18/06/2024, 01:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 18/06/2024, 01:46 PM by Confusion.
Edit Reason: retarded
)
Review
Xiaomi 5G CPE Pro modem/router
Model: CB0401V2
Current price: €230 + shipping. Ebay.
18 June 2024
https://www.mi.com/global/product/xiaomi-5g-cpe-pro/
Apart from a few vague reviews on Amazon, there is very little information available about the Xiaomi CPE 5G Pro on the usual forums. I decided to post my own review here. Hopefully, this will be of use to anyone who is thinking about buying one of these 5G routers.
Appearance and design
The Xiaomi CPE 5G Pro (hereafter referred to simply as the Xiaomi) is a tower-style device. It has a plain and simple appearance. To me, it looks like a miniature pedal bin. At around 1400g, it feels quite heavy compared to similar models from other brands. The base has a large diameter of 118mm, so it should be less prone to tipping over. As I bought the unit from a German eBay seller, it came supplied with a European two-pin power plug, so a UK to EU adapter is required.
There are a few indicator LEDs on the front for 5G, 4G, Wi-Fi and system status. Thankfully, there are no bling features like ‘ambiance’ lights around the base. On the rear of the unit, you will find the power button, a small hole for the reset button, a covered SIM card slot, two 1Gb Ethernet ports and the 12V DC input socket. Notably absent from this model are: a telephone socket, USB socket and external aerial connectors.
Features
The Xiaomi has a fairly typical list of features for a 4G/5G modem/router. The specs claim the unit has fast Wi-Fi 6 support. I wasn’t able to take full advantage of this because none of the devices on my home network support Wi-Fi 6. The unit has NFC to allow easy ‘one-touch’ connection for Android phones. Either of the two LAN connectors on the back of the unit can be configured as a WAN connection. If I understand correctly, this means the 4G/5G modem can be used as a backup for your fibre or cable connection. The default setting in the web based configuration is: “Wired network preferred, mobile network backup”. The modem also has a bridge mode for direct connection to a PC or another Wi-Fi router. This would be useful if you want to to place the Xiaomi in an optimum location like an attic window or outside in a waterproof enclosure.
Specifications
I’m not going to copy and paste the full spec sheet here. The Xiaomi is based on a Qualcomm chip, probably the SD X62. It supports 5G NSA,SA . 4G LTE support is DL Cat19 / UL Cat18.
Performance
In the few days I have been using the Xiaomi, it has been stable, reliable and very fast. I live in a City location and the nearest 5G mast is around 700 metres away. I have previously used the Eir GH Telcom branded 5G CPE Pro 3 and a TP-Link 4G MR600 from this location. Download speeds with the Eir unit generally range from 500-800Mbps. Even the humble 4G MR600 manages 150Mbps or more.
I have a Vodafone unlimited data SIM in the Xiaomi router at the moment. Performance has been fast and remarkably consistent, even at peak times or in the early hours of the morning. 5G download speeds have ranged from 550-900Mbps, upload speeds have generally been over 100Mbps. At the quietest times of day, some tests on fast.com showed download speed over 900Mbps, which is close to the maximum for the 1Gb Ethernet connection between the router and my 12 year old PC.
5G signal stats:
Service provider:vodafone IE
Connection type:5G NSA
Frequency band:B1+B7+B3+B28+n78
Data roaming:Roaming disabled
RSRP:-74.1dBm
RSRQ:-7.9dB
SNR:25.0dB
5G speed test
Setting the Xiaomi to 4G-only mode shows it performs very well as a 4G LTE modem. In this mode, I see download speeds of more than 300Mbps and upload over 50Mbps.
4G signal stats:
Service provider:vodafone IE
Connection type:4G
Frequency band:B1+B7+B3+B28+B20
Data roaming:Roaming disabled
RSRP:-76.7dBm
RSRQ:-10.1dB
SNR:24.0dB
It seems the Xiaomi web interface only reports 4G signal stats. You can find detailed stats for each 4G and 5G band hidden in the system log messages. You will need to dig deep to find them. Be very specific with your search queries: “rsrp_5g”, “snr_5g”, "n78(TDD 3500)" etc....
4G speed test
Power consumption
The unit takes around 7-8W from the mains supply. There have been a few transient peaks up to around 12W. These probably coincide with big downloads or intense Wi-Fi activity. The long -term average is around 7W, about the same as the Huawei CPE Pro3.
Heat dissipation is just enough to keep the top cover slightly warm, but never hot. As far as I can tell, there is no cooling fan in the Xiaomi. Perhaps this explains the unusually heavy weight of the unit. Passive cooling requires a bigger heatsink.
Wi-Fi
The Xiaomi router is close to an upstairs window with a reasonably good path in the direction of the nearest 5G masts. Wi-Fi range on 2.4GHz is more than adequate to cover all rooms in the house and the front and rear gardens. As you would expect, 5GHz coverage is not quite as good, but still provides adequate coverage throughout the house. We don’t have any Wi-Fi 6 devices in the house. My own OPPO Reno 8 Lite phone could only manage a miserly 326 down, 345 up on 5GHz Wi-Fi. A Samsung A34 did much better at 703 down, 667 up. The test server was OpenSpeedTest running on a local PC with a 1Gb Ethernet connection to the Xiaomi router.
Wi-Fi test on 5GHz with Samsung A34 phone
Configuration
Default Wi-Fi and Management passwords are printed on the bottom of the unit.
On my first visit to the Xiaomi configuration page, I was prompted to set a new Management (admin) password. A new firmware update dated March 2024 was available. I allowed this to install before proceeding.
Like most network routers, the CPE 5G Pro has a web-based configuration system. The options are fairly basic. I don’t see any obvious way of locking to specific bands or masts. It is possible to select between “5G preferred” or “4G only” in the mobile network settings. This could be useful if 5G coverage is poor in your area. There are separate settings tabs for Wi-Fi, Network, Security, NAT, LAN, System and Additional. There is a basic SMS message utility provided. I haven’t played with this yet, but I have received a few text messages. Data usage monitoring isn’t available by default, but it can be enabled in the Additional settings tab. I haven’t found it particularly useful. Reported usage is much higher than on the My Vodafone web page . While there is very little information about the system or connected clients, there is a nice feature in the System settings tab for saving system logs. This alow you to download a compressed tarball containing a large number of system logs. Detailed information about each network interface, system uptime, ouput from ps, top and other utilities. Anything you need to know is probably in there, although it might take a while to find it. SSH or Telnet is not available. I did find this in one of the configuration files:
telnet_en=0
ssh_en=0
uart_en=0
so, it may be possible to enable these features, but only if you know how.
It seems the Xiaomi MiWiFi system is based on OpenWRT and the Luci web interface. I found several references to Luci and OpenWRT in the system logs. The CPE 5G Pro is not on the OpenWRT list of supported devices yet. Hopefully, this may change in future.
Conclusion
Overall, I’m happy with the Xiaomi modem/router. It fits my requirements very well. It is as fast as, or even slightly faster than the Eir / GH Telcom / Huawei 5G CPE Pro 3 that it replaces. So far, it has not crashed or shown any signs of instability. I will post updates here if any problems arise.
Xiaomi 5G CPE Pro modem/router
Model: CB0401V2
Current price: €230 + shipping. Ebay.
18 June 2024
https://www.mi.com/global/product/xiaomi-5g-cpe-pro/
Apart from a few vague reviews on Amazon, there is very little information available about the Xiaomi CPE 5G Pro on the usual forums. I decided to post my own review here. Hopefully, this will be of use to anyone who is thinking about buying one of these 5G routers.
Appearance and design
The Xiaomi CPE 5G Pro (hereafter referred to simply as the Xiaomi) is a tower-style device. It has a plain and simple appearance. To me, it looks like a miniature pedal bin. At around 1400g, it feels quite heavy compared to similar models from other brands. The base has a large diameter of 118mm, so it should be less prone to tipping over. As I bought the unit from a German eBay seller, it came supplied with a European two-pin power plug, so a UK to EU adapter is required.
There are a few indicator LEDs on the front for 5G, 4G, Wi-Fi and system status. Thankfully, there are no bling features like ‘ambiance’ lights around the base. On the rear of the unit, you will find the power button, a small hole for the reset button, a covered SIM card slot, two 1Gb Ethernet ports and the 12V DC input socket. Notably absent from this model are: a telephone socket, USB socket and external aerial connectors.
Features
The Xiaomi has a fairly typical list of features for a 4G/5G modem/router. The specs claim the unit has fast Wi-Fi 6 support. I wasn’t able to take full advantage of this because none of the devices on my home network support Wi-Fi 6. The unit has NFC to allow easy ‘one-touch’ connection for Android phones. Either of the two LAN connectors on the back of the unit can be configured as a WAN connection. If I understand correctly, this means the 4G/5G modem can be used as a backup for your fibre or cable connection. The default setting in the web based configuration is: “Wired network preferred, mobile network backup”. The modem also has a bridge mode for direct connection to a PC or another Wi-Fi router. This would be useful if you want to to place the Xiaomi in an optimum location like an attic window or outside in a waterproof enclosure.
Specifications
I’m not going to copy and paste the full spec sheet here. The Xiaomi is based on a Qualcomm chip, probably the SD X62. It supports 5G NSA,SA . 4G LTE support is DL Cat19 / UL Cat18.
Performance
In the few days I have been using the Xiaomi, it has been stable, reliable and very fast. I live in a City location and the nearest 5G mast is around 700 metres away. I have previously used the Eir GH Telcom branded 5G CPE Pro 3 and a TP-Link 4G MR600 from this location. Download speeds with the Eir unit generally range from 500-800Mbps. Even the humble 4G MR600 manages 150Mbps or more.
I have a Vodafone unlimited data SIM in the Xiaomi router at the moment. Performance has been fast and remarkably consistent, even at peak times or in the early hours of the morning. 5G download speeds have ranged from 550-900Mbps, upload speeds have generally been over 100Mbps. At the quietest times of day, some tests on fast.com showed download speed over 900Mbps, which is close to the maximum for the 1Gb Ethernet connection between the router and my 12 year old PC.
5G signal stats:
Service provider:vodafone IE
Connection type:5G NSA
Frequency band:B1+B7+B3+B28+n78
Data roaming:Roaming disabled
RSRP:-74.1dBm
RSRQ:-7.9dB
SNR:25.0dB
5G speed test
Setting the Xiaomi to 4G-only mode shows it performs very well as a 4G LTE modem. In this mode, I see download speeds of more than 300Mbps and upload over 50Mbps.
4G signal stats:
Service provider:vodafone IE
Connection type:4G
Frequency band:B1+B7+B3+B28+B20
Data roaming:Roaming disabled
RSRP:-76.7dBm
RSRQ:-10.1dB
SNR:24.0dB
It seems the Xiaomi web interface only reports 4G signal stats. You can find detailed stats for each 4G and 5G band hidden in the system log messages. You will need to dig deep to find them. Be very specific with your search queries: “rsrp_5g”, “snr_5g”, "n78(TDD 3500)" etc....
4G speed test
Power consumption
The unit takes around 7-8W from the mains supply. There have been a few transient peaks up to around 12W. These probably coincide with big downloads or intense Wi-Fi activity. The long -term average is around 7W, about the same as the Huawei CPE Pro3.
Heat dissipation is just enough to keep the top cover slightly warm, but never hot. As far as I can tell, there is no cooling fan in the Xiaomi. Perhaps this explains the unusually heavy weight of the unit. Passive cooling requires a bigger heatsink.
Wi-Fi
The Xiaomi router is close to an upstairs window with a reasonably good path in the direction of the nearest 5G masts. Wi-Fi range on 2.4GHz is more than adequate to cover all rooms in the house and the front and rear gardens. As you would expect, 5GHz coverage is not quite as good, but still provides adequate coverage throughout the house. We don’t have any Wi-Fi 6 devices in the house. My own OPPO Reno 8 Lite phone could only manage a miserly 326 down, 345 up on 5GHz Wi-Fi. A Samsung A34 did much better at 703 down, 667 up. The test server was OpenSpeedTest running on a local PC with a 1Gb Ethernet connection to the Xiaomi router.
Wi-Fi test on 5GHz with Samsung A34 phone
Configuration
Default Wi-Fi and Management passwords are printed on the bottom of the unit.
On my first visit to the Xiaomi configuration page, I was prompted to set a new Management (admin) password. A new firmware update dated March 2024 was available. I allowed this to install before proceeding.
Like most network routers, the CPE 5G Pro has a web-based configuration system. The options are fairly basic. I don’t see any obvious way of locking to specific bands or masts. It is possible to select between “5G preferred” or “4G only” in the mobile network settings. This could be useful if 5G coverage is poor in your area. There are separate settings tabs for Wi-Fi, Network, Security, NAT, LAN, System and Additional. There is a basic SMS message utility provided. I haven’t played with this yet, but I have received a few text messages. Data usage monitoring isn’t available by default, but it can be enabled in the Additional settings tab. I haven’t found it particularly useful. Reported usage is much higher than on the My Vodafone web page . While there is very little information about the system or connected clients, there is a nice feature in the System settings tab for saving system logs. This alow you to download a compressed tarball containing a large number of system logs. Detailed information about each network interface, system uptime, ouput from ps, top and other utilities. Anything you need to know is probably in there, although it might take a while to find it. SSH or Telnet is not available. I did find this in one of the configuration files:
telnet_en=0
ssh_en=0
uart_en=0
so, it may be possible to enable these features, but only if you know how.
It seems the Xiaomi MiWiFi system is based on OpenWRT and the Luci web interface. I found several references to Luci and OpenWRT in the system logs. The CPE 5G Pro is not on the OpenWRT list of supported devices yet. Hopefully, this may change in future.
Conclusion
Overall, I’m happy with the Xiaomi modem/router. It fits my requirements very well. It is as fast as, or even slightly faster than the Eir / GH Telcom / Huawei 5G CPE Pro 3 that it replaces. So far, it has not crashed or shown any signs of instability. I will post updates here if any problems arise.