Synology MR2200ac review: Not your average mesh WiFi system!

Synology MR2200ac is the second Synology networking device that we have tested, and we are impressed. It is clear to us that this company knows how to deliver excellent networking devices to the consumer market, with top-notch security, privacy built-in, as well as advanced controls for the users those who need them. Synology MR2200ac is not just another mesh WiFi system. Its looks are rather dull, but its performance is anything but average. Read this review and see whether Synology MR2200ac is going to be your favorite mesh WiFi system:

Synology MR2200ac: Who is it good for?

The Synology MR2200ac mesh router is an excellent choice for the following types of users:

• Users who want the best security for their smart home
• People who want to remote control their mesh WiFi system from a mobile app
• Users who want the best possible privacy
• People who desire advanced firmware that offers complete control and many features
• Users who want a fast USB 3.0 port on their mesh systems
• Parents who desire excellent parental controls to protect their children when online

Pros and cons

There are many great things about the Synology MR2200ac mesh router:

• Stunning performance on the 2.4 GHz WiFi band
• It includes a fast USB 3.0 port. You do not see that on other mesh WiFi systems
• A mobile app that is friendly, and easy to use
• The best proactive approach to firmware updates in the industry
• Advanced options and features that allow users to personalize their mesh WiFi fully
• Can be remotely controlled from anywhere on the internet
• Excellent Help documentation
• Excellent security tools and parental controls
• Synology uses two-factor authentication to protect user accounts and network devices

There are a few downsides to consider too:

• It is not able to fully utilize 1 Gbps internet connections
• The Synology Router Manager (SRM) is available only English
• It is sold in individual units, and creating a mesh can be expensive

Verdict

Synology MR2200ac is by no means cheap. Also, it is not beautiful, and its packaging is the most boring we have seen in the consumer market. All that does not matter because it is marketing fluff. What matters is what Synology MR2200ac has to offer to its users. That is best-in-class security, privacy, and advanced controls. Also, its performance on the 2.4 GHz wireless band is stellar. If you want to build your mesh WiFi system, you cannot go wrong with Synology MR2200ac. It is one of the best choices you can make, and we highly recommend it to all our readers.

Unboxing the Synology MR2200ac mesh WiFi system

The packaging used for Synology MR2200ac is basic and dull. All you get is a simple box with a sticker on the top, that shows a picture of the device, and some of its characteristics. Inside the box, you find the Synology MR2200ac unit, the power adapter, a network cable, the warranty, and the quick installation guide. Synology MR2200ac is sold only in individual units, and you need to purchase as many as you need to create your mesh WiFi system. If you buy only one unit, you can use it as a regular wireless router. The packaging used for Synology MR2200ac is surprisingly dull. However, inside the package, you get everything you need to get up and running in minutes.

Hardware specifications and design

The Synology MR2200ac looks low-key, and it will not win any beauty awards. It has a ventilated black casing that is designed to be placed on flat surfaces. It cannot be mounted on walls. It looks and feels rather sturdy. There are only three LEDs on it. The top two signal the status of the WiFi, and the bottom LED signals the status of the Synology MR2200ac. If everything is working well, all three should be lit up, like in the picture below. The hardware inside the Synology MR2200ac is powerful: it has a quad-core Qualcomm Dakota IPQ4019 processor, running at 717 MHz, 256 MB of RAM, and 4 GB of storage space for the firmware. Being a new mesh router, Synology MR2200ac offers support for the 802.11ac Wave 2 standard and 2x2 MU-MIMO wireless transfers. Synology MR2200ac is a tri-band wireless device, with a theoretical maximum bandwidth split as follows: 400 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency, and 867 Mbps for each of the two 5 GHz wireless bands that it emits on. On the back side of the mesh router, you find large ventilation grids, a sticker with details about the product you bought, one USB 3.0 port, the WPS button, the WiFi button, one LAN port, one WAN port, the Power jack, the Power button, and the Reset button. The size of each Synology MR2200ac is 6 x 7.8 x 2.5 inches or 154 x 199 x 65 mm, and it weighs 0.99 pounds or 0.45 kg. You can find all the official specifications of this mesh router, on the following page: Synology Mesh Router MR2200ac Specs.

Setting up and using the Synology MR2200ac mesh router

You can create a mesh network using multiple Synology MR2200ac mesh routers, or an existing Synology RT2600ac wireless router to which you add one or more Synology MR2200ac stations. In the second situation, you might be tempted to first configure the Synology MR2200ac as the central hub in your mesh, and add the Synology RT2600ac as a node in the mesh system. Do not do that as it does not work. When setting up Synology MR2200ac as your main station in the mesh, you can only add other Synology MR2200ac stations. If you already use a Synology RT2600ac wireless router, keep it as the master station, and add Synology MR2200ac as a secondary node. Configuring the mesh can be done using the DS Router mobile app for Android and iOS or the web interface offered by Synology's Router Manager (SRM). If you mix a Synology RT2600ac router with a Synology MR2200ac mesh node, you must ensure that you have the latest SRM firmware on both, so that the process works smoothly. We did that, and the setup process was quick and painless no matter whether we used the DS Router mobile app or Synology's Router Manager (SRM). During the initial setup process, you give your internet connection details, set up the WiFi and the access to your mesh system. At the end of the setup, you can also choose whether you want to enable the remote management of your network, by using a Quickconnect ID and a Synology account. One positive aspect about this feature is that your account is connected with two-step verification, making it harder for unwanted parties to remotely change your network settings. Synology's Router Manager (SRM) is not basic router firmware, but a custom version of Linux. It is a highly customizable operating system, with top-notch security and advanced personalization. We love the modular approach used by Synology. The SRM comes with all the basics required for the mesh router to broadcast and manage the network. There are no bundled extras, and this ensures optimized resource management and the fact that you get the best possible performance out of the box. If you want extra features like VPN server, DNS server, or security and parental controls, you install additional packages that are maintained and updated separately from the operating system. Each module has its shortcut. Click on it, and you see the available settings and information. All the settings are well explained, and anyone can configure how the mesh router works. Everything looks good, and even though you get access to lots of configuration options, the whole experience does not feel intimidating. However, if you feel that it is too much to work with the Synology's Router Manager (SRM), the DS Router mobile app offers the perfect mix of simplicity and basic controls. Getting back to SRM, we loved using the security tools that you can activate on it. The security advisor is excellent, and so is the protection you get. It is one of the best consumer systems to secure a smart-home. Very few companies can offer something that is similar in effectiveness, and most do not offer real security tools. One of the few downsides of the Synology Router Manager is the fact that it is available only in English. However, Synology does offer separate user guides and installation manuals in twenty languages, in their Download Center. We appreciate Synology's proactive approach to firmware updates. It does not matter whether you administer Synology MR2200ac from your smartphone with the DS Router mobile app or from the web user interface, you can set the SRM not only to check for firmware updates automatically but also to install them at a specific hour, without your intervention. To make things even better, you can set SRM to automatically install only the important updates, like those that fix security problems, and skip feature updates until they are demonstrated as stable. This is the best possible approach to firmware updates, and we hope that other manufacturers are going to copy it. After we were done setting up the mesh system, we connected several devices to the network: two desktop PCs, two laptops, one tablet, several smartphones, an Xbox One console, several smart plugs, one smart bulb, and a wireless printer. They all connected with ease, and we had no problems in streaming media over the network, or in sharing files and folders. When transferring data through the network, we also looked at the variability of network transfers. Below you can see how a network transfer was performed when we used the 5 GHz wireless network, on a laptop, in a room that was separated from the central Synology station by one wall. We received a fast average speed and some variability that was similar to other mesh systems. When we moved to a room separated by two walls from the main Synology hub, the average speed dropped, and the variability increased a bit. However, the speed never fell close to zero, which is what we expected from this mesh router. Similar trends were noticed when using the WiFi on the 2.4 GHz band. The user experience offered by Synology MR2200ac is worthy of a premium wireless mesh router. Users get all the features they need, and the overall performance is at the level you expect. Synology's approach to firmware updates is the best in the industry, and more manufacturers should embrace it. If you want to know more about the real-world performance offered by Synology MR2200ac, go to the next page of this review.

Wireless network performance

First, let's take a look at the apartment that was used in our testing and how it is set up. You can see that the central Synology hub (Synology RT2600ac) is placed in the living room. When we use wireless routers, the signal strength is not that high in rooms like the Kitchen and the Medium balcony. To improve the coverage of the network, we placed the Synology MR2200ac hub in the hallway, close to the entrance to the Kitchen, to cover most of the apartment, as best as possible. Our testing was done using a fast 1 Gigabit Internet connection that is capable of uploads on the internet of up to 500 Mbps. We used an HP Spectre 13 laptop for our measurements. We decided to compare the Synology mesh WiFi with two competing systems: ASUS Lyra (a well-known AC2200 mesh WiFi system) and Linksys Velop AC1300 (WHW01) - another mesh with two nodes. We started by evaluating the 2.4 GHz wireless network and measured the signal strength offered in each room, using a tool named NetSpot Pro. You can see how Synology MR2200ac performed in the graphic below. Its signal strength evolved similarly to other mesh WiFi systems. Then, we used SpeedTest to see how fast the internet connection is when using the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency. Synology MR2200ac was the best mesh in our comparison, offering the fastest downloads in all rooms, except the one furthest from the main station. The same trend was noticed when measuring the upload speed. For the next measurements, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network, using the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency. Synology MR2200ac offered the fastest downloads one more time, except for two rooms, where ASUS Lyra outmatched it. We saw the same story when measuring the upload speed. The only minor difference is that the rooms changed where ASUS Lyra was the winner. When using the 2.4 GHz wireless frequency, Synology MR2200ac offers outstanding performance. Next, we analyzed the performance offered by the 5GHz wireless network. First, we looked at the evolution of the signal strength, from room to room. Synology MR2200ac performed similarly to the other mesh systems we tested. We then ran SpeedTest to see how fast the internet connection is on the 5GHz band. Synology MR2200ac performed very well in all rooms, except the one furthest from the main station. In most cases, it offered the fastest downloads. When looking at the upload speed, there was no clear winner to choose from. For the last measurements on the 5GHz wireless network, we used the PassMark Performance test to transfer data between two computers connected to the network. Synology MR2200ac performed well in all rooms, except the one furthest from the main station. In some rooms, it was the speed champion. The same story applied to the upload speed on the 5 GHz WiFi. When using the 5 GHz wireless frequency, Synology MR2200ac is a top performer.

Wired network performance

To test the quality of the wired Ethernet connection, we used a desktop PC equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 processor, running at 3.20GHz, 16GB of RAM, a fast Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD, and a Lenovo IdeaCentre 610s mini PC. We measured the speed of the internet connection when using a 1 Gbps Ethernet cable, using SpeedTest. Synology MR2200ac reached a maximum download speed of 736.64 Mbps per second. The upload speed got close to the maximum of 500 Mbps that our internet connection can deliver. Then, we ran a network transfer between the two computers, each connected with an Ethernet cable to a different Synology node. Since the stations were connected wirelessly, the transfer was mediated through WiFi. We used PassMark Performance test for this measurements. Synology MR2200ac was faster than ASUS Lyra and slower than Linksys Velop AC1300. Unlike when using traditional wireless routers, you cannot get 1 Gbps Ethernet connections, when using Synology MR2200ac, except for the main station in the mesh. However, this mesh WiFi system is faster than other similar systems.

USB performance

We connected a portable SSD drive to the USB 3.0 port of the Synology MR2200ac. Then we ran a few transfers from a desktop computer to this drive and back. We measured 382.27 Mbps for the download and 212.22 Mbps for the upload. There is nothing to compare this to because all the mesh WiFi systems we tested so far do not offer a USB port. When compared to wireless routers, the USB port on the Synology MR2200ac is among the faster ones, but not the fastest we've seen. Unlike other whole-home systems, Synology MR2200ac offers a USB port which you can use to connect all kinds of devices, and offers fast data transfers.

Extra features

Most mesh WiFi systems offer a short list of features and tools. The accent is placed on the basic features, and on simplicity. Synology MR2200ac has a different approach: it offers all the tools you can find in a wireless router. If you want a light experience, you can stick to the DS Router mobile app for Android and iOS. It is friendly, easy to use, and useful for remote management, including when using it without being connected to the WiFi emitted by the mesh. Out of all the mobile apps of its kind that we tested so far, this one has the most respect for the user's privacy. It does not request access to information it should not have, as is the case with the mobile apps offered by other manufacturers. Also, your user account is well protected by two-step verification. For geeks and IT-professionals, Synology MR2200ac is feature-packed. Here are some of the most useful things that it offers:

• Safe Access - it includes excellent cloud-based parental controls, a security advisor, safe online search and web browsing, as well as threat prevention. It is one of the best security modules available on the market.
• 3G/4G Dongle and Tethering - you can connect a USB modem to provide the Synology MR2200ac and your network with a backup internet connection. You can also use your smartphone's tethering feature to do the same. It works both with iPhones and Android smartphones.
• VPN Plus Server - you can set Synology MR2200ac to work as a VPN server, and you can also use it to turn your network-connected devices into VPN-enabled clients, without additional VPN software required.
• Guest Network - you can enable a wireless network for guests, with individual security, a customized guest portal, and different access settings.
• Cloud Station - you can sync your data from multiple platforms, centralizing it on the Synology MR2200ac while keeping historical versions of important files.
• Media Server - you can turn your mesh WiFi system into a media server with support for PS4 and Xbox One consoles.
• DDNS - a service that allows you to connect to the mesh WiFi from the internet, even if your internet provider gives you a dynamic public IP address.

The feature list offered by Synology MR2200ac is long and excellent. All the tools available for installation provide real value to users. They are also well maintained and regularly updated.

What is your opinion of the Synology MR2200ac mesh WiFi system?

Now you know our opinion about the Synology MR2200ac whole-home WiFi system, and what we like about it. Before closing this review, tell us what you think. Do you like what Synology MR2200ac has to offer? Do you consider purchasing it? Comment below and let's discuss.