Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “This wireless router can’t possibly be good… can it? – Minion Routers”.
Yep, just like you, I saw the minions Wi-Fi routers on Reddit and went those can’t be real. Can they but then, unlike you, I actually bought them. So here they are Bob and Kevin ready to turn your Wi-Fi evil. How evil you ask. Does this answer your question, this piig b b banana ban? Oh there’s a thing about me: the truth is there’s not a ton of information about these other than what the manufacturer publishes is on the box.
The Bob version is ax1 1800. So this is Wi-Fi 6. While the Kevin version is Axe 5400, so WiFi, 6E, other than that, the Kevin version is triband, which it has to be to be Wi-Fi 6E. So it’s got 2.4 GHz support and 5 GHz and 6 GHz each at 160 MHz Channel widths. It has a 2 and 1/2 gig Uplink Port, which is not necessarily surprising at this price, but is a little surprising on something that I had perceived to be pretty much a novelty item.
Typically, they give no thought to Performance whatsoever, but this clearly does because all we have to do is flip over one more panel and we see that it also uses an upgraded Qualcomm processor versus the more basic uh dual core mys IIA processor. On The Bob version – and it’s got more – I guess Dam – I’m assuming flash Dam doesn’t really mean anything. I think they mean Flash and Dam.
So uh has 512 megabytes of ram. This side of the box is also where we find out. These are designed by davink, a Korean company – that’s been around since 2000 and specializes in business and education. Networking uh we’ve got a QR code for the installation guide and then that is about it and online. You won’t find much more in the way of information compared to what they tell you on the box. They are mesh supported.
You could have one Kevin for your internet connection and then I have a whole mesh of Bobs connected to them. Uh. They have support for WPA 3, which we actually did a video over online as Tech tips recently and uh explained why that’s very important and what’s included in the box, is apparently all yeah we’re going to need a little bit of clarification on that.
So why don’t we go ahead and get? Oh, my God, it’s so cute, my very own Minion, it’s not very heavy, but a wireless router doesn’t necessarily need to be heavy to indicate its quality. Oh my God! It’S so cute! If you want to connect more than one wired client you’re going to need a network switch, so you’ve got just the one Wan port and the one Lan Port. There’S a mesh button which I assume is for setup an LED, which I have to assume lights up.
The eyes, I really really hope it does and then power in. Oh, my God, the shoes are rubber. The attention to detail you guys it’s so cute cute, even the cable’s cute. Look: it’s a Minion’s cable, not really expecting to find anything extra in Kevin’s box, but who knows, he does cost $ 130 compared to just $ 69, for Bob he’s a lot heavier which highlights that this is a completely different product, not just two different versions of The same thing stuffed into a smaller chassis and a larger chassis. This feels like it’s got some heat sinks in it too. Oh my God, his hair TFT is rubber too. Oh, it’s probably not the eyes that light up. It’S probably this right here: okay, oh wow! This is a really short ethernet, cable, um, that’s kind of a bummer hey there we go, we got activity LED now.
Well here, let’s, let’s do the setup. This is pretty simple, just scan this QR code to connect to it and then scan a second QR code. Well, the easy setup kind of broke down here. Well, we got there.
It turns out that whatever Apple’s doing with their default DNS settings and Safari on the iPhone, it just doesn’t work for this. It works just fine on Android and it works just fine on a desktop or laptop. So let’s go ahead and check out this control panel. I love that the default admin username is Bob come on.
How perfect is that, like they really did? They really did put in the work on this one guys wait. What, if you reconfigure, SSID Z, SSID 1 just shows up so now I’ve got Kevin sucks and I’ve got bobor one. How do I turn? How do I turn that one off? Oh yeah? It’S not secured what is going on right now. Oh, I should tell the people about our sponsor if you’re looking for a way to quickly take care of your bits and Bobs ha manscaped is there for you.
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Oh and free shipping was this enabled box here before. No, that enable and disable thing is not here and this Supply button that is here in the easy setup is not here in the Wi-Fi settings. One right guys tell me tell me what’s happening right now: does that apply the little paper airplane is apply, wouldn’t recommend using the Easy Wi-Fi setup. There were a couple of concerns we saw raised about the device online. Someone said that it doesn’t support pppe. So if you need that, then I guess the minion router uh is not for you and, more importantly, a Reddit user pointed out that there’s a vulnerability where the Wi-Fi passphrase is passed to the. U console in plain text. However, it should be noted that someone would need physical access to the device in order to take advantage of that exploit, so once someone’s got physical access, you’re pwned anyway enough chitchat, though it’s time for the moment, you’ve all been waiting for.
Is it actually a functioning Wi-Fi router, it’s a gigabit connection running into it: half half a megabit, wow uploads, even better 500 megabit download 700 up very reasonable, but can Kevin do better? I’M not going to bother configuring everything on this one and guys, I’m sure. There’S things we could do to tune things a little bit better, but we want to see how these are going to perform out of the box because realistically come on. That is how most people buying a novelty router like this are going to use it all right. Not bad you can see, our ISP is delivering a little bit more than gigabit.
On this connection, unfortunately, UBC is really not giving us good enough consistency in our downloads to really draw any kind of reasonable conclusion. Let’S move the test. Inconsistency! Isn’T that big of a deal, though, because under normal circumstances, you’re not going to be right next to your router anyway, and the bottom L is going to be, you know what kind of connection can you get to it through a wall or whatever so we’re at One wall right now: let’s see how we’re doing here – oh yeah, I don’t think the University of British Columbia is the problem here, wow, okay, so then I just go through this one door. Oh wow! This is with no wall guys, look! The set is right there.
It’S like right there. This is bizarre, guys, Kevin Kevin. Are you okay? It probably switched over to 2.4 when I went on the other side of the door and then just didn’t, grab 5 GHz or 6 GHz again ooh. Oh, that’s, not good! Oh man! I had not intended to go into Kevin’s control panel, but I’m going to have to do that. So here’s what we’re going to do, you’re in apartment and you just don’t – need 2.4 GHz and we’re just going to turn 2.4 off. So the question we’re trying to answer here is: can you buy one of these for your mom or is she going to call you complaining the second she walks. You know 30 ft away from it or goes into another room. If you understand the compromise you’re making that 2.4 GHz isn’t going to work, let’s go.
Let’S go again back to the other side of the door we go. Okay moving around doesn’t seem to be good for it seriously. Surprisingly, this fares much better, so the problem is not necessarily the wall or the distance, I’m probably about the same distance from Kevin as I was before.
The issue seems to be the pickup pattern of the the antenna. So if you live in like a row home, you know like a three level but like small building man, Perfect all right, we’re back all right, yeah like we can really see it here, so the problems are TW full one. Switching between different bands is handled extremely poorly now that could potentially be um exacer ated by the devices own Tendencies, but whoever’s fault it is it’s not a good experience with the minions routers, I’m assuming Bob is no better than Kevin and then problem number two is That the pickup pattern on this antenna is, I don’t know what word to use to describe it other than inexcusable um.
It worked great upstairs, so it’s not that it’s completely unable to punch through walls. It’S that the pickup pattern is really strong vertically and and yeah yeah. It’S all it’s it’s a it’s a Cenna sticking out of the top of this thing and really poor horizontally. So at this point in time I can’t say that I can recommend the minions routers um for anything other than cuteness Factor. So if you’re in an extremely small space – and you just want a cute little Wi-Fi access point – then they’re great, and if you want performance, then you should probably look elsewhere like to your ISP provided access point. Compared to these things subscribe to Short Circuit .