Wave 2 4x4 MU-MIMO vs WLE900VX 3x3 MIMO / WLE200N2 2x2 MIMO

My friend, who has an Omnia, recently purchased a Unifi Dream Machine–he complained that he was having WiFI problems in his 1100 ft^2 condominium. He now reports that his WiFi speed has increase from 250Mb/s to 600Mb/s. I’m not home, so I can’t offer my speed (as I write this; I’ll add it later).

What is the difference between the cards (Unifi: Wave 2 4x4 MU-MIMO; Turris: WLE900VX 3x3 MIMO and WLE200N2 2x2 MIMO) in the respective devices? Are there any tweaks that I can make to the Omnia’s settings to increase its speeds?

4x4 VS 3x3 VS 2x2. Be careful, it’s also depends on client side.

Are the cards in the Omnia “Wave 1”?

I think that Omnia cards are Wave 1.

Can a single device use more than one stream at a time? For example, if my Apple MBP 16" supports (3x3; no idea if it can), and it was the only WiFi device on the network, would it be able to use all, three streams concurrently?

I’m trying to account for the difference in my friend’s throughput.

Yes, you can.

Your MCB Pro 16" have probably 3x3 support (Fifth generaton have Wi-Fi 5 up to 1.3 Gbit/s).

It would appear that my friend MBP (5th gen) is benefiting from the Unifi’s “wave 2” card, but I don’t understand why. His reported speed (250Gb/s on the Omnia) is still below the theoretical maximum of “wave 1”, but he still got a big boost by switching to the Unifi (600 Gb/s). Any thoughts on why?

First: it’s Mb/s :wink:
And actually there’s a lot of difference between what is reported and the real speeds.
I for example get reported 1733 Mb/s on both sides (XPS13 with Intel 9260 towards Linksys WRT32X), but iperf only reaches 450 Mb/s. Others report a stable 1000 Mb/s on the same devices, so there seems to be still other factors that influence the connection (probably Wi-Fi driver on my windows laptop).
Also keep in mind, that the distance is of great importance and if there are obstacles between your access point and your mobile device.
And last - in my eyes the naked speed is irrelevant. What counts is how many devices the access point can serve (here a clear plus for wave2!) and the coverage of your home. It depends on your home’s architecture, it’s really strategic where you place your access points. 802.11AC’s high throughput is senseless if you get those speeds only in one room and the rest of your flat/house has no access. So there is a need to also use Wi-Fi cards in the 2,4 GHz spectrum which allow are significantly better coverage.
My advice: be a little bit patient and wait for 2,4 GHz 802.11ax cards which will combine high throughput (ca 1200 Mb/s) and coverage! [if you are living in a more rural area, unfortunately the 2,4 GHz band is too crowded in the urban areas :expressionless: ).

Not only in your eyes. IEEE 802.11 has about 45% overhead.