Performance Testing

This section will continue to evolve and change depending on how it is received and whether I manage to get our hands on some useful tools that will help better measure the performance of routers and other Wi-Fi systems in general. As it stands today, a combination of the excellent, freely available iPerf3 on my Win 10 desktop PC, my laptop, and even an iPerf3 Android app was used to measure throughput for the Vilfo VPN, with a ruler/tape measuring the distance from it and a Wi-Fi analyzer using my phone's Wi-Fi antenna and connection to measure signal attenuation as I moved from right on top of the router to further and further away inside my residence. Please note that signal attenuation depends heavily on a number of factors apart from just distance, including any physical barriers and other devices operating in the bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, etc). With a common test location, the variable being tested is the router/Wi-Fi itself, and it would as such be valid to compare results to other products tested thus.


This chart shows how the antennas in the router cope with clients connected at various distances. The client was positioned at varying distances in a 3D space, with the shortest distance measurement taken between the two. Given the nature of the supported bands, this test was conducted for Wireless N at 2.4 GHz and Wireless AC at 5 GHz to best replicate end-user applications, as in my own case, and we can see that signal loss is heavier for the 5 GHz network relative to the 2.4 GHz network, which is as expected. There is a minor decrease in signal strength in both cases as you move even only slightly away from the router, and it drops more drastically the further away. Note that I added a data point with a drywall (typical in many modern residences today, including mine) between both devices. If your residence has walls out of brick or wood, for example, signal loss will likely be higher, so you may want to position the router where you have your primary hub of activity—a home office or living room, for instance, or get a satellite unit.


By removing the actual internet speed variable from the equation, a TCP throughput test done at these same spots from the router paints a more useful story, while also helping with a comparison of those numbers across test residences by having the X-axis as the signal's attenuation instead of distance from the router. The Vilfo VPN router is rated for up to 867 Mbps throughput, and the slowest server (the router in this case) and client will dictate overall traffic speed as well. Here, the maximum throughput (downlink) was 266 and 833 Mbps respectively for wireless N at 2.4 GHz and wireless AC at 5 GHz. They remained close to the maximum, especially on the 2.4 GHz wireless N network, following which a large drop down to, respectively, 38 and 135 Mbps occurred. Uplink speeds are merely offset by 5–8 dB more attenuation, so they are not reported separately here.


Given the different continent compared to my other router reviews, I only have three other points of comparison here. One, a common point from before, was tested for an easier comparison to the earlier data set, albeit the single pack only, and the other two are the NETGEAR LTE routers we saw before. In order to best compare them across possible variables, the decision was made to chart throughput at a set distance, 5 meters in this case. Overall wireless performance with the Vilfo VPN router is a bit lacking compared to the VPN and processing power on tap, besting only the portable mobile router.


The power-draw comparison chart identifies whether specific routers are vastly different from others, which turns out to be the case here. A Brand Electronics 4-1850 power meter was put between the power adapter for the router unit and then, subsequently, the satellite unit and wall socket. Simple Kill-A-Watt units are good for basic checks, but not reliable enough for tests in my opinion. Each router was set up for a minimum of 24 hours of use across multiple days, and power consumption was averaged across a period of idle (inactivity at night) and normal operation (during the day). Note also that the Nighthawk MR2100 has different battery modes, including a battery-only operation, which does throw things off somewhat. The wireless performance may be lacking, but the Vilfo router does draw more power than most others owing to the x86 processor inside. It is only bested by the Gryphon wireless router that is an AC3000 router supporting mesh networking.

Thus far, we have tested the Vilfo router no differently from any other WiFi router, but doing no more would be short-selling the device. Indeed, Vilfo acknowledges that this is not the best-performing router when it comes to wireless coverage and suggests using it alongside your existing setup if it is more powerful in that regard. They even go so far as to have guides on how to set up most of the common WiFi solutions as access points from the Vilfo router's LAN ports, so you can get the best of both worlds, though at a cost, of course. This way, you at least pass the VPN and privacy features of the Vilfo router on to everything downstream, including devices connected to the other wireless system.

There is no doubt that privacy is the name of the game when it comes to the Vilfo router, and ease of access is a close second. Many power users might have their own custom router builds, but the average person does not know what OpenWRT stands for, let alone how to use the Linux-based platform for their networking needs. The easy setup and user-friendly admin panel and dashboard greatly lower the entry barrier for those wanting their online activity to be private without knowing how to best ensure it themselves. I also appreciate the transparency throughout Vilfo's website, admin panel, and the open source OpenWRT platform used here. Vilfo has their own VPN server too, which allows for added benefits, including data access outside of your home network in a similar but safer fashion than what we saw with the Ubiquiti Teleport. Indeed, the company maintains detailed change logs for their user interface in addition to addressing privacy complaints from others in a timely manner, which actually would have been a problem for me in a few cases, such as the previous use of the OVPN default DNS, which again showcases how much closer the two entities are despite being "fully independent companies." There remain a few smaller issues still, but Vilfo is aware of them and has acknowledged to be working on most of them.

The real-time encryption across VPN necessitates more powerful hardware than we see in most consumer-grade networking solutions, many of which may even cost as much or more than the Vilfo router. Albeit not the latest and greatest, the x86-based PC components that make up the guts of the Vilfo router allow for excellent performance even over VPN. Indeed, and keep in mind that the VPN server I used was not that far away geographically, I had next to no performance drops in WiFi or wired throughput with VPN on compared to off, and in a couple of cases, it was even better with the VPN server. As such, the bypass rules are really only necessary when a domain does not play well with your VPN service. This split-tunneling feature is also quite underrated, and one of the best selling points for the Vilfo router in my books. So if you were wondering about any disadvantages to having VPN on the router itself instead of specific devices, performance is not one of them. Adding to this, having a kill switch if your VPN connection drops out is an extreme option, but one that is again rarely seen on a consumer device and no doubt appreciated by the core audience.

I would have liked to see Vilfo support more of the VPN protocols seen today, especially WireGuard. OpenVPN is an excellent choice if there had to only be one, but it does result in some VPN services being incompatible. There is no support for PPTP or IKEv2 either, so keep that in mind if that is a deal breaker. Another potential deal breaker is the lack of dual-band support. Wireless networks on the 2.4 or 5 GHz bands are supported, but not both simultaneously. This is a major shortcoming to many who have smart devices in addition to a PC and mobile devices, with the former typically using a 2.4 GHz wireless N network only but the rest having better performance with the 5 GHz wireless AC band. There is no native HTTPS support either, which isn't really an issue given all traffic back and forth is encrypted, and all the major VPN providers support it anyway.


I will also briefly talk about the LEDE support here. Part of the OpenWRT protocol, LEDE is a GNU distribution that allows you to use the Vilfo router with an HDMI display and KB+M peripherals to fully access the Vilfo firmware. The open-source nature of the router thus means that there is command line access for advanced users for WireGuard server setup even if Vilfo does not necessarily support it. You can potentially also run Pi-hole to block ads natively at the router itself, in addition to DNS filtering. I suspect this option won't be used by most customers, however, since anyone able to do so is better off putting together a custom router and programming the firmware to their needs based on any protocol they want.