The workaround is to select Open Wireless Utility, select the network, and enter the password there. I initially entered the network password incorrectly on one machine, and subsequent connection attempts noted the password was wrong without allowing me to re-enter the right one. I didn’t have this trouble on the Mac mini. On my MacBook, the menu disappeared, and I logged out of my account and back in to restore it. It mimics Apple’s menu and approach, but it fails more readily. I found the Edimax utility and menu a little funky. Your wireless network environment and resulting performance will vary from mine-and minute to minute, too. I expected faster performance, but testing with the same setup and using the MacBook’s built-in 802.11ac adapter, speeds bumped only to 150Mbps. With a nearby 802.11ac Wave 1 router, I routinely achieved speeds from 100-120Mbps from an Edimax-equipped Mac to another Mac that was connected to the same router via ethernet measured via the iperf utility. The adapter worked fine even when plugged in through an intervening device, such as a USB keyboard on the Mac mini and the USB-C dock. I tested the adapter via both a Mac mini with USB 3.0 Type-A connections and a 12-inch MacBook with USB-C using a dock. The Edimax utility includes its own profile manager to store Wi-Fi network information. If your router supports WPS for easy connections, you can select that from the menu, and the utility generates a connection PIN. While connected, a tiny blue LED is lit on the adapter. Unlike Apple’s hidden Option-click for its Wi-Fi menu to reveal more details about the currently connected and available Wi-Fi networks, Edimax’s just shows the names and fills in the wireless wave form to approximate signal strength. You use the utility menu to change the network to which you want to connect, however.
#Wifi usb for mac driver#
(It looks a bit like an electronic cigarette releasing green vapor.)īehind the scenes, the driver updates network settings, so you can modify details (like DNS or other elements) via the Network system preference pane. After rebooting, you’ll find an old-style line drawing of an adapter in your menu bar, and you use that menu instead of the macOS Wi-Fi menu to manage the connection.
#Wifi usb for mac install#
You have to install a custom driver and then restart to use the adapter. The wireless utility mimics Apple’s Wi-Fi menu to manage network connections. If you don’t have 802.11ac or don’t have the newest wave, the Edimax future proofs your update. On busy networks that have Wave 2 routers, your adapter will take up only half the simultaneous capacity while it’s communicating. Edimax also includes beamforming, which lets an adapter and router focus more of their transmitting signal energy at each, producing a stronger (and thus often faster) connection.Įdimax says the AC1200 adapter maxes out at 300Mbps in 2.4GHz (with 802.11n) and 867Mbps in 5GHz (with 802.11ac). A computer might fill the typical four slots available, while the Edimax AC1200 fills two and some mobile devices only use one. MU-MIMO allows a Wave 2 router to divvy up the simultaneous conversations it can have among multiple devices if those devices can’t occupy all the slots.
Wave 2 adds new features that can increase throughput and help with network capacity, but not all routers (and none of Apple’s) support it.