MikroTik Audience (RBD25G-5HPACQD2HPND)

Tri-band router from MikroTik

A gigabit router similar to a smart speaker MikroTik Audience router operates with two bands (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz), and its total throughput using MIMO technology reaches 2033 Mbps. Moreover, it has an interesting distribution: 2 antennas distribute up to 300 Mbps in 2.4 GHz, and the other two pairs give out 867 Mbps in the 5 GHz band, providing a total throughput of 1733 Mbps. That is, in fact, this is a tri-band router (Tri-band). Such a separation is useful if, for example, you want to allocate one channel of any equipment with low priority, leave the second for smartphones, laptops and other work equipment, and reserve the last channel, for example, for a TV and console so that nothing interferes with them, even if the whole house is literally crammed with a variety of appliances that require an Internet connection.

Coverage up to 1858 square metres

What is even more interesting, the built-in MikroTik Audience antennas at this frequency give out power in the region of 32 dBm and, according to the manufacturer, can cover an area of 1858 square metres! Of course, we are talking about perfect conditions such as a conditional desert, where the signal will not encounter any obstacles. In reality, everything will depend on the terrain (number of obstacles, network congestion, etc.), but its range is still impressive.

Super mesh

Being a completely independent device with a couple of dedicated LAN ports, Audience is equally designed to work in Mesh networks. Unlike a coverage of several routers, where one model is the master and the others are slaves, the Mesh system links the home network into a single canvas, where all access points are equivalent. It constantly scans the location of the connected device and, if necessary, discreetly switches it to the nearest router. This improves the quality of coverage and eliminates the "dead zones" that particularly affect large private homes, offices and warehouses. Considering the range of MikroTik Audience, a couple of such routers, theoretically, can provide a room with a truly large area with a stable connection. In this case, the price of $150 looks quite justified. But for the role of an ordinary home router, this is not the best candidate.