Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware
The ASUS ZenWiFi XD6 mesh Wi-Fi system can be purchased with one or two nodes out of the box and does not look like a traditional router. ASUS' branding is minimal yet elegant, and its sleek oval tower design is easy on the eyes and will fit anywhere in your home. A multi-color LED under the ASUS logo of each node is used to indicate its operational status. A solid white light shows everything is working correctly, blue means the node is ready for set up, red means lost connection to the primary node or connection to the internet, and yellow means the signal between the main router and the node is weak.
Each ZenWiFi XD6 node is 126.4mm wide, 59.05mm deep, and 129.7mm tall and weighs 435g. All six antennas are built inside the brushed white plastic enclosure for a contemporary appearance. Why six antennas, you may ask? The first reason is the ASUS ZenWiFi XD6 system needs extra antennas to communicate with each other using a wireless backhaul. A wired backhaul for increased performance and reliability is also supported -- more on this later. On the client side, the use of multiple antennas for communications has been the foundation of many modern wireless technologies; ranging from short range unlicensed bands such as Wi-Fi to long range licensed bands like 5G cell phone networks. The fundamental principle lies in the fact that multiple antennas allow the designer to enhance performance using beamforming and diversity techniques. Beamforming, in the simplest explanation, allows the wireless signal to be directed towards a certain direction. Diversity exploits multipath -- where a wireless signal can arrive via different paths due to reflection and refraction in the propagation channel -- to enhance the received signal quality. In Wi-Fi 6, spatial multiplexing takes advantage of these different paths between the transmitter and receiver, as limited by the number of antennas and advanced signal processing techniques, so that multiple streams of data can be transmitted within the same frequency band. Multi-user MIMO, otherwise called MU-MIMO, lets multiple antennas from multiple users to communicate with multiple antennas on the router. Obviously, the more antennas on the access point the better, but we are bound by the laws of diminishing returns.
Turning the ASUS ZenWiFi XD6 around, we can take a closer look at the array of ports and switches. From the left, we have a 12V DC power input, three Gigabit Ethernet ports, and one Gigabit Ethernet uplink port. A wired backhaul can be established between the secondary node and primary node by connecting the WAN port on the secondary node to a LAN port on the primary node. Meanwhile, both the left and right sides of the ZenWiFi XD6 nodes are ventilated to ensure the 1.5GHz Broadcom triple-core CPU, 256MB of flash memory, 512MB of RAM, and all the associated electronics stay thermally stable.
Each ZenWiFi XD6 node is an AX5400 wireless access point. This means it operates at 574Mbps on the 2.4GHz band via one 40MHz channel with two spatial streams. 4804Mbps of bandwidth on a 160MHz channel with four streams on the 5GHz band gives it 5378Mbps total theoretical throughput for its AX5400 designation. We will evaluate the performance of this router in just a moment.
The power supply adapter is not explicitly branded, but if you look carefully, you can find its Chinese language manufacturer name, which is 立德電子. A quick search shows this company is known as Leader Electronics in English. The MU24D1120200-A1 is a 12V power supply specified for up to 2A of current. This means it can deliver a maximum of 24W. As far as efficiency is concerned, it is "VI" rated. To skip over all the nitty gritty compliance details of this technical specification, the basic gist of it is it has to be at least 87.5% efficient in given conditions and consumes less than 0.50W in no-load mode.
Ventilation openings can be seen at the top and bottom of the ASUS ZenWiFi XD6, where the top is a bit more subtle. A pair of thin rubber feet provide some grip as well as a little bit of extra clearance between the router and your table. This is important, since there is a WPS button and a reset button at the bottom. A label at the bottom shows information like the serial number, default SSID, and hardware revision. Of course, you are free to change your wireless network name in the web configuration interface, but this will get you going right off the bat if you have no idea what you are looking for.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Configuration and User Interface
4. Performance Tests
5. Conclusion
