a wall, the Velop AX4200 delivered 525.7Mbps, well ahead of the eero Pro 6 (375.6Mbps) or the Netgear Orbi RBK752 (326.6Mbps). Raw range doesn’t tell the whole story with the Velop AX4200 router punching a strong signal through walls and floors. The Velop AX4200 hit its range limit at 90-feet, 15 feet short of the eero Pro 6’s 105-foot range and ability to deliver 29.5Mbps at 90-feet. The Orbi nonidentical twins – the Orbi RBK752 and RBK852 – trailed with 82.5Mbps and 85.9Mbps available. Neither could touch the resurging eero Pro 6’s 239.9Mbps of bandwidth available for the test system at 50-feet.Īt 75-feet, the Velop AX4200’s throughput fell to 139.6Mbps, still behind the eero Pro 6’s 208.9Mbps.
That’s better than either the Netgear Orbi RBK852 (124.4Mbps) or the Orbi RBK752 (100.3Mbps). The eero Pro 6 was back of the class at 436.1Mbps.Īfter I moved the test system 50-feet from the host router, the Velop AX4200’s throughput dropped off to 201.3Mbps. That may be 40 percent off the pace set by the Netgear Orbi WiFi 6 (RBK852) router’s 833.6Mbps, but it’s roughly equivalent to the 506.7Mbps that the Netgear Orbi RBK752 managed. With 10 data-hungry simulated clients and 15-feet separating the Velop AX4200 router and the test system, the network was able to move 507.7Mbps. Overall, the Velop AX4200 did very well on our tests with a crowded network using Ixia’s ixChariot’s benchmark in my 100 year old 3,500 square foot home. There’s also a button to activate the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) system for quickly adding a device to the network, something the eero Pro 6 lacks due to security concerns. Underneath, the Velop AX4200 has a power switch and a recessed reset button to return the device to its factory settings and software. When needed it can speed communications from the satellite to the host, but when not needed, it can augment the overall data flow.
Rather than Orbi’s fixed 5GHz backhaul channel for moving data from the satellite to the host, the Velop AX4200’s software optimizes the backhaul over its two 5GHz channels. The Velop AX4200 tri-band design has a 2.4GHz and two 5GHz data delivery portals that use a dynamic backhaul channel. The system uses the latest Wi-Fi techniques for pushing data to the limit with MU-MIMO and beamforming but can’t run wide 160MHz data channels. There’s 512MB of flash storage for holding its firmware and settings.
Based on Qualcomm’s Networking Pro 800 series of Wi-Fi chips, the Velop AX4200 has a quad-core 1.4GHz processor along with 512MB of RAM to run its operations. Inside, each Velop AX4200 device has eight antennas but they can’t be aimed or replaced. The towers rely on passive cooling and never got above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. When it’s solid blue, everything is online but if it turns to yellow or red, the Internet connection is weak or offline.
The three Velop AX4200 devices that came in the kit are all the same and are configured as the host router or satellite during the installation process.