Even on last year's December made several important announcements at once, but we are only interested in two in this review. Firstly, the company really continues to support old models by adding new features to the firmware. Secondly, among these new features, the release finally included a Wi-Fi system. Let's get acquainted with it using the example of devices of different generations: models of 2015 and news from last year . This is another clear example of the importance of software in modern devices.
What's happened according to Keenetic? In a nutshell, this is the centralized management of Wi-Fi access points (APs) based on any modern company devices connected via an Ethernet cable to one of the Keenetic routers, which in this case becomes the system controller. Previously, of course, it was also possible to simply run the cable to the right place, put the router there, switch it to the normal AP mode, and even set the same names and passwords for connecting to the wireless network. However, the Wi-Fi system offers precisely the unified management of the entire network. This also applies to firmware updates, and the transfer of all network settings, and control over users and devices, and, of course, roaming, which we met on the example .
This is a kind of answer to mesh systems and at the same time a test entry into the territory of SMB solutions. Moreover, in both cases, the company wins in terms of a combination of price and features. With the SMB segment, everything is clear in this sense, because the cost of a solution for an office with several rooms will in itself be considerable even in the case of simpler and cheaper devices, but for a home such solutions are still slightly redundant. But the situation with mesh options is not clear to everyone. Tri-band sets, where one band is allocated exclusively for data transmission between points to create a core network, are not cheap. And dual-band suffer from the classic repeater problem of halving (or more) the base rate due to the half-duplex nature of data transmission over Wi-Fi. The access point spends half of the time communicating with another point, and distributes the rest among clients, among which there may also be points. And not all options support the normal rebuilding of the network in the event of a shutdown of one of the nodes. So the only indisputable plus of mesh-systems is the absence of the need to lay a cable.
For wired systems, on the contrary, this is the only drawback. But there is no loss in speed and delays of the wireless connection, since the air resources are not spent on the core network, and the scalability is much higher. In the case of the Keenetic solution, there is no noticeable limitation on the number of slave access points. According to the topology, too - you can connect the points with a star, connecting them to the main router-controller, or you can chain them, one after the other, or both at once. As a matter of fact, there is no tricky magic (routing in this case) - only switching works for wired connections. Because of this, for example, on child access points as part of the system, it is impossible to bind a separate segment / VLAN to a physical port, but without a Wi-Fi system in normal AP mode, everything will be available. Well, in general, child points in the system lose the ability to change most of the settings, since they are imported from the controller. This includes network segments, SSID names and passwords, roaming, MAC, IP and DHCP filtering.
Of the available parameters, only the region and standard, number (with auto-selection) and channel width, radio module power and Band Steering, Tx Burst and WPS enable options remain. Nevertheless, you can still set up a domain name in KeenDNS for child devices and connect them to the Keenetic Cloud cloud service, reassign the functions of hardware buttons, set static routes, select the network port operation mode (speed / duplex) and even add new users. Although just the applications where these users may be needed will not really be available, with the exception of services for USB drives that will be visible to the entire home network: FTP, SMB, DLNA, as well as DECT dongle services. Generally speaking, with this approach, Keenetic is definitely worth creating a separate series of simple and inexpensive access points on the same hardware platforms as routers, but without software frills: with slightly different cases / antennas and power supply via PoE, or even in the form of a box for installation directly into a socket. The Keenetic Air selected for the test is the closest to such a hypothetical AP.
| Specifications Keenetic Air (KN-1610) | |
| Standards | IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2,4GHz + 5GHz) |
| Chipset/controller | MediaTek MT7628N (1 × MIPS24KEc 580 MHz) + MT7612 |
| Memory | RAM 64 MB/ROM 16 MB |
| Antennas | 4 × external 5 dBi; length 175 mm |
| WiFi encryption | WPA/WPA2, WEP, WPS |
| WiFi settings | 802.11ac: up to 867 Mbps; 802.11n: up to 300 Mbps |
| Interfaces | 4 × 10/100 Mbps Ethernet |
| Indicators | 4 × fun. condition (on the top cover); no port indicator |
| Hardware buttons | Wi-Fi/WPS/FN, reboot/reset settings; working mode |
| Dimensions (W × D × H) | 159×110×29 mm |
| Weight | 240 g |
| Food | DC 9 V, 0,85 A |
| Price | ≈ 3 rubles |
| Capabilities | |
| Access to the Internet | Static IP, DHCP, PPPoE, PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, 802.1x; VLANs CABiNET; DHCP Relay; IPv6 (6in4); Multi WAN; connection priorities (policy-based routing); ping checker; WISP; NetFriend Setup Wizard |
| Services | VLANs VPN server (IPSec/L2TP, PPTP, OpenVPN, SSTP); auto-update software; Captive portal; NetFlow/SNMP; SSH access; Keenetic Cloud; WiFi system |
| DEF | Parental control, filtering, telemetry and ad protection: Yandex.DNS, SkyDNS, AdGuard; HTTPS access to the web interface |
| Port forwarding | Interface/VLAN+port+protocol+IP; UPnP, DMZ IPTV/VoIP LAN-Port, VLAN, IGMP/PPPoE Proxy, udpxy |
| QoS/Shaping | WMM, InteliQoS; interface priority / VLAN + DPI; shaper |
| Dynamic DNS Services | DNS-master (RU-Center), DynDns, NO-IP; KeenDNS |
| Mode | Router, WISP Client/Media Adapter, Access Point, Repeater |
| Forward VPN, ALG | PPTP, L2TP, IPSec; (T)FTP, H.323, RTSP, SIP |
| Firewall | Filtering by port/protocol/IP; packet capture; SPI DoS protection |
Keenetic Air is quite compact and lightweight (159 × 110 × 29 mm, 240 g), can be wall-mounted, has four swivel antennas and two 2 × 2 radio modules for 2,4 and 5 GHz bands (300 and 867 Mbps, respectively). ), has four 100Mbps network ports and comes with a small 7,65W power supply. Inside, it has a MediaTek MT7628N SoC paired with an MT7612 module, which provide support for 802.11b/g/n/ac. It is similar in performance Air. But most importantly, it has a hardware mode switch on the case. Therefore, unlike other devices, to switch the Air to the access point mode, which is needed to work as part of the Keenetic Wi-Fi system, you do not need to go into the web interface, change settings and wait for a reboot - just move it before connecting the power switch lever to the desired position and connect the ethernet cable from the system controller. In general, there are no special requirements for the Keenetic model chosen for the role of the controller. It is clear that if you already have several company routers, then it is probably better to choose the main one that is faster at least in terms of ethernet ports, but this is not necessary.
Source: 3dnews.ru