Buffalo Air Station AC1300 N900 802.11ac Wireless Router Review

Buffalo Air Station AC1300 Power Consumption

Since power consumption is a pretty big deal these days, we wanted to run some simple power consumption tests on the various routers that we had. To measure idle usage, we reset each wireless router to the default settings and plugged them with no devices connected to them. We then measured the power draw from each router at the wall with our P3 International P4400 Kill-A-Watt electric usage monitor.

Benchmark Results: The Buffalo WZR-D1800H consumes a fair amount of power that is only exceeded by the very old Linksys WRTP54G. From these numbers, it looks like the wireless 802.11ac routers might be a bit of a power-hog compared to “late-model” wireless-N only routers like the TP-Link who seem to be incredibly efficient when it comes to power.

Since most people will have their routers turned on for 24-hour a day operation, we think that examining power usage is an important benchmark. Total cost of ownership (TCO) is an important financial estimate that helps consumers direct and indirect costs of a product. In our TCO calculation we will be figuring up how much it costs to have a wireless router running per year in an idle state with the unit being installed 24-hours a day. We will be using 12.7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) based on the bureau of labor statistics report from April 2012 showing that amount as the national average.

Benchmark Results: Based on the power consumption in our first power chart above, it looks like the Buffalo WZR-D1800H 802.11ac will be a relatively expensive router to own and operate. It will be interesting to see how th Buffalo “AC” router compares to other 5G “AC” routers. Only time will tell if being first out of the gate with a 802.11ac router is detrimental when one calculates ‘cost of ownership’.