Google WiFi test: simple and efficient, excessively

The long-awaited Google Wifi solution is finally available in France. But does it present a real interest in the country of the box? Nothing is less sure !

Google launched its Google Wifi solution in France this week. As a reminder, this is a "Wi-Fi solution for the home" made by Google, consisting of one or more Wi-Fi access points, and intended to improve the coverage and/or performance of your Wireless.

Compared to the Wi-Fi integrated into the box provided by your ISP, the Wi-Fi repeaters or the Powerline Wi-Fi adapters sold in specialized stores, the Google Wifi solution combines great efficiency, using the latest technologies Wi-Fi, with (too) great simplicity, with a mobile application that puts more or less advanced functions within reach of the first comer.

In other words, Google Wifi is state-of-the-art Wi-Fi for dummies.

How many users have given up on such a basic configuration as renaming their Wi-Fi network and choosing a rememberable password, because they did not know that they could access a configuration interface via a web browser? , or that they did not know how to determine the address, the connection identifiers, or if they crossed these first obstacles, gave up in front of such jargon (SSID, WPA2, AES…)?

With Google Wifi, the application guides the layman step by step, from getting started to the most advanced settings.

Let's check together if the product keeps its promises.

Google Wi-Fi

Getting Started

The Google Wifi solution is sold as a kit of one, two or three access points, respectively for homes of less than 85 m2, from 85 to 170 m2 or more than 170 m2. Although my apartment is "only" 50 m2, I tested the kit of two access points, to experiment with mesh technology (mesh), with which several access points form a single common Wi-Fi network. (While with an installation consisting of a box and an extender, there are two separate networks, which often requires manually connecting to the nearest access point.)

The initial setup is child's play: you plug the access point into the power and connect it to an Ethernet port on your box, using the USB-C adapter and the extra Ethernet cable - dish provided. While the device is initializing, you install and launch the Google Wifi app on your Android phone or iPhone. This detects the access point via Bluetooth Smart, connects to its temporary Wi-Fi network using a QR code to be photographed under the device, then prompts you to choose a location (Living room, Bedroom, etc.) ), a “Wi-Fi name” (and not an “SSID”), a “Wi-Fi password” (and not a “WPA key”) and… that's it! If you have additional access points, just indicate their location.

It takes less than 5 minutes to set up a mesh network of two access points.

Basic functions

Once your phone is connected to the new Wi-Fi network, the home screen of the Google Wifi app displays a flow, in the form of cards, prompting you to configure some of the basic functions of the solution.

Network Check

The first prompts you to "Check Network". The “Network check” function allows you to test the internet speed in “download” and “import”, within the limit of 200 Mb/s, a speed “generally fast enough to play streaming 4K videos” (Netflix broadcasts the 4K with a data rate of 16 Mb/s). It also tests the quality of the mesh, i.e. the quality of the connection between the different access points. Finally, it tests the signal strength between your device and the network.

Family Wi-Fi

Another card allows you to configure "family Wi-Fi". This function allows you to group devices with labels (for example "Children") in order to "suspend" their connection to the Internet or to configure time slots (for example "homework hours" and "school eves"). And we mistakenly got access to a website blocking feature (Google SafeSearch filtering and custom blocklist), which will probably be offered after an update.

You can thus block Internet access via Wi-Fi, but if your children have a 3G or 4G plan on their phone, they will only have to turn off the Wi-Fi to bypass the blocking .

Guest Wi-Fi

This is a classic of high-end Wi-Fi access points: the creation of a guest Wi-Fi network. You give it a different name and password.

Unlike many other access points, Google Wifi requires you to protect this network with a password. We would have liked to be able to create a network without a password to be activated occasionally in the presence of guests (from the application or even by pressing the reset button on the access points), or activated permanently but with a clamp speed and/or filtering of sensitive sites and services.

Otherwise what is the interest of the guest network, if it does not dispense with dictating the password to the guests? It allows you to give internet access to your guests, but not to the personal data stored on your NAS for example.

And Google thought of a really handy feature: you can choose which devices guests have access to, such as an Apple TV, Chromecast or wireless speaker, so they can still stream music , photos and videos. This function unfortunately suffers from a disabling limitation of the Google Wifi solution, to which we devote the penultimate chapter of this test.

Advanced functions

The Google Wifi solution is intended to be accessible to everyone, but it nevertheless offers certain advanced functions, which are accessed through the second and third tabs of the application.

The list of devices allows you, for example, to rename a device, to give it priority (before an online game session for example), to reserve an IP address for it (fixed DHCP lease) or to configure port forwarding .

The "Settings" section allows you to adjust the brightness of the access point LED, restart the network in the event of a failure, activate or deactivate IPv6, choose the DNS servers of the ISP, etc. Google Wifi nevertheless offers the essentials to adapt to certain specific needs.

Performance

Technical features

Google Wifi promises “fast and optimized Wi-Fi in your home”. To do this, it combines the latest Wi-Fi technologies: each access point is "AC1200 2×2 Wave 2 Wifi", i.e. it uses the IEEE 802.11ac Wave 2 standard and MIMO technology 2×2. They also support mesh, band steering and beam forming technology.

Google's access points thus automatically use the least congested channels (like many other access points, including those integrated into most boxes), but they are also able to automatically switch and on the fly a connected device from 2.4 to 5 GHz depending on the needs (range or speed) (band steering technology), and to transmit the waves to the connected devices (beam forming technology, but it is up to the devices to direct in return their waves to the access point).

Note that in AC1200, 1200 is the maximum cumulative bandwidth, expressed in megabits per second, that each access point can deliver simultaneously to several devices. But the theoretical maximum speed for a device is 867 Mb/s on the 5 GHz band or 300 Mb/s on the 2.4 GHz band.

Speed ​​tests

In practice, even if my Bbox is quite famous as a Wi-Fi access point provided by an ISP, the Google Wifi solution does much better. My early 2015 MacBook Air has a 2×2 AC MIMO Wi-Fi controller, able to fully exploit the capabilities of Google Wifi. I used the iperf3 utility to measure Wi-Fi speeds without measuring the internet connection at the same time.

1 meter from the Bbox Ubee TVW620.I, which incorporates an 802.11n MIMO 3×3 access point delivering at best 450 Mb/s, I get a speed of just over 200 Mb/s .

While at 1 meter from the main Google Wifi point, after a few seconds of stabilization (probably the time for the beam forming to be effective), I get around 500 Mb/s!

But the gap between the Bbox and Google Wifi narrows as the distance increases.

At 1 meter from the second Google Wifi access point, the MacBook Air does not automatically switch to it, but remains connected to the first. And for good reason, it maintains 250 Mb / s with the first, located a few meters away, while it peaks at 200 Mb / s after forced reconnection to the second.

Unlike the Netgear Orbi solution, Google Wifi does not have a dedicated backhaul Wi-Fi channel. The total bandwidth of the 5 GHz channel of the second Google Wifi is therefore used half by the link with the MacBook Air, half by the link with the first Google Wifi: the speed is mechanically halved.

And from the same location, so a few meters from the Bbox, its more robust Wi-Fi N signal has only weakened a bit, so I'm getting just under 200 Mb/s, not much less only in the immediate vicinity.

In short, compared to a decent box, Google Wifi significantly improves speeds in the immediate vicinity, but the gain is more negligible beyond two meters. Above all, a second Google Wifi access point is absolutely useless in a 50 m2 apartment.

Wi-Fi mesh solutions are finally becoming more popular in France. The majority of French households are satisfied with the Wi-Fi access point integrated into the box provided by their Internet service provider. But there are…Read More

So simple that it becomes complicated

Diagnosis

So that it can be connected to any box without technical knowledge, the first of the two Google Wifi points is not only a Wi-Fi access point, it is also a router. It thus creates a second network, partly isolated from that of the box. We are talking about double NAT. In more technical terms, it creates a 192.168.86.0/24 subnet, separate from the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet of your box, with the Google Wifi point for router and DNS server (unless advanced configuration).

In concrete terms, a device connected to the Google Wifi subnet can access a device connected to the box's subnet, but only by manually entering its IP address. On the other hand, the devices of the two subnets can no longer "discover" each other and they can no longer be reached via their easily remembered host name (for example http://gestionbbox.lan or \\Synology).

Solutions

There are four ways to work around this problem, but each has drawbacks.

The most obvious is to connect all your devices to the Google Wifi Wi-Fi, knowing that it provides up to 4K video streaming. But some prefer Ethernet for its unequaled reliability and performance, or as a precaution, to limit exposure to electromagnetic waves.

Otherwise, Google Wifi points have a second Gigabit Ethernet port, allowing you to connect one or more (via a switch) wired devices. But devices connected this way join the Google Wifi subnet: the TV decoder supplied with your ISP's box, for example, does not work on this subnet, or only partially. Indeed, if you have a Bbox Miami or a Freebox mini 4K for example (Android TV), you will have to choose between your ISP's IPTV television package and the Chromecast function. And if you have a NAS, you will have to choose between easy access at home and access via the internet.

The third solution is to renounce all services operating exclusively in the local network and to use only services operating via the Internet (cloud). For example, you can stream music via Spotify Connect to an Android TV decoder from a smartphone connected to 3G or 4G, so you can just as well do it from a different subnet. Ditto for synchronizing files between your computer and your NAS. Even if it is the height of making a detour of 100 km by internet to access a device located 1 m away. Unfortunately, it does not work with all devices or with all uses. For example, the AirPlay and Spotify Connect functions of my AV amplifier only work from a device connected to the same subnet.

The fourth and final solution is to switch the Google Wifi to bridge mode, which turns it into an ordinary Wi-Fi access point. But then you lose the mesh function (each access point becomes independent) and the almost all functions, such as guest Wi-Fi network, speed test, etc.

In short, by wanting to make it so simple, Google forces you to ask yourself a lot of questions about the design of its network, questions that are difficult to answer without a good dose of technical knowledge.

Confidentiality

Finally, before concluding, let's briefly discuss the issue of confidentiality, which always arises with Google, whose main customers are, as a reminder, advertisers, to whom it promises to target advertisements to Internet users, that is to say you.

But in this case Google promises that Google Wifi "does not monitor the websites you visit or collect any content or traffic from your network". The most intrusive data collected by Google is the location of your access point and the Wi-Fi signal measurements it performs, in order to improve cohabitation with any neighboring Google Wifi. It otherwise collects anonymous statistics.

You can deactivate these collections, but deactivating "Google Wifi cloud services", which allow the application, for example, to determine the brand of connected devices (according to their MAC address), leads to the deactivation of many functions, and make Google Wifi an ordinary access point.

Price and availability

The Google Wifi solution has been available since June 26, 2017 in France. Three sets are available: