Prepare for Wi-Fi 6: Why Use a Test House Part 2

Heat map characterization: Illustrate how an access point performs in terms of coverage and throughput in (and around) a live test house environment where furniture, walls, wiring, etc. can affect the user experience. The heat map tests produce a graphical representation of an access point’s (AP) signal strength (RSSI) and throughput levels across the dwelling.

Extender & Mesh Characterization: Characterize any improvement in range and/or throughput after deploying extenders in the network. Improvement in signal strength and throughput will be represented via heatmaps. This type of testing is useful for simulating different deployments in commercial and residential environments and for understanding how multiple access points coordinate client device traffic as they traverse the network. This test can also incorporate 3rd party controller systems used to manage the hardware. This test is extremely important for deployment in larger dwellings not using multiple APs. 

Throughput Characterization: Characterize the ability of the access point to serve multiple clients at various locales and how it allocates bandwidth to each (airtime fairness implementation). Throughput characterization testing will help in understanding if there are circumstances where an access point might not deliver a good user experience, particularly when multiple clients are involved and to validate specific Quality of Service (QoS) feature claims. 

Long Term Stability: Exercise the access point (AP) for 20 continuous hours, assessing the ability to serve multiple clients distributed around the test house with a stream equivalent to Ultra HD/4K video. Testing for long duration stability will give a clearer picture of how the AP will perform over extended periods of time, while being utilized by multiple, mixed use clients. 

Band Select: Validate band selection or band steering by enabling clients (capable of operating on both bands) to move between 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands. Using RSSI triggers, this test helps illustrate the AP’s ability to move clients between bands and can further be employed to illustrate how different clients (and Wi-Fi radio manufacturers) behave with the AP.