Review: EnGenius Cloud Managed ECW220 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) 2×2 Indoor Wireless Access Point
Today, we’re going to have a look at a WiFi access point for businesses that is easy set up and easy to manage. And that’s the EnGenius Cloud Managed ECW220 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) 2×2 Indoor Wireless Access Point. Here’s a look at it:
This access point is pretty low key and doesn’t occupy a lot of space. In fact, it’s on the thin side It may even go unnoticed by most people. The only thing that you see on the outside are a set of LEDs along the top.The first is power, while the second indicates whether you’re connected to your router. The third and fourth lights indicate the status of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands respectively. You should also note that on the bottom right side of the picture is a Kensington lock slot for making sure that the access point doesn’t grow legs and walk away.
Underneath is a recessed area where there is your power connection if you’re not using POE (Please note that the power adapter is not included), and a gigabit Ethernet jack that supports POE, both on the right. And on the left is a hole to reset the access point via a paperclip. I should also note that all the brackets and screws that you need to mount this are in the box.
The access point supports the following speeds:
- 5Ghz: 1,200Mbps
- 2Ghz: 574Mbps
And it support up to WiFi6 as well. Plus it supports 2×2 Mu-MiMo. Which means that if you have a lot of devices, you should not notice any slowdowns.
Setup in typical EnGenius fashion is simple. Download and install the EnGenius smartphone app available in Android and iOS versions, scan a QR on the back of the housing and spend a few minutes getting settings that work for you configured. You might also want to check for a firmware update to make sure that you’re good to go. And I should also mention that there’s web management available as well if managing your access points from a smartphone isn’t your thing. But I will say that there does not appear to be any offline management available which might bother some people.
The best way to test this is to use POE. So using this EnGenius POE switch, I set it up and did some performance and range testing. I should note that besides getting the power adapter from EnGenius, you can also use a POE adapter like this one that EnGenius sent me to power the access point.
I used a WiFi 6 enabled device to do my testing of this access point and got these results:
- 375Mbps from 4.5 meters away
- 241Mbps at 10 meters and a pair of concrete walls to deal with
These are all respectable speeds and is in line with the best WiFi hardware that I have tested. I also tried to get this access point to trip up by throwing 10 WiFi 6 devices playing videos from YouTube at it. None seemed to have an issue in doing so. Thus I am certain that whatever your use case is, this access point will be able to handle it.
The EnGenius Cloud Managed ECW220 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) 2×2 Indoor Wireless Access Point is available now for a price of $299 USD. If you’re looking to blanket your office, or even a large home with WiFi that won’t let you down, this is totally access point is totally worth looking at.
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