It's vital when testing and reviewing any wireless network equipment to understand one simple principle.
Everyone's situation in terms of Wi-Fi propagation is different, and that means that what works well in one situation may struggle in another due to differences in scale, interference factors and even simple matters like the methods of construction used in one office or home or another.
With that in mind, our mesh reviews have to date all been performed in my suburban Sydney home because at least that way there's a consistent metric for comparative purposes. Your own circumstances may vary – or in other words, keep that receipt handy if something doesn't run as well as you might like.
One of the reasons I've used my own home for testing besides convenience is because it represents a decent stress test of any wireless networking gear. It's moderately large, but my home office sits in an extension built around what used to be an external side wall, which creates a very effective "dead zone" for any standard Wi-Fi signal to propagate. It's a good stress test to see how systems designed to extend Wi-Fi coverage actually meet a difficult test case.
The D-Link COVR-1102 provided an interesting challenge in this case because my usual test set-up involves one primary point near my NBN connection at one end of the house and another in my home office. Usually, most apps will note that the signal there is weak – as I'd expect – but the D-Link COVR-1102 simply refused to actually flick off its blinking orange light, indicating that it couldn't actually find the primary point at all. D-Link's claim is that it can cover "up to 325 sqm" with this kit, and that's certainly not been my experience in terms of actual node placement.
As such, I had to modify my standard test, placing the secondary point in my dining area, closer to the primary point but effectively the other side of the usually-Wi-Fi-killing wall. I've little doubt that I could overcome that issue with a third point – this is how I usually run a full mesh solution – but I could only work with what I had to review.
That being said, the D-Link COVR-1102 actually surprised me with how well it performed. It's set to provide a single Wi-Fi SSID, with the actual connection handled by each point relative to the network conditions at the time and the capabilities of your connecting device. That should give it more stability for each type of device, but it does mean that you can't choose to specifically connect to just the 2.4GHz or 5GHz network it creates, although they are both broadcast and can be measured.
To test the D-Link COVR-1102, I ran it through the same tests I've used for other mesh systems. Firstly, I measured its RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) to check signal sharing and strength from three different distances within my home environment. The close location was within a metre of the actual primary point, while the mid-range point was in a bedroom one room away. Finally, the far point was in my home office in the spot that I know has the worst Wi-Fi reception under normal circumstances.
Here's how the D-Link COVR-1102 compared to a wide range of available extension and mesh products:
The RSSI figure gives an indication of how well the signal is propagating and being shared between nodes, and even here the COVR-1102 performed better than I might expect given the lesser distance between nodes.
Then there's the question of actual Internet throughput, and to test that, I ran Finder's Broadband Speed Test through an Aussie Broadband 100/40 HFC NBN connection.
I can't provide full comparative figures against all the mesh products above as that NBN connection replaces an older Telstra cable connection; since its installation, I've only been able to test with a three-node Linksys Velop system and Google Nest Wi-Fi systems. Here's how the D-Link COVR-1102 compared in each location:
This isn't a test where I'm comparing speed with speed per se because the connection rate of a given NBN connection can vary quite a lot, and given the current coronavirus pandemic, my own connection is taking a bit of a hammering. What is worth comparing is the rate of loss of speed at different distances, and here the D-Link COVR-1102 exceeded my expectations. While the Linksys Velop managed less of a loss over distance, that's a system tested with three nodes, not two. Even despite the differing layout that the D-Link COVR-1102 mandated, it managed a solid result even in the far test where the two-node Google Nest Wi-Fi stumbled badly. It would be interesting to see how much better the D-Link COVR-1102 got with additional nodes in play, but on the basis of a two-node test, it's an easy winner.
The D-Link COVR-1102 is also compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa if you want to configure it for voice controls, although unlike the Google Nest Wi-Fi, the nodes themselves aren't speakers in their own right. You can also configure IFTTT recipes if that's your style to work with the D-Link COVR-1102.
The D-Link COVR-1102 also supports the EasyMesh standard, an industry-wide mesh networking standard that should make these nodes compatible with nodes from other manufacturers. So far, we've seen Telstra step up to EasyMesh with its second-generation Smart WiFi Booster product, but I've only been able to test the first-generation version, so there weren't any other nodes I could test the COVR-1102's interoperability with. As such, it's largely a bit of future-proofing that could pay off down the track if you wanted to add other either more capable or cheaper nodes down the track.
