TP-Link RE605x Test: WiFi Repeater 6 ensures good speed

The TP-Link RE605x (AX1800) is a repeater with two folding antennas that takes exactly the design of the RE505x (AX1500), which looks like an LEP Droid from Saga Star Wars. Once the antennas are open its measurements will be impressive (9 cm wide, 5 cm deep and the height will go from 16 to 22 cm depending on the position of the antennas – this is not the orientation).
Weighing in at 275g, the RE605x tilts very low into the socket when installing, despite the use of a two-node plug (neutral + grid). RE605x is classified as a repeater that allows you to repeat and extend the range of your WiFi network. To do this, it must be installed between your box or router and the area you want to hide.

On the left edge of the repeater, we have the Gigabit standard RJ45 socket. So it can provide access to the network by connecting to a network (console, PC, etc.) or as a source to turn the rifle into a WiFi access point.
The reset button and the WPS button are quickly attached to its area on the right side.

The front face is completely smooth and has 4 blue diodes: one for start-up, the second for bad network quality will turn red if there is a bad signal and 5 GHz for every 2.4 GHz WiFi band.

In terms of features, the RE605x offers Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) compatibility at 1200 Mb / s in the 5 GHz band and 574 Mb / s in the 2.4 GHz band. It is compatible with OnMash, a network mesh specific to DP-Link. It is therefore essential to equip yourself with TP-Link, while ensuring compatibility with its use.

There are two ways to install TP-Link Repeater RE605x. Either by installing the Tether smartphone application or via an web interface via tplinkrepeater.net.
First, you need to plug the RE605x into the socket closest to the box or router and connect via Wi-Fi, which will initially have the SSID “TP-Link_Extender”.
The application then offers a process of a dozen very short steps. Configuration is 5 minutes per person used for this type of installation.

Once the configuration is complete, the Tether application allows you to configure your entire repeater. No need to go through the web interface to fix the smallest details like its operating system, IP address allocation (DHCP) or frequency band activation.

You can find the same settings in the web interface; Users of these interfaces will not be lost. The program has no parental controls, but simple settings. Thus not authorizing or allowing access to certain devices and time intervals.

Repeater installation and configuration ergonomics are pleasant. However, there are some approximations in some translations, but no problem.

To evaluate the performance of the repeater from DP-Link, we repeated the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz signals from the Netgear RAX 200 router. To measure the bitrates, we transferred a 4.73GB file (disk image) between the laptop PC to the ground connected to the second laptop PC equipped with the Intel AX200 WiFi 6 chip and a standard desktop PC PCIe card. Gigabyte GC-WBAX200, equipped with Intel AX200 chip, but with external antenna.

The router is positioned in one corner of the house, with the repeater almost 15 cm from the floor in the middle of the house. We take a measurement at 1 meter, which gives us the optimal flow rates (point 2), measured in a room at a distance of 5 m from the repeater, a load-bearing wall in front of the router (point 4), the third measurement on the system is a concrete floor (point 3), and The last measurement was fixed through the floor, but above the first chamber where the speed of the router is low (point 5).

On WiFi 6 in the 5 GHz band, the DP-Link Repeater will reach an average of 39 Mb / s when downloading nearby 315 Mb / s. Our measurement points 3 and 4 are 286 Mb / s (35.75 Mb / s) and 248 Mb / s (31 Mb / s) respectively. Transmission speed is over 200 Mb / s.
At our last measurement point, download drops to 160 Mb / s, while sending drops to 71 Mb / s. Although the sending speed is high, here we reach the limit of the repeater reception capabilities. It should be noted that the two load-bearing walls, the concrete floor and the laptop PC are placed on the bed, which are not conducive to the propagation of waves.

On WiFi 5 (802.11ac), the speed difference varies less from one point to another. Here we notice a speed drop of about 10% when switching from WiFi 6 to WiFi 5.

Last test on the 2.4 GHz band, and little surprise since the DP-Link R605X WiFi 6 can reach 271 MB / s or almost 34 MB / V. An excellent performance illustrated by the behavior of the repeater: Netzier uses a mode comparable to Fastlane. Thus, depending on the conditions, it repeats the 5 GHz signal coming from the router broadcasting at 2.4 GHz, thus releasing the 2.4 GHz band only for communication with connected devices.
Theoretically, the 2.4 GHz band should have a better range than the 5 GHz band, but in view of the above points 3 and 5 measurements, it does not.