Rtings.com is now testing wireless latency to find the best Wi-Fi "gaming" router!
Posted by sp_RTINGS@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 270 comments
We've launched our new Wi-Fi Router Test Bench, focusing on "gaming" routers and measuring wireless latency.
Which router is best for gaming is a frequent question. And people are pretty quick to answer that there's no such thing as a gaming router, rightfully so.
But since the question is still frequently asked, we decided to add the measure of wireless ping and jitter to our router test bench so anyone can now see for themselves the added latency tax of gaming on Wi-Fi. We're hoping this data can help users shopping for a "gaming router" find better information.
While nothing can beat a wired connection in terms of latency, there's a few things you can consider if you are forced to game on Wi-Fi:
- Wi-Fi 7 does bring little improvements over older generations with improved OFDMA and MU-MIMO.
- Mesh systems can add a lot of lag spikes to connections, mostly depending on how their backhaul is managed (the connection back to the node connected to the WAN). There are better products then other for gaming when it comes to mesh system.
- Gaming features can have an impact, but there are other means to improve your gaming exprience than to rely on those features. Getting a low latency router off the bat is better than getting a router with "gaming features".
For more details on our test development, check this article: Wi-Fi Latency: Not All Routers Are Equal, And No, Gaming Routers Aren't Better - RTINGS.com
Feel free to share this post whenever a user asks for a gaming router!
HookLeg@reddit
I’ll always hardwire my gaming rig. WiFi is fine for everything else.
horatiobanz@reddit
I hardwire everything I possibly can and it makes a huge difference. Only laptops and phones don't get hardwired. TVs absolutely need ethernet directly to them.
pppjurac@reddit
Just get a docking station, it solves so many problems with laptop i/o .
thebenson@reddit
No they don't.
Bug0@reddit
Agreed. An outstanding quality 4k bluray remux is like 100mbps. My cheap tcl tv from 5 years ago streams these over wifi just fine. So many people just have super congested wifi networks with a ton of obstruction and then make claims about wifi being inherently bad for everything.
horatiobanz@reddit
It has nothing to do with bandwidth. It's about stability and reliability. Also Ethernet allows you to do moonlight gaming from your desktop PC to any TV in your house with basically zero input lag. Try that over wifi.
thebenson@reddit
Steam Link worked pretty well for me over WiFi lol.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
What did you measure your latency at?
malastare-@reddit
I did this last Thanksgiving. Latency was 8ms.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
How about your encode and decode latency?
malastare-@reddit
What does that have to do with the network carrier?
JapariParkRanger@reddit
I'm asking about the things that contribute to your total latency.
malastare-@reddit
That's like talking about how fast a car goes but demanding to know how far you have to walk to where you parked it.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
If you don't want to talk further about your streaming experience you could just say that.
malastare-@reddit
The streaming was fine. Network latency was 8ms. That's about 6ms slower than when I stream across a wire. The encode/decode latency isn't impacted by the network because I'm generally running at the same resolution regardless of the network, so the encode/decode varies by the device I'm streaming to. The Shield seemed to have faster decode than my laptop, which felt weird but maybe not that weird, but the two desktops I have are way faster at encode and decode than either of the laptops.
So... if you're curious, here's what I've got:
Which pairing are you curious about the encode/decode latency with? The network latencies don't vary much, except for the old Steam Link which doesn't seem to handle the congestion mitigation of my WiFi and gets more latency if we have other streaming going across the air at the same time.
Bug0@reddit
Uh, bandwidth is really the main factor on a TV because people are using TVs to watch video. A bit of jitter and a few dropped packets is inconsequential.
If you're gaming on your TV, you probably have a console, computer or streaming device connected, which sure, could benefit from the stability Ethernet - but that's not the TV.
People who are gaming on their smart TV using native apps are in such a small inconsequential minority that I just don't buy the "TVs absolutely need ethernet directly to them" claim.
horatiobanz@reddit
If you're gonna go to the trouble to wire your house for ethernet, why would you not run ethernet to your TV's? My TV's all have Nvidia Shield's attached to them and run Plex for media and Moonlight for gaming. Yes, it works over Wifi, but it is not as stable as ethernet.
iDontSeedMyTorrents@reddit
That's a bit different statement than "might as well if it's there."
horatiobanz@reddit
IDK, I tend not to half ass things when I do them. If I'm going through the trouble to buy a thousand feet of ethernet cable and the ends and the crimper and all of that, then I'm gonna do the job 100%. Thats how my brain works at least.
Due-Cupcake-255@reddit
wlan isn't half assing it for tv streaming. The experience will be identical.
horatiobanz@reddit
Yep, wifi is just as reliable as hardwired ethernet. ok
Due-Cupcake-255@reddit
you don't need 'reliable' for streaming thanks to buffering.
malastare-@reddit
This is still a completely different statement.
TV and streaming video don't need ethernet. The biggest value of ethernet over WiFi is latency and steady bandwidth consumption (fewer retransmits). Streaming video doesn't need those. Streaming video does high-latency-friendly, buffered transfers.
Coming back with: I only ever set up TVs with the expectation that it will be used for intranet game streaming is the weirdest goalpost move.
Pretending that a crimper is even necessary to do that weirdness is just a silly attempt to flex.
I also have a crimer. I actually do game via my Shield sometimes. I don't crimp my own cables to the Shield because that's stupid. I also know its not necessary in any normal situation, but I do it just to quiet down the WiFi environment. I could run a cable to my projector, but I don't... because there's no benefit.
s32@reddit
OK, so your shields have ethernet because it's convenient. Not your tvs.
Bug0@reddit
I don't have my entire house wired up for ethernet. Just my NAS, PC, AP, and router.
Doing so is not really viable or worth the trouble for most people. TVs, specifically, don't require ethernet.
horatiobanz@reddit
Its not about "require", its about sitting down every single time and it just working, never having to figure out why wifi isn't connecting, etc.
Bug0@reddit
I’m not trying to be pedantic but you said “televisions absolutely need ethernet directly to them”. I’m thinking most would interpret that as “televisions require ethernet”.
If that’s not exactly what you meant, I totally get it, but that’s what I was responding to initially. There’s no use going back and forth trying to justify our positions when I think we fundamentally agree with each other.
azn_dude1@reddit
Obviously it depends on your home and specific wifi setup, but Moonlight + Shield TV was definitely playable on wifi for me. But being able to do it over ethernet was still an improvement.
MountainDoit@reddit
I do it over wifi every day lol. Works great. Minimal latency. Why is it so hard for this thread to realize wifi performance WILDLY varies based on a number of factors, all of you are probably correct when talking about your personal experience?
kenyard@reddit
2.4ghz WiFi can't handle remux bandwidth for me. 5ghz can but the range is worse. But I've only 1 solid wall and maybe 4m to the router so it's fine.
horatiobanz@reddit
Sure, I guess? Can we also all agree that a plugged in physical connection is better than a wifi signal? If you're wiring your house up anyway, why would you not wire in everything that is stationary that needs internet access? Wifi works, but its also a pita compared to a hardwired connection.
1eejit@reddit
I think we might be seeing a divide based on home layout here.
MountainDoit@reddit
Curious where exactly I claimed wifi is better than wired? Obviously not. My laptop doesn’t have an Ethernet port, my phone doesn’t, literally the only thing that does is my PC. I don’t really understand how it’s a PITA across the board either? I connect to wifi. I connect to moonlight. I play games. It works. Why would I go through the effort of wiring everything when it works perfectly fine? Again we are back to personal experience not equating to the entire picture.
horatiobanz@reddit
Where did I claim that you claimed that?
My laptops and phones don't either. They are the only reason I have wifi in my house at all. Its a PITA because wifi runs into a lot more issues in my experience than hardwired ethernet cables. A lot more. If you don't ever run into wifi issues, then congratulations and I am super jealous. The people I know personally and I all run into wifi issues. And its not like I have some crappy wifi setup, I have 3 or 4 access points in my small house, my coverage is spectacular, while its working.
malastare-@reddit
Its a PITA because wifi runs into a lot more issues in my experience than hardwired ethernet cables
This says more about the things you're using than WiFi in general.
Over the last three months, my WiFi setup has seen a dozen or so dropped packets, and that includes the day a tree branch snapped my fiber line. Over the last week, packet loss was 0%. Latency to my router is 2-10ms, with the average at 3ms. Ethernet as 1ms latency to the router.
Even roaming between APs, I haven't had issues with things not connecting.
malastare-@reddit
Nope. WiFi doesn't require cords.
Sometimes that matters. Sometimes it doesn't. A wired connection isn't universally better because sometimes my desire to not have another wire running somewhere is more important than saving 2-10ms of latency.
Avsunra@reddit
My problem with ethernet to tv is that many TV nics only do 100mbit and not gig ethernet. So while it has better reliability than wifi, bandwidth can be an issue.
The ideal solution is a hardwired HTPC handling compute, networking, video decode, sound output to receiver etc. and the TV is a dumb display. This also means you can load up adblockers and what not for browsing youtube and don't have to worry about TV manufacturer ad bukkake all over the gui.
horatiobanz@reddit
My setup is pretty slick. I have a small server running in my office closet next to my networking gear. I have a desktop gaming computer in the office. And then I have 3 TVs each with an Nvidia Shield or Onn4k set top box. Everything is hardwired together at gigabit speeds. All of the TV's can access all of the content on my server and can remotely turn on my desktop computer in Steam Big Picture mode to play games over the network. So each TV has access to all my movies, tv shows and games remotely and no one ever has to interact with a keyboard or mouse. Just a remote and an Xbox controller.
All my set top boxes run Smarttube for Youtube, so there are no ads. My living room Shield is hooked to a receiver and a 7.2 surround sound system. All my TV's are just for display only.
Avsunra@reddit
Nice. I've never used an Nvidia Shield or Onn4k type device, only ever recycled old computers for HTPC and used something like a game controller, flirc remote, or bluetooth keyboard with attached trackpad. Any issues with seeking and lag time or instability in with 4k video? I do that pretty regularly if I'm watching things across multiple devices or want to skip a scene or something. When using the TV's onboard computer, jumping around in 4k was painful.
horatiobanz@reddit
Only on one of the boxes, the tube Nvidia Shield. Drives me nuts. Shitty thing only has 2gb of ram. My 4k movies are absolutely enormous generally though. Everything else has no issues with 4k content. I believe the Onn that I have doesn't support Dolby Vision, but that is in a back bedroom that is never used, so not that big of a deal to me. The Nvidia Shield Pro that I have in the living room generally never has any issues with content.
VenditatioDelendaEst@reddit
You can stream 100 Mb/s over wifi for hours, but it's a shared channel, with unpredictable capacity and not-so-good QoS capabilities. Unless nobody else is using that channel, taking up airtime continuously for the hours it takes to watch a movie is kind of rude.
Bug0@reddit
I live in a detatched, single story home with my wife. If movie is playing, we're both watching it anyways. Wi-Fi is super reliable for us even with lots of smart home crap. I have a single AP mounted on the ceiling centrally upstairs and it's fantastic.
Surprised to see this take stir up such a big debate honestly. There are benefits of using ethernet and if I was speccing a new home, I'd have ethernet in every room and use it for everything. It's just not worth it in my case, even as a bit of a homelabber and enthusiast. There's too many more important things to care about.
arahman81@reddit
TVs don't need any network connection.
Connect the box.
Blacky-Noir@reddit
Try the same source, but while scrubbing it to look for something for example. I remember like 15 years ago, on much smaller video files, having to use a 100Mb/s ethernet for a while and moving along the video was noticeably slow.
yabucek@reddit
And some TVs only have 100mbps ethernet. So WiFi may actually work better than wired in this case lol.
WVjF2mX5VEmoYqsKL4s8@reddit
High quality x265 4K HDR surround rips are >150 mbps these days
RazingsIsNotHomeNow@reddit
Hilariously most tv Ethernet ports would be the bottle neck then. Only flagship TVs have more than 100mb port. Companies love to cut costs.
WVjF2mX5VEmoYqsKL4s8@reddit
Yeah, i've had to copy a file onto a usb drive to play it because the network port was too slow. I don't know why we have 10/100 anything in 2026. Surely it can't cost less than gigabit
_I_AM_A_STRANGE_LOOP@reddit
I've genuinely only seen that for DCPs or amateur upscales; largest bitrate off-disc I've seen is Speed (1994) at 108.8mbps, most UHD remuxes land in the 50-80mbps range
Bug0@reddit
I have never seen such an encode, but sure, you can target any bitrate you want on a rencode. I wouldn't say they are >150 mbps, but sure they could be.
wpm@reddit
If you're the only client on the network and your 5Ghz spectrum isn't super congested, this is probably fine, yeah.
When I'm streaming Twitch and backing up my computer to the NAS and downloading games on Steam at the same time, all on the wireless, it's gonna get a bit tight.
horatiobanz@reddit
Yes they absolutely do. It's not about bandwidth, it's about stability and peace of mind. WiFi is a pain in the ass compared to Ethernet.
Michelanvalo@reddit
The TV I have directly above my AP was always struggling with wifi connections. I ran a cable down to the switch and it's been stable ever since. I assume the WiFi card in the TV is either corrupt or shit.
thebenson@reddit
You're out of your mind if you think that connecting your TV to WiFi is more difficult than running an Ethernet cable from your router to your TV.
TritiumNZlol@reddit
I prefer to take the pain of doing it once properly (hardwiring), rather than having to put up with the pain of random buffering and dropouts etc caused by wifi being inconsistent.
horatiobanz@reddit
Did I say that? Wtf is with people's lack of reading comprehension?
thebenson@reddit
I quoted what you said.
Feel free to explain what you meant by WiFi being "a pain in the ass" compared to Ethernet if you think I've misinterpreted what you wrote.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
How about the immediately preceding sentence?
horatiobanz@reddit
Idfk, maybe read the sentences that preceded that sentence so you know in what context I am saying that it's a pain in the ass. You know, normal human communication type shit.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
Redditors don't read messages and respond to them, they hallucinate what they would like the message to read and respond to that instead.
MajorTankz@reddit
Depends on your network and congestion. My TV gets a stable 300 mbps up and down over WiFi. Never has issues.
feanor512@reddit
Unfortunately a lot of new, otherwise top-of-the-line, TVs only have WiFi 5 (slow) and 100mbit Ethernet (slower).
jenny_905@reddit
I mean I appreciate it's an old standard but...fast ethernet latency is identical to all other speeds and I'm not aware of a need for more than 100mpbs of bandwidth for a TV?
dystopianartlover@reddit
100mbit Ethernet does have slow bandwidth, but the latency is much better than wifi. And realistically almost anything you stream is much less than 100mbit. Netflix 4k for example is omly aroun 15mbit.
guyw2legs@reddit
US to gigabit Ethernet adapter. It's annoying that tvs don't ship with gigabit Ethernet, but the adapters are less than $20.
horatiobanz@reddit
I wouldn't personally plug it directly into TV's anyways, as I like to have a set top box like a Nvidia Shield or a Onn 4k handle the running of Android TV.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
I have all my gaming stuff in wifi and haven't had an issue for like 10 years.
DopeFlavorRum@reddit
The issues are there, you just don't notice them.
ooferomen@reddit
100% depends on the environment, rurualish area with DFS channels? No problem. urban/suburban area with non-DFS channels? Good luck.
airmantharp@reddit
I've done it for five.
I've had issues, none of which were related to using WiFi.
Hell, with the debacle that has been Intel's 2.5Gbit adapters, WiFi has been more stable than wired in many cases!
(yeah, I've run into that one personally...)
DopeFlavorRum@reddit
Run a ping to your local gateway. I guarantee it's higher than 1 ms.
airmantharp@reddit
Slightly, and it’s stable, so the end result even in shooters is indistinguishable.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
My ping is always below 50 on Rust.
TrantaLocked@reddit
People have bad carrier wifi or don't set it up properly. Some ISPs force 2.4 and 5ghz band steering in their carrier routers now. It's so bad. If your PC doesnt have a way to force 5ghz or BSSID you can easily get put on 2.4 which typically has non-stop ping issues due to congestion.
And some ISPs give you a mesh network that poorly balances where users connect (forces primary and access points under the same SSID with poor load balancing), leading to ping spikes. I had this happen with T-Mobile home internet and needed to unplug the AP so our busy house had stable internet.
The solution is a good consumer router, with one or two repeaters if necessary. Gaming PCs connect to the primary router for best latency. Repeaters should have their own individual SSIDs. Smart home or low priority devices should be on 2.4GHz. Disable all band steering, even for 5GHz low/high. Make them separate SSIDs. People will eventually sort themselves to even the load on all your APs and bands.
Once you do it right, Wi-Fi won't be adding more than a few ms of latency compared to ethernet.
Miranda_Leap@reddit
<50 ping isn't exactly anything to brag about in the age of fiber connections.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Yeah, and it isn't shit either. These idiots are making wifi sound like dialup, lol.
And it doesn't really matter how fast your fiber is when the server itself is responsible for a lot of the ping in the first place.
TonalParsnips@reddit
Ping isn't the issue with wifi, dropped packets are. You don't know what you're talking about.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
I know my game runs gone, so 🤷
SurayaThrowaway12@reddit
For fighting games, an ethernet connection is pretty much a requirement.
certainlystormy@reddit
and if you're me, you get to live in a house with no router, no ethernet, and one of the cheapest mesh systems on the market 😭
horatiobanz@reddit
You owning or renting? Cause it's pretty easy to run cat5e or cat 6, just time consuming.
certainlystormy@reddit
ehh. living with my parents and they disapprove of me cables running through the house lol. i wish, ive asked
Freaky_Freddy@reddit
if you know a bit about networking this post might interest you
https://old.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/1sz9li4/invisible_bend_insensitive_bidi_fiber_is_amazing/
certainlystormy@reddit
oh wait this is sick ty
Blacky-Noir@reddit
You can run cables inside the walls. Exactly like electrical cables are run. It can be extremely easy, or very though, depending on how the house is made.
At worse, you could (if your code allow it) run the cable in shielded and grounded version alongside electrical run.
certainlystormy@reddit
yeah they don't want anything like that xd it's unfortunate
leoklaus@reddit
Not if you live in an area where houses are built with bricks or cinder blocks…
Stingray88@reddit
Don’t have to run cables in the walls, they can be neatly run along the baseboards or ceiling.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Yeah, and it looks like shit.
Stingray88@reddit
It’s pretty easy to make it not look like shit.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Aside from trying to run white cat5 down your baseboards, which still looks like shit, it's not easy to pull wiring through existing walls at all, especially going through studs.
Stingray88@reddit
You can run cables behind your baseboard too, which will not look like shit. If you care so much about it looking good, put in the effort to make it look good.
Conversely, given the previous example was talking about brick and cinder, there’s nothing you can do to make WiFi good in that environment. It will always be shit.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Yes, which isn't 'easy' for like 99.99999% of people. Have you ever pulled baseboards before? If you can do it without fucking up your drywall, you still need to use a dado or something to cut a channel. There is no easy solution for running cat5 through your house and having it look neat.
Stingray88@reddit
>Yes, which isn't 'easy' for like 99.99999% of people.
Then pay for someone else to do it properly.
>Have you ever pulled baseboards before?
Yes.
>If you can do it without fucking up your drywall,
Again keep in mind the above poster was talking about brick and cinder walls. If you have drywall, just run it in the walls.
>you still need to use a dado or something to cut a channel.
Or you just buy new boards with existing channels. [Like this.](https://morethanmoldings.com/product/cable-channel-molding/)
>There is no easy solution for running cat5 through your house and having it look neat.
It’s really not that hard.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Again, not easy for the average person.
Stingray88@reddit
Again, it’s a lot easier for the average person than you’re suggesting, they just have to simply be willing to put forth a little effort.
For those who aren’t willing try, they can simply pay for someone else to do it.
And all of that is assuming they even care for it to not look like shit… which to be frank, the average person is *not going to care about that all*.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Ok.
leoklaus@reddit
That generally has a very low spousal approval factor, though and will require super long runs if the layout of your house/apartment isn’t suitable.
Definitely not easy in many cases.
Stingray88@reddit
Another solid option if you have coax run in your home is MoCA adapters. I’ve got rock solid 2.5Gbps between two rooms with less added latency than WiFi using MoCA. I highly recommend it.
plantsandramen@reddit
I'm a pretty technologically inclined person, but looking into MoCA was more confusing than I felt was worth. This is one of the guides I found and it led me to buying a WiFi repeater/access point with ethernet to connect my home PC, basically using it solely as an adapter. This was a lot easier, cheaper, and works fantastically. Since I'm just using to as an adapter I don't even need tri-band to keep great speeds.
WiFi requires tinkering to learn and get right, and I understand that not everyone wants to do that, but most of the time it works great out of the box. MoCA looked like too much effort to properly do it.
Stingray88@reddit
I took one look at that guide, saw the wiring diagram and closed the tab lol. That’s overthinking it.
Assuming you have coax connecting various rooms in your home, you just need one connected to coax and your router… and another one in any room you want to extend your network to, again connected to coax… and that’s it. And you can setup several more for additional rooms.
It’s really not that different than the WiFi solution you’re using except it’s faster and more robust.
plantsandramen@reddit
Maybe more robust, but it's not faster than my solution because I can't download faster if I wanted to, I'm pulling 1.3gbps on a 1gigabit plan. This is consistent with ethernet on the same network
Stingray88@reddit
WAN traffic isn’t the only traffic that matters. My download speed is only 1Gbps as well, but I still make great use of my LAN being 2.5Gbps for traffic between my devices.
plantsandramen@reddit
I don't have any throughput issues with my nas either. I have a 1gbps port on my PC and it has no problem saturating that either. I don't have 2.5gbps so maybe I couldn't saturate that, but in theory it should.
https://dongknows.com/tp-link-archer-be550-be9300-wi-fi-7-router-review/
Stingray88@reddit
I mean yeah… of course you wouldn’t have throughput issues if your port is only 1GbE. The point I’m making here is that MoCA can do 2.5GbE rock solid, and you really are not going to see that on WiFi.
Even with WiFi 6GHz 160MHz channel widths you’re gunna be topping out under 2Gbps. That’s the best I’ve seen on my U6 Enterprise which has a 2.5GbE uplink.
Lesbiotic@reddit
There are really thin fiber kits you could look into. It's basically invisible if you install it well. Still obviously more work than Wifi though, of course.
leoklaus@reddit
I’ve got everything wired up, it just was a major PITA. I just think saying it’s easy to run wires is ignorant.
Stingray88@reddit
Saying it’s hard to run wires is ignorant. There’s so many options that are easy and don’t look like crap.
leoklaus@reddit
Not looking like crap is highly subjective. I'd consider every visible wire running along a wall to look like crap. If you want proper in-wall outlets for ethernet, running wires is definitely not easy.
Any vertical run that can't be covered by furniture will always look like shit, no matter how thin the cable is or how well it matches the color of your wall.
Stingray88@reddit
It’s really not hard to properly hide wires behind baseboards or molding, and not look like shit, objectively. There are lots of solutions to this problem, you just have to be willing to put in the effort. And if you care enough about things not looking like shit, then just put in the effort.
Conversely, there’s nothing you can do to make WiFi work better through brick and cinder, it will always suck.
leoklaus@reddit
How do you do vertical runs? You've established that it's easy to do and not have to look like shit.
Say I have a Bookshelf speaker on a floating shelf in my living room. How is that easy? Wall or ceiling mounted PoE camera? PoE doorbell?
These are obviously all easy to install without compromising on looks, I just don't care enough :-)
Stingray88@reddit
>How do you do vertical runs? You've established that it's easy to do and not have to look like shit.
Use a cable runner. If that still looks like crap then hire someone to run it properly through the wall.
>Say I have a Bookshelf speaker on a floating shelf in my living room. How is that easy?
[Ghost wire.](https://sewelldirect.com/products/ghost-wire-2-0-super-flat-adhesive-wire-16-awg-2-conductor-white)
>Wall or ceiling mounted PoE camera?
Cable runner or run it in the walls.
>PoE doorbell?
Run that in the walls. That needs to be done right since it’s on the outside of your home.
>These are obviously all easy to install without compromising on looks, I just don't care enough :-)
If you don’t care about the looks, then why make a big deal about it?
leoklaus@reddit
So summarizing your recommendations:
Which will not look good at all on a flat wall or ceiling,
Which is neither easy nor really DIY-able or
Which is easy but obviously not the kind of easy you and I were referring to.
Stingray88@reddit
>Which will not look good at all on a flat wall or ceiling,
This is subjective, not objective. It looks good enough for plenty of people, especially those with brick or cinder walls like your original example. There are a lot of more tasteful options too that look like crown molding. Just depends on your budget.
If it doesn’t look good for you, then run it in the walls.
>Which is neither easy nor really DIY-able or
Not as hard as a lot of people realize, and it’s definitely within the realm of DIY.
>Which is easy but obviously not the kind of easy you and I were referring to.
I wasn’t referring to any option in particular. My whole point is that there are so many perfectly viable options out there that people just refuse to consider or try. They just go all wireless and call it a day.
And don’t get me wrong, obviously for most people WiFi is totally fine! But there are still plenty of real world scans of where it really isn’t, and people should do a little more research into the options they have. There vast majority of people, even more technically minded people, have never heard of MoCA, for example… and existing coax is pretty common in a lot of homes!
iluvchromosomes@reddit
No, it's still easy. Your wife being a problem does not change the reality of running ethernet cables. It's easy. And time consuming.
leoklaus@reddit
Tell me, how would I mount an ethernet outlet near my kitchen counter?
MumrikDK@reddit
We run cables just fine in Europe.
Mine are run inside the floor trim, under the floor, etc.
leoklaus@reddit
Which does not work for any vertical runs... If you need anything connected that's not at floor level, you're pretty much fucked.
Seanspeed@reddit
You can still probably run the cables along the floor and doorframes and whatnot. That's what I ultimately did. Not super ideal, but with a bit of effort, you can get it to where it's not some big eyesore or anything. Helps if you have white walls and floorboards of course, cuz then just use a white cable and it mostly blends in unless you're looking out for it.
nokei@reddit
if they got cable internet you could hook up MoCA and just put a router at the end of a cable line or do power over ethernet.
certainlystormy@reddit
oh shit ur totally right. wait a minute lol
aj_thenoob2@reddit
I just have no idea how properly to route Ethernet from downstairs to upstairs through a wall.
Blacky-Noir@reddit
Make a hole, run the cable through it. Exactly like electricians run electrical cables. In fact where I live (France), the corps de métier (both in new construction, and renovation) for RJ45 cabling is the professional electricians mostly for that reason.
Blurgas@reddit
My SO is fine with wifi for their gaming, but they mostly play stuff like SWTOR and DragonAge
EitherAd1507@reddit
VR though...
RumbleTheCassette@reddit
I've used virtually nothing but Wi-Fi my entire life and idk seems good to me for gaming. I'm not a competitive gamer though.
RabidHexley@reddit
Modern Wi-Fi is plenty fine for gaming. But besides the minor reduction in latency, wired just eliminates any of the problematic stuff typically associated with Wi-Fi troubles. You're also removing any factors associated with your device sharing airspace with other wi-fi devices in the home. It's the most stable, "always works" solution.
Also, for folks with fast internet, they typically want their desktop PC to have full access to whatever bandwidth they're paying for.
plantsandramen@reddit
This isn't an issue at all anymore if you're buying decent equipment. I can fully utilize my gigabit bandwidth over WiFi using an access point/repeater solely as an ethernet adapter for my PC.
JapariParkRanger@reddit
Gigabit isn't enough to saturate a decent fiber connection these days.
chronoreverse@reddit
I would say that it's plenty fine if few people are using the airwaves at the same time.
Obviously if there is interference from other access points sharing the frequency band that results in more latency spikes but I find if other users are on the same SSID and active, it leads to occasional latency spikes too but I'm only up to a mixed Wi-Fi 6e (down to Wi-Fi 5) so I have no experience with Wi-Fi 7 only networks (which I think not very people would have anyway).
RabidHexley@reddit
Yeah, I agreed it's plenty fine for gaming. It's not that these are major issues, it's just that wired removes any of this stuff beyond your actual router and internet connection as a potential confounding factor on potential issues or hiccups.
caustictoast@reddit
I game on WiFi and it’s fine these days. I have more issues with game servers dropping than my internet
Stingray88@reddit
I hardwire every stationary as well, and was never much of a laptop gamer. But the Steam Deck has me gaming wirelessly today, as will the Steam Frame.
BrightCandle@reddit
The most important thing to test on these gaming routers is their QoS behaviour. Its not how well the router performs on an empty network its how it prioritises gaming traffic over the netflix feeds and other uses. The problem is with a lot of routers not using SQM/CAKE is that latency jumps around a lot with bufferbloat.
This doesn't count as good testing of routers I am afraid, they haven't actually done the tests that matter and dismissed as them as available on all routers (which they are to various degrees). Its all about how well gaming traffic is detected and prioritised.
sp_RTINGS@reddit (OP)
Our latency test is ran while 200Mbps of traffic happens on the network. We have a 1Gbps network. A Netflix stream requires 15Mbps for 4K stream (Netflix-recommended internet speeds | Netflix Help Center). I just want to be clear that we didn't test latency on an empty network.
From our testing and our first article, we found that QoS doesn't have much impact on latency unless the connection hits a bottleneck, which is normally the ISP bandwidth limit. We explored the idea of testing QoS/SQM performance when the network is bottlenecked or bufferbloated, but we expect not many users run their network at max capacity all of the time. If we are wrong on this point, let us know and we can work on a QoS/SQM test!
conspicuousxcapybara@reddit
Did you account for different levels of congestion / interference in the wireless ether when measuring the latency impact of QoS? That looks increasingly important with every Wi-Fi update after 802.11ac wave 2 (MIMO).
Which QoS metrics did you select as a variable in your measurements? Upstream DSCP to the WAN? Downstream DSCP on the lan? Wireless has slightly different 802.11 UP numbers / orders because everyone shares the medium. Did the routers automatically convert those numbers in accordance with the QoS mapping tables recommended in RFC 8325?
What’s your take on the tea surrounding a ‘great divide’ between proponents for Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) and L4S or fq_codel and Active Queue Management? GeForce Now even warns users ‘L4S = DISABLED’ if their router doesn’t meet the recommended specs and NVidia’s servers failed to establish a connection over these new protocols. Apple meanwhile promises it’ll completely stop FaceTime from stuttering.
OrastieDude@reddit
Stopped checking rtings as soon as they put up a paywall. Same as for the verge.
derkapitan@reddit
Wifi is fine in a pinch, but if you are competitive at all or care about dying to packet loss/lag don't do it. It will kill you, just run a wire. You will be much happier for it.
Nicholas-Steel@reddit
(Note that this info is not locked behind a paywall)
Cheerful_Champion@reddit
Locking EVERYTHING behind subscription is such a loss. I get it, they have to pay people, but I'm not paying $10 just to check a result of a single test from a whole review of a single product they reviewed 3 years ago. At this point I'll just go to some other review site.
-WallyWest-@reddit
They dont really have a choice with AI scrapping their website.
thekbob@reddit
What's stopping an AI company paying the $10 once and scraping it all?
total_cynic@reddit
They'll likely never notice, they're out to scrape as much of the web as possible, not troubleshoot individual paywalls.
ryanvsrobots@reddit
Not much really, the idea is to solve the money making problem not the AI problem.
StickiStickman@reddit
Oh please. They could also just not have a whole team doing reviews for blenders, toasters and shoes.
I'm not joking.
ryanvsrobots@reddit
I mean you get comments like this (not you), so they are reviewing more stuff to provide the value to make it more worth subscribing for all your review needs.
Will it work for them? I don't know, but there's logic to it and it's not like the reviews are super heavy lifts. It seems like the alternative is shutting down, so what alternatives do you propose?
Cheerful_Champion@reddit
My proposition is to figure out a system that works for them and for users. Given their whole business for years was based on people entering specific categories of tests and seeing ads + uaing affiliate links I believe they should have quite good analytics in place. At that point they can:
Probably there's more they can do. These are just ideas that instantly come to my mind. Are they perfect? No. I still believe that they are better than current system that doesn't block AI companies from scrapping data (how is paying $10 for a month of subscription a problem for company?), but makes it not worth it to subscribe for people that would use site in a very limited/ targeted way.
loliii123@reddit
I wish they did it macOS CrossOver style where if you sub, you get permanent access to all reviews up until that point, and with the sub you just get updates to what you can access.
This way you don't lose anything when your sub expires and it feels a lot better picking up a sub again when you're doing a big ticket purchase.
wpm@reddit
I think they should have a whole team doing those reviews. It's fucking agonizing shopping for any big ticket item or even medium-ticket item these days. Reddit is astro-turfed, and pretty much every other result is an ad disguised as a "review". rtings does a good goddamn job. I want them to succeed. Having self-consistent methodologies, easily digestible and searchable data, it all makes it so much easier to compare different products.
It's great for TVs. Why shouldn't I get that same experience when I buy a good blender for $200+? Or an airfryer? Or a digital camera (RIP DPReview 🫡)
They do the work, they should get paid, not do it all to feed Scam Fartman's bubble. If anything they should be the ones training an rtings AI to help people find what they're looking for. They can't do that getting scrapped to death. It's the same reason I get captcha'ed every 5 minutes on digi-key: digi-keys UI and datasheet database makes it incredibly easy to cross shop and reference things -> digi-key should get that sale -> AI scraping makes that less likely.
It's just a sign of the times. If the AI companies were better netizens, not scummy, plagiarizing, bot-net scraper houses, good sites wouldn't have to do this. But try all you want to give them a proper API to use referenced in an "agents.txt" or in the old "robots.txt", they never respect it. Don't be mad at rtings for trying to survive.
Cheerful_Champion@reddit
Are we pretending that paying $10 once to scrap all of rtings is a blocker for a company? Anyway, they literally could:
block temporary and proxy emails, require accounts and enforce some low limit of articles per free account per day/week/month, completely block all more advanced options (compare tools etc). That way normal users that truly only use their site in a low amount and in a targeted way would be still able to use it.
make tests using older methodology (let's say 3+ versions) available for free for free users, even if in limited number of reviews per user.
make subscription cost dynamic based on number of viewed reviews. Let's say some low base fee (idk $2?) that includes some low number of reviews you can see, then charge extra for reviews above that and above some number make it MORE (not less) expensive to see more. Seeing unusually high number of reviews would be a signal of bot behavior. They should have analytics so figuring exact numbers shouldn't be hard.
There are solutions that aren't based on "fuck everyone who doesn't pay us $10 even if they want to see a single result of 5 years old review".
heepofsheep@reddit
It’s rough right now in the digital media space. AI is scraping and repackaging content/information and everyone is running ad blockers.
windowpuncher@reddit
Not running and adblocker is just stupid. On your most mainstream websites like the BBC or Reuters or CNN, ads are annoying but fine.
On basically any other website that relies on clicks for revenue, it's still the wild west. My dad called me because his PC was acting up. Every time chrome launched, it opened up about six fake versions of the "New Page" tab with links that all lead to scam websites. Every website he visited had some random popup asking for location, storage, video, notifications, etc., even if it was a legitimate site like Youtube. There were also like 20 mystery extensions installed.
ALL of that shit started from clicking on just one bad ad, or one stupid popup by accident. I reinstalled windows and setup chrome and FF with uBlock. I also globally disabled every website popup, notification request, and adding additional extensions. Hopefully now that won't happen again, but the fact I had to do it in the first place just makes me recommend that everyone use something like uBlock, and pihole, whenever possible. It's just not worth the risk.
zeronic@reddit
Hell, you don't even need to click ads to get infected. Drive by malware is still a thing, using an adblocker is a form of self protection.
Due-Cupcake-255@reddit
luckily those days are long gone. zero days are way to valuable today.
Far_Piano4176@reddit
no-click RCE exploits are very rare.
Exist50@reddit
Not really these days.
Successful_Ad_8219@reddit
Regardless of "how it is", I keep and maintain that they do not own my screen space that I paid for, the bandwidth that I paid for, the processing that I paid for, and the time which I pay for. So they do not, and never will, have a right to put ads on my screen. If they wish to block my access, that's fine with me, but I will not, ever, allow ads to be presented to me if I can help it.
1eejit@reddit
Might be worth setting him up a Pihole too
Flimsy_Swordfish_415@reddit
why? ublock does everything better
1eejit@reddit
Protects all of his devices on home network
Flimsy_Swordfish_415@reddit
how? by blocking some domains?
KlassLikeVlassic@reddit
clicking a bad ad would not simply install extensions like that.
Moscato359@reddit
They can cause a popup which asks you to install the extension and if you don't know better it will happen
aSooker@reddit
Except if you run into a zero day exploit
KlassLikeVlassic@reddit
zero day exploits don't install random browser extensions but yes sure that can happen, but tell my why waste a 0-day exploit.
randylush@reddit
Yeah I highly doubt a 0day is installing pop ups on paw paws browser lol
alonjit@reddit
man ... even if you are right (you are not), why the fuck wouldn't you just install the damn adblocker and stop them. Those things, if not malware (they are), are annoying and make it impossible to read the damn content.
i can't imagine browsing nowadays without one, holy shit. Been using one since ... I don't even remember since when. Been running firefox since 2002-2003 (alpha/beta) and I think Adblock came around the same time. Been using it.
randylush@reddit
I never said Adblock was a bad idea
Odin-ap@reddit
Digital media should have thought about that before they shoved ads in literally every possible crevice they could.
Blacky-Noir@reddit
And calling them ads is pretty disingenuous. Ads didn't track you before.
In fact coming from a, say 1980's or prior mindset, this would be better called a spywware blocker.
Nor did ads slow down your TV, radio, press, or road. While back when I still saw some, a very long time ago, ad server were always the slowest in the chain.
Flimsy_Swordfish_415@reddit
$10 a month is not a solution, this is fucking ridiculous
BrushPsychological74@reddit
Yeah. It's always a content delivery problem and locking it behind a paywall for something I barely use is a perfect recipe for me to never use it again.
heepofsheep@reddit
If you’re not viewing ads or using their affiliate links then they’re not really losing much
mysticode@reddit
I stopped going to the site entirely, it's actually very sad to me as I loved reading the reviews.
plantsandramen@reddit
Yeah, I love their reviews, but you're right that going to a subscription model is actively causing me to not use the site, which means I'm not clicking their affiliate links. I did that often to support them, now it's $0.
I know that they need to make money but perhaps instead of focusing on reviewing shoes, they could narrow their scope a bit back to what made them so good to begin with.
RedditNotFreeSpeech@reddit
There's no money left in affiliate ads anymore. It's dead Jim.
I wish they would have setup $100 for life. I would have considered it
ryanvsrobots@reddit
I think you’re overestimating the amount of work that goes into a shoe review.
FirstMateApe@reddit
It seems redundant when runrepeat.com is the de facto for serious runners, but also shoe preference is highly subjective and preference based, whereas something like a TV is more objective. Just go to a running specialty store.
Cheerful_Champion@reddit
This. They are branching into many categories of reviews that are already done with great or at least good methodology by other sites, youtubers, etc. and said sites offer their reviews for free
ryanvsrobots@reddit
Why would anyone use runrepeat when shoe preference is highly subjective and preference based? Just go to a running specialty store.
FirstMateApe@reddit
Because it can help guide you on which shoes to try on, and give information like carbon plate geometry and midsole compound which are hard to find.
BoiledFrogs@reddit
Their point was there's already a primary source of reviews for shoes, on top of shoes preference being highly subjective and preference based. It's not that hard to figure out.
plantsandramen@reddit
$100 per shoe, at least 2 hours of time to test and write up the review, and whatever the equipment they purchased to do said reviews. Time is money, and money is money. If it's going to a wasted resource then it's money badly spent.
ryanvsrobots@reddit
Why do you think it's wasted?
$100 or 2 hours is nothing. Have you ever run a business before? Staff probably has downtime between reviewing other stuff, and newsflash you can wear shoes while doing other things. Shoes also have high margins and have good referral payout rates. Obviously the business wasn't doing great and they are trying to maximize value. They need to provide more reviews to make subscribing worth it, and shoes are an easy add.
I don't know how you can reply to and agree with this comment:
and then complain that they are reviewing too many things?
plantsandramen@reddit
I manage a $15 million dollar a year store, logistics, scheduling, purchasing, and etc. I'm well aware of how a business runs and from my 8 years in this position that works with government contracts, scientific research, hospitals, and fabrication, their business direction is dumb.
That's all I have to say about that.
stonk_street@reddit
I think it comes down to also AI scraping. No one should give away their data for free and unfortunately that is the case. Imagine never having to go to rtings.com because everyone starts asking chatgpt about data on a tv or router and it scraped it off rtings already. What eventually happens is rtings goes away and guess who replaces them, its going to be the highest bidder.
Sevastous-of-Caria@reddit
I dont know how fast ai bots scrape the sites. When its training or just when promt comes in. İf its the former. First week keeping it open should a be a win win
ineedsomefuckingcoco@reddit
AI is scraping constantly. Training never really ends.
richard_splooge@reddit
. . . yet.
tr2727@reddit
Look at the ppl crying over paywall. They just assume everything should be free. Good work deserves payout or they won't be able to do this for long.
You might just also wait for a yt video from RTINGS i guess
VenditatioDelendaEst@reddit
>Ctrl+f RRUL >no results
Ancillas@reddit
I spent a bunch of time and money running CAT-6 through my house because I prefer to lose with a 12ms ping like a gentleman.
No-Ordinary-5988@reddit
Ngl a good WiFi 7 connection is really comparable to Ethernet for gaming, I get 12-14ms generally with a Fast Connect 7800.
Illadelphian@reddit
It's about the consistency. I get perfect uptime on my Ethernet, no spikes.
No-Ordinary-5988@reddit
Totally. A hard line/Ethernet will always reign supreme, but I just wanted to make the case that a good WiFi 7 set up can still be a valid alternative if you’re unable to use Ethernet.
Illadelphian@reddit
Yea for sure.
Ancillas@reddit
Yeah, but did you have to spend $150 on a ferret camera to fish the cable through your ceiling? If not, you’re not getting the full experience…
Jon_TWR@reddit
A while back I was playing on my Steam Deck at a crappy motel, but had a 17ms ping and 200 mbps up and down!
It’s too bad the rooms were poorly maintained and the terrible bed killed my back, because the internet was awesome, and it was really close to where I needed to be!
sp_RTINGS@reddit (OP)
This is the way
nisaaru@reddit
Electromagnetic sources like a simple household fan can disrupt Wireless connections that a multiplayer game completely breaks. I've made that experience in 2014 with Destiny 1.
With UDP communications packets can just vanish in the aether. Something you don't really notice with TCP/IP connections like when you use a web browser. You potentially don't only ruin your experience but screw up others too.
So please just say no to wireless for multiplayer games.
Maldiavolo@reddit
No one is talking about 2014 wifi.
nisaaru@reddit
Why is the wifi version relevant? Do you think current wifi isn't disrupted by electromagnetic events? Multiplayer games use UDP so there's no error recovery. Meaning if your wireless gets a hickup these types of communication vanish.
Maldiavolo@reddit
It's not relevant because quite literally no one is talking about it except you. The article isn't testing 2014 wifi. Have you used anything modern? Say wifi 6 or 7?
Can you please tell us how a fan disrupted your wifi? What was the actual mechanism of disruption? In general how is wifi affected by electromagnetic events? What is the mechanism of disruption?
nisaaru@reddit
the electro motor apparently disrupted the electromagnetic spectrum causing transmission errors. Probably the same principle in how Wifi Jammers work only in that case it's permanent and not some random spike.
Spurious transmissions errors are no real problem with TCP/IP communications because the network stack resends lost packets.
Multiplayer games use UDP while most normal internet communications like your webbrowser/generic data transfers use TCP/IP. In the later case a few dropped and resent packets aren't noticed by the user.
But if an UDP packet gets send and the wireless communication is disrupted by something a packet's data gets mangled and dropped. It simply vanishes...
In case of D1 back then the effect was that the game failed to create stable game sessions with many players, it took ages for the game to create a game session because failed attempts, an established session got unstable or you/others would experience strange effects in a PvP session.
It has been common sense to avoid wireless for PvP games in that community at least from my understanding.
Maldiavolo@reddit
Ok so you haven't used any modern wifi. Got it. Your experience and knowledge has aged and is not useful to a discussion on modern wifi. I'm not sure how that isn't obvious to you.
That isn't an explanation of the disruption mechansim. You are just saying words and events and linking them together. A fan motor that runs off 50/60hz AC is somehow capable of making multiple gigahertz frequencies? Come on dude. The fan could affect the wifi ap/router itself as it runs at wall frequency, not the signal over the air. You don't have an understanding on how things work and why they work. That being said, don't you simply have a broken fan? How is that an issue with WIFI? The reason why microwaves can cause disruption to WIFI is because the microwave produces frequencies very close to the 2.4ghz band. Operational signal over signal. That's the mechanism. This is largely not an issue today because 2.4ghz is legacy. Most devices are going to use 5ghz or 6ghz if they are capable. Not to mention any WIFI gear that isn't junk will have a mechanism to avoid interfence when it detects it.
You have a very basic understanding of TCP and and UDP and why one might be used and not the other. Neither are immune from issues a user could notice when data loss occurs. Both of them are dependent on the amount of data loss being below certain acceptable thresholds. No one, including gamers, are going to notice a UDP packet being lost. They will notice when multiple UDP or TCP packets are lost if there is enough lost in a shorter timespan. The use of UDP or TCP really comes down to application. Real-time applications use UDP because no one will notice a packet lost here or there because it's a stream of data that doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. If TCP were used in place of UDP it will work. However, if you experience packet loss, the pause and retransmit in TCP will be more noticeable than UDP. If you are on a video call and you lose a packet they always will have a pause in the video stream however small that is. Accumulated pauses are much more noticiable. At some point of packet loss, both will have users notice issues.
I'm a network engineer. You are out of your depth.
nisaaru@reddit
It was a netgear r7000 where I used the 5ghz band and a Rowenta VU5540, if you actually care:-)
I only use the 2.4ghz channel for an old appletv airplay node.
Thanks for retelling the tcp/ip udp basics but that doesn't change anything about how this impacts multiplayer games and why most people wouldn't notice spurious transmission errors with their normal wireless activities.
Redd1t_is_Fake@reddit
Hi Rtings team,
Any tips on how to pick a 5G router (one that accepts SIM cards if that's not the proper name) with good low latency for gaming? Maybe you could recommend a specific model that is available worldwide?
Thank you
sp_RTINGS@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately, we haven't tested routers with SIM card support. So I can't directly recommend a product we reviewed. However, the GL.iNet products have been performing very well with very low latency, and they also come packed with configurable options. I personally love their products, and they have cellular routers that you could check out. Their most popular model seems to be the Spitz AX (GL-X3000) (mostly from vanlife reviewers).
There's also the Dream Router 5G Max from Unify that should be a solid option. It seems like it's sold out and has a higher price point than the GL.iNet.
Hope this helps!
Redd1t_is_Fake@reddit
Do you know if these are universal? I mean do they accept any SIM card or only SIM card of specific countries? I see it says T-Mobile & AT&T IoT Device Certified, but I'm going to use them in Saudi Arabia, should I be fine?
Thank you very much!
Redd1t_is_Fake@reddit
Thank you very much
veckans@reddit
Rtings is dead for me after becoming a true paywall site
Succcction@reddit
What choice do they have?
plantsandramen@reddit
Stop expanding into bullshit segments, for one. Why are they reviewing mattresses and toaster ovens? That's time and money on products that make no sense to me. I'm a weirdo who actually spent 4 hours reviewing mattresses using multiple sites and that was one time, 6 years ago. Sleeplikethedead is the answer for where to find mattress reviews.
I spent 4 hours researching a vacuum recently, I didn't use RTINGs because frankly their robovac reviews are dated and ultimately are useless, and their cordless basically are too. Vacuumwars is your site for that.
They're expanding into so many markets without the money or manpower to actually give valuable reviews because there are too many products in each specific market to actually review. It sucks because their TV reviews are excellent. Instead their wasting time reviewing cameras when so many websites already do that with subjective and objective metrics.
Blacky-Noir@reddit
Just because you're not in the market for those, doesn't mean those tests are useless.
Everyone has a mattress, and everyone will want to buy a new one sometime. There's absolutely a market for it.
plantsandramen@reddit
There is, and there are already great sites for it, which is why I said "sleeplikethedead" which is dedicated to beds, has a huge variety of reviews and experience, and has consistent methodology. Rtings has 54 mattress reviews, out of pocket that's gotta be near $30,000, and then they have to pay a staff member to do these reviews.
I tried reviews other than their TV reviews and honestly they're not great. Their vacuum reviews lack in product breadth, and they completely skipped over many excellent budget options. Their best robo vacs article is a joke. They have a $1,400 vac as #1, an $800 one as #2, a discontinued one as #3, and one that also looks to be discontinued at #4. It's completely useless.
Their regular vacuum ones are equally as bad. They don't have any Aircare products in their humidifier reviews, no Medify for their air purifiers, their dehumifier reviews don't talk about how much moisture it can remove from the air per hour, and etc. They have half-assed reviews of all of these products, with weak product selection.
They want to be this catchall for every product in a world that is, unfortunately, relying less and less on quality articles, and now it's at the detriment of the average visitor. I'm their prime target market, I've been using them for many years now, but now I'm sourcing different sites for TV reviews.
battler624@reddit
They are trying to be THE platform for all reviews. I do not buy stuff often so a sub isn't it for me.
I'd understand if it was 10$ a year and if they covered beyond NA but they dont and I dont.
imaginary_num6er@reddit
Project Farm is able to do it, why can't they?
battler624@reddit
Article based reviewer vs Video based reviewer.
Videos generate a lot more income than articles
TrptJim@reddit
Turning into a Consumer Reports competitor is not the right way to go, but I guess we'll see how this shakes out. Either way, the original RTings is probably gone forever until another company gives it ago.
Working-Crab-2826@reddit
Too sensible response for this platform.
Cheerful_Champion@reddit
Dunno, they worked somehow for years while offering open access to some categories or limited (X reviews limit) access while keeping other paywalled. Now they require subscription even to check a review of product they reviewed years ago and is currently on way older testing methodology.
IIRC they quoted AI scrapping as main reason behind paywall. I feel like there are better ways to do it than locking everything.
iluvchromosomes@reddit
It's called going into debt
Illadelphian@reddit
There is no way they were just going into debt for that entire time...They had affiliate links and ads at the very least. They probably made some legit money from the links.
Cheerful_Champion@reddit
Do we have any reason to believe they were losing money before going for a full paywall? They resell hardware they buy after reviews (wast majority of hardware is not going trough long term tests like burn-in for TVs), they have ads, they have affiliate links, they offer licensing of their content (company X has to pay them to legally put info on their website that given product got RTINGS recommended badge or whatever), they have subscriptions. Not sure if they still do, but in the past they also allowed donations.
iluvchromosomes@reddit
There is no right answer for these chuds. They think they are entitled to free content.
They won't watch ads a la youtube premium either. They want the best content, without ads, for free. And they are not getting it so we have to read these pissy comments.
WealthyMarmot@reddit
I think that’s too harsh. It is entitlement, but it’s completely understandable. Most of us have only ever known an Internet paid for by the advertising industry instead of users. It’s inevitable that people would come to see “free” as the default expectation and when that gravy train stops, they’re going to be incredibly resentful. I think it’ll slowly change as people come to terms with having to pay for the content they consume.
raknikmik@reddit
Forced accounts to stop ai scraping but make it like the old system with limited reviews per session/ip.
PastaPandaSimon@reddit
It's such a shame, since it used to be my favorite review site. This made me click and realize it's really not useful anymore and reminded me to blacklist them, which I did sadly.
M4j0rTr4g3dy@reddit
So far, the benefit of wifi 7 for me is that the higher bands are less congested for things like wireless VR
FirstAid84@reddit
Too bad everything that isn’t part of a promotion is PAYWALLED.
ButtPlugForPM@reddit
anyone that needs this to a degree that it matters is running a cat6 cable to their gear from the router.
No human being is playing at the professional level enough that the 7-9ms latency on wifi is impacting their game unless they are someone like shroud.
ShiiTsuin@reddit
How long till y'all put this behind a paywall as well?
Exciting-Ad-5705@reddit
Why do you think you are entitled to their work?
PrideBlade@reddit
Why would you pay a subscription for tv reviews lmao
Exciting-Ad-5705@reddit
When you are spending 2k on a tv a few bucks to guide your choice is nothing
PrideBlade@reddit
But why is it a subscription.
Exciting-Ad-5705@reddit
Just cancel your sub when you aren't using it?
Flimsy_Swordfish_415@reddit
you're dumber that rocks
PrideBlade@reddit
Which would be a few minutes after you've read the review you were after. So subscribe > read the reviews > decide what you're going to buy > and then unsub within the day. A subscription just feels like the wrong call from them imo
III-V@reddit
Some of us are just nerds and like reading stuff
TrptJim@reddit
I'm entitled to their work just as much as they are entitled to my subscription, which is not at all.
Your subscription fee, and others like you that think it worthwhile, while hopefully be enough to sustain RTings business model. They certainly aren't entitled to this business strategy being successful, though.
WildberrySelect_224@reddit
But then, shouldn't RTINGS buy reddit ads if they come here just to advertise their product?
TomTuff@reddit
Because REDDIT has decided that for now they are entitled to be able to post here
xb9j@reddit
Reddit or the mods of this sub?
Stingray88@reddit
How long till y’all stop taking their work for granted?
ShiiTsuin@reddit
Hope they gave you a discount for this comment
DoorStuckSickDuck@reddit
He does it for free
Seanspeed@reddit
Why is this so bad to point out?
People lament the state of 'journalism' these days, but it's very specifically because people became entitled and expect everything for free nowadays. How on earth do you expect people to work hard and go out of their way to provide the best quality reporting if nobody is gonna pay you to do it?
TheIndecisiveBastard@reddit
Expecting to get paid for a service with minimal demand and high upkeep should be a sign that you’re either providing the wrong service or expecting the wrong amount of compensation.
I respect Rtings for their work, but you’re absolutely huffing gas if you think the little niche they’ve carved is going to sustain them with this business model.
Also, the reason journalism became so bad is because the industry kept overestimating its own value all the way up till the bubble popped, making a lot of otherwise skill-less people realize that having strong opinions and making smug comments was about all that they were worth.
Seanspeed@reddit
Insanely terrible take.
Just a complete and total disrespect for what these people do.
Society as a whole is also much worse off after people started valuing quality journalism less and less. Blaming this on the journalists is pretty disgusting.
nittanyofthings@reddit
Has anyone at all experimented with any monetization model other than ads or subscriptions? Subscriptions are designed to make you forget you are paying.
Stingray88@reddit
Writing a one sentence Reddit comment is not a tremendous lift.
Stingray88@reddit
They don’t have to because I already do see the value in their work.
Flimsy_Swordfish_415@reddit
for free? don't you want me to subscribe?
ElvisDumbledore@reddit
All the people whining about the paywall...
This is the the kind of info I don't mind paying for.
xinaked@reddit
be sure to test the unifi radio lineup. ratio and router are two different things
onan@reddit
...what?
bhop_monsterjam@reddit
keep the submissions in this sub organic
joeyat@reddit
Site is pretty useless now, anything useful is blurred out... so can't actually see the review.
But, regarding the latency 'score' graph. It's not explained on the page what this is? This is a terrible graph and the only two comments are people asking what it is.
Latency is known as a concept to be better when it's lower. So looking at your graph, anyone would assume the Unifi Express and the Eero 7 are the best devices... they have 'the lowest latency'. But apparently not? There's an arbitrary score out of 10? The graph stops at 7.2? The tiny font and grey on white text do not help.
casper5632@reddit
Without the ability to casually browse rtings reviews I have no incentive to buy new hardware because I no longer am getting teased with info on how much things have improved. They at least had the revenue from their product links before. I'm not paying a subscription for access to reviews.
NVVV1@reddit
For anyone with compatible hardware, look up OpenWrt and Airtime Queue Limits (AQL) for reducing wireless latency by 30-50%. They have done some amazing work towards this in upstream mac80211. Unfortunately manufacturers will often prioritize raw speed over latency reduction and control.
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/gl-inet-gl-mt6000-aql-and-wifi-latency/196384
-protonsandneutrons-@reddit
I'm surprised how many more latency spikes the satellite nodes had versus the main nodes in the Deco BE63 graphs. Were these with a dedicated backhaul?
sp_RTINGS@reddit (OP)
Not all mesh systems let you configure the band for the backhaul. To be clear, we use a wireless backhaul for all mesh systems latency test since if you can't wire your device, I don't expect to be able to wire your backhaul either.
Whenever there are many frequent spikes on the satellite node, it means that the backhaul is using the same band as the Wi-Fi connection to the client, which of course is a pretty awful!
Whirblewind@reddit
Interesting that you leave the paywall down only to advertise your self-aggrandizing.
WafflesAreLove@reddit
The best "gaming" things are things not labeled "gaming".
greentintedlenses@reddit
Cool.
I remember when I used to use rtings for reviews.
Now I don't and have no plans on returning under a paywall
Good luck! You'll likely need it
SomeoneBritish@reddit
Rtings are doing some fantastic work
sp_RTINGS@reddit (OP)
❤️
sahui@reddit
it sucks that its mandatory to register just to see the grades on reviews of monitors.
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