[Network] Ruckus Unleashed | Access Point comparison: R350 vs. R750

Even though Ruckus WiFi 6 Access Point, R750 performance has impressed me, they are pretty expensive when compared to prosumer gears like UniFi. So I wondered if lower end model of Ruckus Unleashed compatible WiFi 6 access point would still provide sufficient benefit of Ruckus system without breaking a bank. So today I am comparing R350 to R750.

What’s Ruckus Unleashed?

If you’ve never heard of it, I’m not surprised. Ruckus Networks, formerly known as Ruckus Wireless was originally founded in June 2004. It is now a subsidiary of CommScope. They make networking equipments both wired and wireless. However, their gears are targeted for enterprise market such as in hospitality, healthcare, and educations.

Basically, they are direct competitors to brands like Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba, Juniper and others. So as a home network user, it’s not a name most of us familiar with. For the full enterprise grade experience including things like AI firmware and controller will require subscription and license as in the other enterprise gears.

However, Ruckus unleashed is a version of firmware that runs on the compatible, actual enterprise graded Ruckus hardwares without any license or subscription fee. In another word, Ruckus unleashed is just a firmware version different from the cloud-based full enterprise version, but all the internal of hardwares are the same.

WiFi 6 APs

Excluding wall mount APs, I believe there are 5 WiFi 6, unleashed compatible indoors access points. On this list, R350 is the cheapest option.

In contrast, R750 sits on the high end model along with R850. The difference between the R850 and R750 models are more number of MIMO on 5 GHz band, and support of 160 GHz channel width at the cost, probably by design, of significantly lower area of coverage on R850 than R750. I do not believe there is practical utility of 8×8 MIMO over the 4×4, so unless someone needs 160 MHz band channel width, I think R750 is the top of the line model.

Today, let’s compare R750 and R350.

Specification Comparison

First let’s take a look at how two units differ in their specifications.

Cost

On Amazon and Ebay, brand new R750 costs average 2.5x more than R350, and R350 isn’t even cheap to begin with. So the rest of comparison is really trying to see why is R750 more expensive.

MIMO

One of the main difference between R750 4×4 MIMO bands while R350 is 2×2. MIMO have 3 main advantages:

• Multiple concurrent device (MU-MIMO)
• Beamforming (improves throughput/range)
• Higher throughput for a single device with 3×3 or higher MIMO

In theory, MU-MIMO, if you have two 2×2 MU-MIMO compatible client devices, each should get full 2×2 throughput. However, I could never see such result on any of my previously owned systems, and Ruckus was not exception. So I wonder it simply related to the client devices I have in my home, which are mostly Apple products, don’t support MU-MIMO.

Beam-forming technology uses MIMO bands so 2×2 MIMO R350 will not be able to do beam forming while maintaining its 2×2 MIMO link connection. So in theory, even if MU-MIMO is irrelevant in the setting, I suppose beam forming on R750 could improve performance over R350.

So I think the most obvious benefit would be if you have 3×3 or 4×4 client. However, I do not believe there is that many WiFi 6 client with more than 2×2. 3×3 WiFi 5 client is possible and certainly we expect higher performance in such case with R750 than R350.

Transmission Power

3 dBm means 2x the difference in actual power. So R750 has 3 and 5 dBm more power than the R350 for 2.4 Ghz, and 5 GHz bands, respectively will have more range of coverage and translates into higher ranged throughput.

Dedicated Master

One special features specific to either R750 or R850 is dedicated master mode. You can read the detail on the official document here. The key information as home user is this mode will make the master unit purely acts as controller and its WiFi functionality will be disabled. So I do not believe most home user will ever use this.

Beam Flex

Beam Flex is Ruckus’s signature technology.

The industry’s only smart antenna system that delivers stable connectivity and higher performance

Beamflex Smart Antenna System

From the layman’s perspective, this means access point’s antenna pattern can change dynamically on its own. The properly chosen or designed antenna pattern for a specific situation will definitely give higher link speed between the access point and client, which translates into the better throughput. It will also reduce unnecessary radio transmission; hence, decrease noise from access point prod uced interference. So overall stability should also see improvement.

Though I can’t say how effective BeamFlex technology itself really is for choosing and adapting the specific antenna pattern, this technology certainly sounds interesting, and if it works, it can definitely distinguish itself from competitors without equivalent technology.

R750 supposedly gives over 4000 antenna patterns, which is significantly higher than 64 patterns on R350. Though I am not sure how this translates into end user experience.

Based on the difference in specification, we can expect followings:

• R750 is about 2.5x more expensive than the R350
• R750 to have wider area of coverage and higher ranged throughput
• R350 and R750 should have similar 2×2 WiFi 6 client max throughput
• If you have 3×3 client device, R750 should show improved throughput performance

Performance Comparison

Now let’s take a look at actual measurement comparison between the two units

General Setup variables:

• Client device: iPhone 14 Pro Max (2×2 MIMO WiFi 6)
• Test method (unless otherwise specified): iPerf 2 streams, 30 seconds test to local network NAS server
• AP mounting: Both APs were wall mounted and all testing were faced in direction of AP.

Maximum Throughput test

Setup:

• Access point location: approximately 5ft from the client with full line of sight
  

Results:

The left two results are from R750 and two right are from R350.

• Minimum throughput is moderately higher on R350
• Average throughput are essentially the same between R350 and R750
• Maximum throughput is slightly consistently higher on R750
• WiFi efficiency are essentially the same ranged between 61-63%

Discussion

Minimum Throughput

With these Ruckus APs, the minimum throughput is not necessary the first throughput, and in fact they usually aren’t and it’s unpredictable when that happens. So I believe there is no practical end user experience effect.

At the first glance, it’s interesting how R350’s throughput has such a small variation, but later when more clients devices were associated with R350, there were more variation on R350. So I believe this was related to that. Though it is very impressive to see such a consistent throughput delivery when only a single client was connected to the AP.

Average throughput

This value should translates into the real world file transfer rate difference. R750 and R350 has no difference. This is an expected result because the client used to test was 2×2. So R750 was still connecting to the client with 2×2.

Since most WiFi 6 clients are 2×2 MIMO, I think this is a practical maximum throughput number for majority of WiFi 6 device.

Maximum throughput

Similar to minimum throughput, when the timing of when this happens was unpredictable. So this number is irrelevant for practical end user experience.

WiFi Efficiency

Usually, it has been said that WiFi can achieve practical maximum throughput of 50-70% of to the linked speed (PHY). So WiFi efficiency is calculated as following.

WiFi efficiency = Average throughput / PHY

where PHY = 1200 Mbps for 2×2 WiFi 6 connection

Both APs achieved over 60% of WiFi efficiency. These are the highest I have personally seen in my home setup. Ubiquiti UniFi official site says they estimate 50-60%, and my personal testings in the past indeed showed their APs WiFi efficiency to fall under these numbers (ref, ref). So consistently exceeding 60% with Ruckus APs are very good. I feel consistently high WiFi efficiency is one of the best indicator for the access point’s hardware quality.

Ranged throughput test

Next, let’s see how ranged through put compares.

Setup:

• Access point location: approximately ~15ft and 25-30ft from the client with full line of sight
• Special notes:
  • Both AP tests were conducted in walkout basement i.e. walls are thicker.
  • For 30ft R750 test, the actual distance was slightly closer, ~27-28ft.
  • For R350 tests, despite there was a straight clear line of sight, short straight hallway surrounded by wall on both side existed.
  • For R750 30ft test, despite there was a diagonal line of sights, client device was in the other room with door open, but other than the opened door space, sides were concrete wall and brick wall covered.

Results

Top Row: Right 2 are R750, Left 2 are R350 at 15 feet
Bottom Row: Right 2 are R750, Left 2 are R350 at 30 feet

• At the range, R750 has moderately higher throughput than the R350
• Average throughput gain is around 25% higher at 15 and 30 feet.

Discussion

Based on the specification, we expected R750 to have better area of coverage than the R350; hence, the throughput. Although testing condition weren’t quite matched, the result confirmed the expectation. Relatively speaking, 25% throughput gain is close to WiFi 5 to WiFi 6 gain. So it’s significant difference.

Internet throughput test

Some may wonder practical implication of iPerf test as many home users tend to use internet speed test rather than iPerf. So just for reference, I’ve decided to run online speed test.

Setup:

• Access point location: approximately 5ft client with full line of sight
• Test method: Speed test.net
• ISP: Xfinity, 2.5 Gbps down/200 Mbps up service
  

Results

Left is R750 and right is R350.

• Both are essentially the same
• Both downloads are slightly higher than the iPerf results
• Both uploads are essentially max of the internet service provider

Discussion

These result simply confirms iPerf results are concordant with internet speed test. However, internet speed test involves many additional variables beyond your control. Therefore, most people who wants to test real throughput of your own network devices, we use iPerf tests.

Area of Coverage (range) test

Setup:

• AP location: Both APs were wall mounted facing towards their respective testing side i.e. R750 towards North, R350 towards South.
• RSSI were measured using iPhone 14 Pro Max with AirMac app for the 5 GHz band
• Data points were taken <5ft, ~15ft, and ~30ft points with line of sights
• Additional data point taken rear lobe (back side) of the APs across the stairs (two walls in between).

Results

(dBm)	R750	R350	Diff
5ft	-25	-32	-7
15ft	-38	-48	-10
30ft	-47	-56	-9
Rear lobe/2 walls	-53	-51	2

• At equidistance, R750 has consistently higher dBm, 9 and 10.

Discussion

It’s important to note that further the distance from AP, more fluctuation RSSI was. So I tried to wait until the number settle, but some cases, the fluctuation persisted. The degree of fluctuation maybe as high as 5 dBm. In these, case I tried to choose a middle.

It’s important to note that dBm is logarithmic scale unit, so difference in 3 dBm means twice the difference in mW power.

At the two equidistance points (15 and 30ft), R750 was 9 and 10 dBm higher than the R350 on 5 GHz band.

Based on the specification, I had expected 5 dBm difference, but it turned out to be there were 2x more difference. I am not sure if this relates to my suboptimal testing setup, or possibly relates to internal hardware difference such as better version of BeamFlex+ in R750.

Ancillary Findings

Other noteworthy mention is the observation of what I call instant rise time on Ruckus APs.

Instant Rise Time

This is something I’ve originally noticed for the first time when comparing my previous setup, UniFi access points to Ruckus access point (R750).

With UniFi AP, the first iPerf test data point has almost always been the lowest i.e. minimum throughput data point while this was not the case with either Ruckus APs. My interpretation is that this is analogous to the zero to sixty time in car.

	U6 Pro (UniFi)	R750	R350
Min	109	573	728
Average	683	753	750
Max	854	821	766

I am not sure if this is a proven science, but I hypothesize, this number is very important in frequent stop and go data transfer situation such web browsing, small file transfer.

Let’s assume a hypothetical situation where we have data transfer of 50 MB file with no other overheads, and bottleneck in the network connection is the WiFi.

In my personal use case scenario, transferring a batch of 50-100 MB files from the local NAS server took several seconds at the initiation for each file with UniFi setup. However, with Ruckus, the transfer starts immediately. So I think this actually has real end user experience difference.

In any event, it’s important to note that instant rise time was not only for R750, but also R350 had the same effect.

Both Ruckus APs have instant rise time

Personally, I am now very curious how other routers and access points from other vendors perform on the rise time.

Limitation

Based on the specification, R750 is expected to be able to handle 4x more concurrent clients than R350. For home users, these numbers do not appear relevant as R350’s 256 concurrent user number should already be sufficient. However, I believe these numbers indicates relative access point’s multi-tasking capability. Basically, I surmise higher the this number is, the larger simultaneous load the system can handle. So for this, I need to do some type of load testing like running multiple streaming, WiFi call, data transfer at once to see if there is a stall or interruption on any of them. I am fairly certain R750 will outperform in this regard, but uncertain at what point. If the point of failure on R350 was well above most home use capability, which I believe is, then technically it’s irrelevant, but if it’s under, then R750 gets another practical advantage here. Having said that, I did not/could not set up load testing so this is not something I tested.

Conclusion

In summary,

• Maximum throughput for 2×2 WiFi 6 client is identical
• Ranged performance is ~25% better in throughput on R750
• Both system has instant rise time

The main advantage of R750 is its ranged performance. You will have higher throughput at equidistance and more range of coverage. The degree of ranged performance difference look significant to me, but is it worth the 2.5x price difference?

Personally, I think R750 is better choice when a very specific use case scenarios are met.

The main benefit is range and range performance, but the value of this truly depends on how each access point deployment be positioned. Obvious case is you only have one AP drop location, then R750 will outperform 1 R350. But if you can put 2 R350, then depending on the placement, you could have a situation where R750 providing better overall WiFi performance but most of the time two R350 be better.

Second situation is if you have 3×3 or more MIMO capable clients. However, most WiFi 6 clients are just 2×2 now-a-days, and expect the same trend for WiFi 7 as battery efficiency is considered important for WiFi clients. So the chance of having such device may be small.

Lastly, if you want to have dedicated master option enabled, you have no choice but to go with R750 (or R850). You should know the reason why you want the feature though. Especially, it sounds like once you set a dedicated master, you have to factory reset to disable it (ref).

Otherwise, given the significant cost difference, R350 looks better buy for most of home users.

References

• Ruckus R350
• Ruckus R750
• Beam Flex Technology
• Dedicated Master Controller