At Orb, we believe the world’s collective fixation with internet speed tests have real-world impacts on our connectivity and miss the mark when troubleshooting both intermittent and ongoing issues with modern applications and services. Speed testing, while frequently over-used and the wrong tool for many jobs, is still important: saturating connections to look for buffer bloat, confirming you’re getting the service you paid for, or ensuring the placement of new equipment delivers the minimum throughput needed for desired activities.

Unfortunately, most of the popular internet speed tests available are pushing an agenda: To show you ads. To sell your data. To ensure you get the best-possible result even though it might not reflect reality. To tell you your connection is worse than it is to sell you a product or service.

Meanwhile, testing the performance of your local network to isolate local issues from upstream internet problems is reserved for more technical users comfortable with employing iPerf via the command line or hosting OpenSpeedTest in their home lab.

Speed testing with Orb 1.5

All of this changes with Orb 1.5. Test to real internet infrastructure hosted by Cloudflare and Fastly. No ads. No agenda. Any platform.

Orb-to-Orb

And if you want to test your local network using the same testing engine? That’s now a reality thanks to Orb-to-Orb. Test from your Orb app to any other Orb app or sensor on your network!

Now it is easier than ever to understand if speed and responsiveness are limited by the local network or the internet connection. If the local internet is the culprit, Orb provides the tools to isolate the problem to a specific room, switch port, mesh node, or AP. All of this without stressing the internet connection and burning through gigabytes of metered data.

Improved test engine

Beginning with Orb 1.4.10, we began testing a new engine to better saturate the connection. After some additional iteration, this new engine is now standard in Orb 1.5. Tests more accurately saturate the link in a consistent 30 second window. This applies to both Internet and Orb-to-Orb testing for Peak Speed tests.

More with Orb

Beyond the enhancements added in 1.5, Orb already supports speed test capabilities out-of-the-box that you won’t find in other tools that haven’t changed significantly over the decades:

• Remotely trigger tests on Orbs on the other side of your home or on the other side of the world via Orb apps, Orb Cloud, or API.
• Run the same speed test engine on a wide variety of device types.
• Schedule lighter-weight Content Speed tests to run once per hour to keep a heartbeat on your baseline speeds and identify outliers.

Want to learn more about the Orb 1.5 release? Check out our blog.