EnGenius introduces the company’s first Wi-Fi 6E access point the ECW336

Above: The EnGenius ECW336 Wi-Fi 6E access point just released.

On January 5 EnGenius – the SMB Wi-Fi solution specialist – introduced their first Wi-Fi 6E capable access point. The company says the ECW336 is the first Wi-Fi 6E specifically designed for the SMB market and of course the unit is fully managed by EnGenius’ elegant and user-friendly license-free Cloud. The new AP is powered by Qualcomm’s Networking Pro 1210 platform featuring three radios, 12 streams, and up to 8.4 Gbps peak Wi-Fi data rate.

EnGenius also launched this slick and informational webpage on Wi-Fi 6E – worth having a look (especially if you appreciate a nice marketing touch!). EnGenius says the new ECW336 will start shipping worldwide in the first quarter of 2022. Keenan Systems will be the first to have it in stock watch for it here

Windows 11 Wi-Fi Review

I did some Wi-Fi testing on a laptop that I upgraded to windows 11. The computer is a Acer Aspire AS15-54 with Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201. I tested with a Ruckus R750 4×4 Wi-Fi 6 AP at short distance and saw 800-900Mbps throughput with iPerf.

Microsoft also made some changes to the setting interface you can now select a random hardware address for increased privacy like in IOS.

The taskbar widget hs now been combined so you have a extra step to select you Wi-Fi network.

In all Windows 11 Wi-Fi networking has not changed much from Windows 10 and is working well!

iPhone 13 Pro Wi-Fi 6 Speed Testing

I wanted to test maximum Wi-Fi speed of the iPhone 13 Pro so first I used speedtest.net I have a 1Gb Internet connection and I saw just under 600Mbps.

Next I used iPerf between my 10GbE connected workstation and my Ruckus R750 connected to the same ECS2512FP gigabit switch at 2.5GbE and Again saw just about 600Mbps throughput.

I tested with 2 different access points in 80Mhz mode and get the same results. This is quite a bit less then the 800Mbps I saw with the iPhone 12 Pro. Please comment below if you have seen similar results with the iPhone 13 Pro?

Above is a graph of a 2×2 Wi-Fi 6 laptop (green) and the iPhone 13 Pro (blue) throughput.

Noctua Silent Fan Install on a EnGenius Multi Gig ECS2512FP Switch

The ECS2512FP is a great switch it has 8 2.5Gb ports and 4 SFP+ slots but it is designed to be rack mounted in a closet so the stock fans can be loud in a office environment.

So I purchased 2 of the Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX fans and installed them into the switch. These fans come with multiple wire adapters one of them fits the engenius switch but I did have to rewire the connector to reverse the polarity.

After the install the switch is silent and has been running fine for months without issue. The error light is triggered on the front display but the switch works as normal.

If you want to try this yourself the Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX is available here https://amzn.to/2RWqo2K

We have the ECS2512FP available here

Doing this mod will take the switch out of warranty