wrolpi-help/docs/modules/calculators/speed-test.md
Roland 662a4dd7b1
Document the Speed Test calculator and the hotspot captive portal
Speed Test: what it measures, how to read Mbps vs MB/s, ping, steady-state
average, the simultaneous-streams table; linked from the index beside the
One-Time Pad.

Controller > WiFi Hotspot: new Captive Portal section. What devices see when
they join, the Continue step and tapping Done, the address line on the
Control page and http://wrolpi/, the hotspot.captive_portal setting and its
restart-to-apply rule, and that Docker has no hotspot.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-13 20:06:43 -06:00

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Speed Test

The Speed Test measures the network between the device you are holding and your WROLPi. Use it to answer questions like "is the hotspot fast enough from the back porch?" or "how many people can watch videos at once?" without any third-party service. It works completely offline.

To open it, click More → Calculators → Speed Test, then click Start test.

The Speed Test after a run

A run takes about 25 seconds:

  1. Ping – 20 quick round trips to the WROLPi. Reported as the median and best time, plus jitter (how much the time varies between pings).
  2. Download – the WROLPi streams random data to your browser for 10 seconds.
  3. Upload – your browser sends random data to the WROLPi for 10 seconds.

Nothing is saved. Reload the page and the results are gone.

Reading the results

  • Mbps is megabits per second, the unit video bitrates are quoted in. MB/s (megabytes per second) is shown beside it; divide Mbps by 8 to get MB/s.
  • The download and upload figures are the steady-state average: the first second is ignored while the connection ramps up. The peak is the fastest quarter second.
  • Ping under 20 ms is excellent, under 60 ms is good. Over 150 ms on a local network usually means a weak WiFi signal.

Simultaneous video streams

The table under the results divides your download speed by a typical bitrate for each video quality. It tells you roughly how many people could stream that quality at the same time over this link.

Quality Typical bitrate
480p (SD) 2.5 Mbps
720p (HD) 5 Mbps
1080p (Full HD) 8 Mbps
1440p (2K) 16 Mbps
2160p (4K) 25 Mbps

Individual videos vary a lot; a screen recording needs far less than an action movie at the same resolution.

The test measures the network. Videos are served from the WROLPi's drive, so a slow drive (or an SD card) can limit playback before the network does.

Hotspot or LAN?

Under the results the page shows the address the WROLPi saw your device at. When your WROLPi's hotspot is on and your device has a hotspot address, it is marked via WROLPi hotspot. Otherwise it is marked via LAN.

Run the test over the hotspot from different spots to find where the signal drops off, then compare with a wired or home-WiFi connection.

Several people at once

There is no limit on how many devices can run the test at the same time. Have everyone press Start test together to see how the link shares between them; each device's results will note how many other tests were running during its own run.