Apr 22, 2025 11:34 AM By OP mmwlada

2

oh yeah, one more thing. It would be good to add in WiFi coverage section description what materials the house is made of. Wood, concrete, bricks, polimers… I suspect that range would differ depending on wall materials.

Hey mmwlada,

Thanks for those suggestions! This is a great list to work with. About half of the features listed are also on my list of things I would like to add to the review. Adding your voice makes it clearer what we need to improve upon! Thanks for that!

Could you add more details on what are you trying to achieve by changing the features listed below please? Understanding your needs will help us define better tests (as we don’t want to simply list features from the manual but really test them to ensure they are also working properly and achieving what we need from them).

• DMZ
• Configurable firewall
• Use of different subnets
• Static binding
• Wifi sleep mode

And you are totally right that different materials will impact the attenuation of the signal differently. Wood/drywall will attenuate around 3-4dB, while concrete will go up to 15dB of attenuation. What we don’t really control is the bouncing of the signal on the walls, so it is not a direct linear correlation: We don’t know which signals go through walls/flooring, and which bounce off walls and go through doors. The range performance will change from one house over the other depending on floor plans and composition of walls (and even placement of bookshelves!).

We chose to do range test in a location that represent a “common” location for a Wi-Fi router instead of opting for an anechoic chamber that would let us do technical attenuation and signal power measurement, but I do think we can improve our test method, or at least our test description so users can more easily transfer our data to their homes as you pointed out.

If you have any more suggestions for us, we are all ears!

Hey Aaano,

I understand your reality! No wireless/microphone at all can be a real pain, but you are in luck as there are really great open-back headphones with no microphone, bluetooth or wireless connection. So, the biggest variable here will be your budget: high-end: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/sennheiser/hd-490-pro mid-range: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/sennheiser/hd-560s low-end: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/superlux/hd-681

All three headphones will offer you great sound, more quality as the price goes up, but all three are perfectly viable option in my opinion. They all have bad scores for Commute/Travel and Sports/fitness since they are wired, and bad scores for office since they will leak sound, but that will always be the case with open-back headphones. Don’t get scared by the red scores!

If you had a specific price point in mind, let me know and I can offer a few other suggestions in that price range.

Apr 08, 2025 09:14 PM By pfurrie

1

Have had an AX55 for a couple of years, works fine. Is configured with three Wi-Fi networks: primary, guest, and IOT. Needed to extend the Wi-Fi network, so purchased another AX55. Connected them together using the build-in EasyMesh. This does extend the network… well, it extends the primary network, but not the guest or IOT network. There is no caveat in TP-Link’s specifications for the router that warns users of this. The whole point of extending the network is to extend the WHOLE network. Rtings might consider including test on mesh devices to report on what networks are being propagated (some or all). There is zero case where I want just one network extended.

Hey pfurrie, Thanks for the feedback. I totally agree with what you said. This is an important limitation to highlight. We are looking into boosting our test methodology for mesh network, just not sure when it’ll happen. We should be able to cover this on a future update to the methodology.

Hey TallSmaN! doritos already suggested two solid picks with the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless and the Razer BlackShark V2 HyperSpeed Wireless. Keep in mind that both these headphones are not compatible with Xbox. Also, the Razer’s microphone cannot be removed. My top pick is the HyperX Cloud III Wireless. It will offer the best performances for your budget, but still won’t connect to an Xbox. So, if you are an Xbox player, then the choice becomes the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7X Wireless, which will offer slightly less sound quality, but will work on all consoles.

Mar 31, 2025 06:24 AM By imranahmedk

1

I bough this router based on the reviews but I am not getting the range even close to the data shown here. I have a less than 2000 sq. Ft apartment with concrete walls. My signal keeps dropping even 20 ft away in my room with the doors close. Even in my living room the speeds drop to half with the router placed less than 20ft away behind a wall next to the entrance. Any I missing something on the settings?

Hi imranahmedk, Unfortunately, there is no simple setting or configuration that will boost the signal. Concrete walls are one of the worst enemy of WiFi. If your interior walls are made of concrete, WiFi will not be able to penetrate the walls and will need to find a way to go around them. Concrete is also a bad reflector since the WiFi signal will mostly get absorbed by concrete walls. The best option is really to get a line-of-sight from the device to your router. Doors made of wood won’t be blocking the WiFi signal, so at least there’s that. Try to find a central spot high above the ground for the router in your home that will be able to beam the WiFi through the doors of each rooms. Also, since the antennas are internal on this router, ensure the router is upright and standing on its rubber feet so it is in its optimal position. Our coverage map was done with drywall and wood walls, so it will not be representative of your home.

Of course, you could also use ethernet cables to connect your devices to circumvent the WiFi vs Concrete problem, but that generally defeat the whole point of having a WiFi router. Other options would be to use repeaters/extenders or a mesh system to be able to create a better line-of-sight WiFi coverage. Keep in mind that using repeaters/extenders will need to be able to be in line-of-sight of both the router and the devices, so they might be hard to place. Mesh systems will have the same problem of having both line-of-sight if using a wireless backhaul, but could also be connected using ethernet cables (wired backhaul) which will only require your satellite node to be in line-of-sight with your device.

Hey Bonokatz! The two models you suggested offer pretty similar experience. The biggest difference between the two models will be the viewing angle: When viewing at an angle, A7N will offer a better experience than U6H. If looking straight at the screen, both TVs will perform similarly. So, if you don’t anticipate having a wide seating arrangement, then the U6H is the better option for you in this case! Otherwise, go for the A7N. You could explore more TV models with our TV recommendation tool, but from what I gathered, you pretty much selected the two best models around the 300-350$ price point for your specific usage!