Fortysomething Geek

I definitely changed some of my usage habits after using a few of these Kill-A-Watt meters around the house. For example, I had an older AMD Athlon machine running as a ESXi server running a DVR for my cameras. It was also serving iTunes and Plex Media server. At idle, it was still running at 85 watts and easily ramp up to 110-130 watts on load. This was a bit costly to run trivial things 24x7. Hence, I switched to running to an older unused core i5 laptop and my average use is now 20 watts for those same services.

I highly recommend a device like this. Just read the hundreds of customer reviews. Sure, there will be a few lemons here and there but the general consensus is that these pretty much pay for themselves.

I've spent the last few weeks trying to optimize my network in my new house. I have a few rooms wired but most of the house still requires Wi-Fi. Moreover, a few devices exclusively require Wi-Fi. With more than 8 IP cameras, a half dozen airplay speakers, and various mobile devices, the wireless network in my house is heavily congested. Hence, I looked into Wi-Fi extenders.

I ended up getting two wifi extenders to see if I could improve my network situation: An Edimax EW-7238RPD Universal Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender and

Both are wall plug extenders. The ON Network N300 have two antennas and the performance shows. It has almost double the range of the Edimax. However, the Edimax has a nice feature: WPS push button configuration. WPS makes it easy to have it pair to your main router. For me, the WPS isn't a big selling feature. Both extenders have ethernet ports so you can connect lan line devices like an XBOX or NAS.

My main Wi-Fi Router is a TP-Link Archer C7 (AC1750) dual band 802.11AC Gigabit router. Overall, it is a very good router with excellent range and throughput.

As you can see (using various tools), the Archer C7 support 1300 Mbps (80MHz width) in 5GHz and 450 MBps (40MHz width) at 2.4 Ghz.


Neither of these extenders perform better than the TP-Link Archer C7.

The ON Network N300 tops out at 300 Mbps. The Edimax, to my surprise, only tops out at 150 Mbps yet it is rated at 300 Mbps. The Edimax's advertising is a bit deceiving and it is my fault for not reading the fine print. Edimax advertise the EW-7238RPD at 300 Mbps (when you account for both bands).

Taken from their product page. I feel a bit deceived that I am not getting 300 Mbps on a single band. I understand that I won't get the speed (450 Mbps) from my Archer C7 but 150 Mbps is cutting it low for a 802.11n device.



The actual speed of the Edimax is 150 Mbps. Hence, my dissapointment.



Performance.

So how do they perform? This is a bit hard to quantify and test. I have a three story house and my main router is in the middle floor. The basement houses the ON Network N300 and the top floor is handled by the Edimax. I tried various testing and various floors and at different ranges; behind walls and in adjoining rooms. The ON Network actually perform the best as I could easily get 60% signal from the farthest reach of my house.

Testing about 40 feet away, the N300 was giving a healthy 145 Mbps.




In the real world, using iperf, I was indeed seeing 7.5 Mbits/sec. This was good enough for one computer to stream 1080p content from youtube or Netflix.


Netflix requires 5-7 Mbps for 1080p streaming. Edimax struggled quite a bit.

I only tested the 5GHz channel of the Edimax as that is the justification for buying it. On 2.4 GHz, I was better off just using my router which has excellent range. The Edimax gave me an average throughput averaging 54. Mbps even at 5GHz at an average distance.



iperf showed a disappointing rate and I could see frames dropping while watching video.



It was only when I was right next to the Edimax that I got decent throughput of 150 Mbps.




Conclusion.

I would have to say the N300 is a better deal. Even though it doesn't support 5GHz, it was a better extender with far better range. Unfortunately, I could really do with out both of them. My TP-Link Archer C7 has a very good range. Instead of using wifi repeaters, I think I'll be better off hard wiring to ethernet to another Wi-Fi router running bridge mode. With extenders, you are effectively only getting half the throughput. It has to connect to the router wireless and it will compete with the other devices that are concurrently using the same spectrum as the source wi-fi.

I'm into fast cars. I'm into European luxury and sporty cars. I love cars in general. You can call me a gearhead. My wife is into practicality. She recently got one of those brand new Ford plug-in hybrids, the C-Max Energi. This is completely out of left field for me. The picture you see above is the average MPG of driving roughly 40 miles over a period of two days. Even as a gearhead, I can totally appreciate that 80 MPG number I am seeing above.


This is not my kind of car I typically look into. Politically correct and green trendy. The visual exterior won't turn heads. The handling and drive characteristics is nothing to rave about.  I'm currently in the market for a mid-life crisis sports car so this is the polar opposite of what I look into.  However, the C-Max Energi is already growing on me. I'm starting to really like it. It is also packed with a lot of gadgetry and electronics. This blog is not going to be a full on review of any sorts. I'm just going to give my readers my impression of a car that I will driving 20-30% of the time.

Just look at how cool the plugin port is. The blue surrounds shows you how far along your charging is. The outer edge of the port lights up fully to indicate the charge status.

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Look at what I got! ZTE Open. The first Firefox OS phone.

I just got it so here are some pictures for now. I'll dig deep into it later.

There are lots of software/solutions that turns computers, NAS, and other devices into Airplay compatible end receivers. Now, there is one like that for Chrome "casting." It is called Chromecatch. It is a 3ドル app on the MacStore and there is an iOS version that turns your iPad into a chromecaster.

What does all this mean? The same functionality of the 35ドル HDMI Google Chromecast dongle can be replicated on a computer. 3ドル sure beats 35ドル if you want to experiment with this functionality.

The Cast icon shows up on Chrome devices if you are on the same network. I tried it with both computer, iOS, and Android devices. Unfortunately, Google half baked Chrome casting so it isn't available on the Samsung Chromebook.



Here is my Samsung 7" Galaxy Tab casting youtube to a Macbook Pro Retina. The Galaxy tablet is handing off the youtube to the Macbook.

The iPhone 5S has brought about a lot of disinformation on the internet. Everyone seems to have an opinion and I'll throw in my two cents.

Next scenario is a hybridization of iOS and OSX. We may well see a Macbook AIR with ARM in 3-4 years. It is inevitable when all the pieces of the puzzle are in place.

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