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R730 vs R850

unknown

My understanding is that the 850 is essentially identical to the 730. Is this true? Any advantages?

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unknown

Hi Stephen, not exactly. R730 was built before Wi-Fi Alliance adopted Wi-Fi 6 certification. So, even though this AP is compliant with a subset of 802.11ax, it's never going to be Wi-Fi 6 certified (as opposed to R850).

A specific difference I'm aware of is uplink+downlink OFDMA support in R850 versus downlink only in R730

john_d

FCC has a Declaration of Similarity document. The R850 and R730 are basically identical EXCEPT the R850 has the Hawkeye v2 chipset (IPQ8078v2) which supports UL+DL-OFDMA and is Wifi 6 certifiable.

The R730 has the original v1 Hawkeye which definitely does not support UL-OFDMA. Whether or not it properly supports DL-OFDMA is still up in the air, with some vendors supporting it and others not (Ruckus as of the latest SmartZone release does not support OFDMA in either direction on R730)

unknown

Does the R850 support 160mhz ?

john_d

Not right now but that's a different issue. The two revisions of the chip don't work differently in terms of 160MHz. The general limitation with the chip being used is that 80+80/160MHz mode is basically reconfiguring the 8x8:8 5GHz radios to a 2 4x4:4 config.

Long story short, neither the R730 nor the R850's current firmwares have 160MHz or 80+80 support.... But that's on par with the rest of the market that uses Hawkeye.

unknown

Would there be a real world difference in performance?

unknown

Thank you for your answer.

Anye02

The Ruckus R850 is a Wi-Fi 6 access point with 8x8:8 radios and supports uplink and downlink OFDMA, while the R730 is 802.11ax-ready but not Wi-Fi 6 certified and only supports downlink OFDMA. The R850 uses the Hawkeye v2 chipset (IPQ8078v2), while the R730 uses the original v1 Hawkeye. [1, 2]

Here's a more detailed comparison:

Ruckus R850: [1, 2]

Wi-Fi Standard: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax).
Radio Configuration: 8x8:8 (8 spatial streams in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz).
OFDMA: Supports uplink and downlink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access.
Chipset: Hawkeye v2 (IPQ8078v2).
Data Rates: Up to 5.9 Gbps.
Features: Multi-Gigabit Access Speeds, Enhanced Security with WPA3, Device Management Options, Better Mesh Networking. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Ruckus R730: [1, 2]

Wi-Fi Standard: 802.11ax-Ready, but not Wi-Fi 6 certified. [1, 2]
Radio Configuration: 8x8:8 (8 spatial streams in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz). [4]
OFDMA: Supports downlink OFDMA, but not uplink OFDMA. [1, 2]
Chipset: Hawkeye v1. [1, 2]
Data Rates: Up to 4.8 Gbps with 8x8:8 5GHz radio and 1.148 Gbps with a 2.4GHz radio. [4]
Features: Designed for high density, high performance applications, and has on-board BLE & Zigbee radios for IOT Applications. [4]

Key Differences: [1, 2]

Wi-Fi Certification: The R850 is Wi-Fi 6 certified, while the R730 is not, even though it's 802.11ax-ready. [1, 2]
OFDMA Support: The R850 supports both uplink and downlink OFDMA, while the R730 only supports downlink OFDMA. [1, 2]
Chipset: The R850 uses the Hawkeye v2 chipset, while the R730 uses the Hawkeye v1. [1, 2]
Data Rates: The R850 has slightly higher data rates than the R730.