Hello Alta and Friends!
I had the opportunity to test out the AP6 and AP6 Pro at the first of the month, so this post is a bit late - but with the new UI release I wanted to give my initial impressions first!
After testing your products I was extremely impressed with the performance and hardware that you have packed into these APs. You all have done some amazing work on these things and it shows.
You’ve made me a believer for sure. Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing more that you and your team have to offer!
Below are my notes during my testing.
What I did
At home I have a gigabit service, no hardwire - only wifi connections for all devices in the house
Average about 750mbps in my office
4 devices connected to Alta PRO - Phone, Roku TV, Work Laptop, Home Desktop
2 rounds of throughput testing for about 25 minutes each with all 4 devices active
-All at the same time-
Work Laptop: Connected via VPN, video call on teams, web browsing, streamed youtube in two different windows
Home Desktop: downloaded a game (75gb), streamed youtube, played an online game
Roku TV: streamed Netflix
Phone: streamed Youtube
Result: Performed admirably, throughput on Desktop peaked at 763Mbps while downloading and the 4 other devices active.
Performed speed test on work laptop, showed around 325Mbps down, 16mbps up
Downloaded 75gb in about 13 minutes both times
Teams call saw no degradation, no buffering on TV, phone, or youtube streams on desktop and laptop
Performed some light speed tests with other wireless devices and APs I have at home
Compared side-by-side: AP6 to Watchguard AP130, Linksys LAPAC1300C, and Netgear Orbi RBR860
Compared side-by-side: AP6 PRO to Netgear Orbi RBR860(+1 Satellite), Linksys LAPAX3600C, Linksys E9450 AX5400 Router,
AP6 compared to the AP130, LAPAC1300C was no contest – AP6 definitely won out on range and speed.
AP6 compared to my orbi was comparable
AP6 PRO vs Orbi(+1 Satellite), LAPAX3600C and E9450
Throughput is throughput at the end of the day, but the AP6 Pro had way better range and felt far more responsive to large pulls of data – like flicking a switch. Linksys and orbi’s felt like there was a bit of a ramp up to their full speed
the AP6 and AP6 PRO definitely have better range and roaming hand off than my Netgear orbi (which is my primary router at home)
Orbi is rated for about 2500 sq ft per unit, I have base unit at ISP handoff in living room + 1 satellite in my office - around 5000sq ft of coverage.
Was able to see my Alta network in my back yard with higher signal strength than my orbi which was actually physically closer
Tested roaming: roaming handoff happened very quickly, at just about half signal strength hand off to from AP6 PRO to AP6 was seamless.
Max Stats
Load: 4-6%
Ram: 66-70%
Wattage: 16.8 watts
aggregate throughput during testing: a little over 200Gb in about 35 - 45 minutes
Likes
• I like the packaging, good box with padding and support so it doesnt get josseled
• Big brownie points for having mounting hardware in a sealed itemized package!
• The mount is flush and slim, while also allowing for ethernet cable to to be accessed
• Mount was VERY secure lol
• I like the design of the AP, its unique and not just a disc or box
• LED light is noticable but soft enough that it doesnt draw the eye too terribly much
• Creating an account, setup, and firmware was easy and straight forward
• The information provided in the UI is good, and allow for customization of what the columns show and don’t show
• Status activity and traffic indicators are good
• individual configuration options are compact and make sense
• Obvious Radius and SSH integration is great
• SSID configuration is thorough in my opinion
• Pretty decent range on these things
• Fast Roaming is a big plus and worked well
• LED Colors a neat, and nice for organization
• Management color coding also nice
• domain and application blocking is wild
• Range is insane
Dislikes
• took me a while to figure out how to actually setup the SSID
• Not sure if the heatsink/shield is the final version - AP got pretty hot while in use (according to stats at the time 4% load 66% ram)
• UI is not the most intuitive, but is able to be inferred with experience of other management systems and products
• would like to be able to remove the black color (all) from a device and just make it 1 color – but I understand
• Scan didnt work for my with the AP6 PRO, did not try with the AP6. Tried quick and full scan but timed out each time.
• would like the option for power adapter, not just PoE
Will make a new post after playing around with the new UI!
