The IT Nerd

What if I told you that you could get the following access point with the following specs for just $189 USD:

•  5,800 Mbps on 6 GHz
• 4,300 Mbps on 5 GHz
• 700 Mbps (2.4 GHz)
• 2.5 GbE port with PoE++ support
• 2×2 MIMO suppor

You may think that’s not possible. But it is possible as EnGenius has done this with the ECW520. Here’s a look at it:

EnGenius has brought an access point that is on the slim side, as well as having rounded edges. Thus for those who care about design, this access point will likely fit in with any office decor.

Underneath is a 2.5 GbE port with PoE++ support. Which is great as one cable will give you fast uplink/downlink as well as power. I should note that this does not come with a power adapter. Though it does have a 12V barrel jack and EnGenius does sell a power adapter for the three people on Earth who would need that.

Setting things up is laughably easy via the EnGenius Cloud app which is available for iOS and Android. Anyone can get it set up and running in under 10 minutes which is another plus for this product.

But here’s the real question. How fast is this? Well I had to borrow some WiFi 7 devices to properly test this as I don’t run anything with WiFi 7 at the moment. But once I secured said devices and ran my testing, here’s what I got.

• 1 Meter from the access point: 1.9 Gbps per second
• 5 Meters from the access point: 1 Gbps per second
• 10 Meters from the access point: 680 Mbps per second

All of this was within line of sight of the access point. If I compared it to the ECW526, it’s somewhat slower than that access point. But not by enough for me to care. Especially since the ECW526 is a whole lot more expensive. For my clients who are looking to get access points, the ECW520 may be my go to in terms of what I recommend. The price is right and the speed is better than good enough as far as I am concerned. Plus the setup is easy enough that anyone who buys one or more of these won’t have to pay someone like me to set them up. Just get an electrician to string up PoE to the right places and you’re good to go.

This entry was posted on September 8, 2025 at 8:59 am and is filed under Products with tags EnGenius. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.