Suggestions for PoE Access points welcomed

As per the subject. Whatever I find on the internet always seem to come with two opposing feed back information with a glowing report on one hand and another suggesting the product is rubbish.

Would someone please hold my hand and point out what I should buy?

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

As per the subject. Whatever I find on the internet always seem to come with two opposing feed back information with a glowing report on one hand and another suggesting the product is rubbish.

Would someone please hold my hand and point out what I should buy?

i can't give any recommendations buuuuut as i've found out with some network gear, there are some major fanbois and haters for various models. welcome to that world of - WHYYYYYYY!

Not enough information to go on here really. I recently deployed some Aruba AP-515s with Central management but nobody is buying them for their house.

Have a look at the Ubiquiti range - ceiling or wall mount and many options. WiFi6 if you want, outdooor if required, residential grade or business (number of clients) &c &c. You need a controller - which can be software to manage them.

I have a large house - and it is covered adequately by just two. I'm happy with them, friends are happy with them ...

I have 3. 2 TPLink with a software Omada controller and a Zyxel nebula cloud based AP

I don't like the Zyxel as it's cloud based. You can setup local control and it's admin page in standalone mode I cannot seem to get any browser to work with. It also doesn't support ipv6 in cloud mode.

The tplinks (eap-610 V3 and Eap-615 wall) are good and I run the management software in a docker container on my Asustor NAS, avoiding cloud access altogether

I also have a couple of older Unifi APs. I run the controller as a CM on Proxmox and it only runs when I run an update or need to make changes and you can run this up on a PC when required. The software is pretty easy to understand and the hardware is reliable in my experience.

Edited by smouty (Fri 29-Mar-24 20:33:07)

In reply to a post by MHC:

Have a look at the Ubiquiti range - ceiling or wall mount and many options. WiFi6 if you want, outdooor if required, residential grade or business (number of clients) &c &c. You need a controller - which can be software to manage them.

I have a large house - and it is covered adequately by just two. I'm happy with them, friends are happy with them ...

Same here. I have two Unifi APs, ceiling mounted, PoE driven from a Mikrotik, and have been running stably since about 2017.

I leave the controller running in a Linux container, as it can collect stats about usage and performance.

The model I have is AC Lite which is Wifi 5; it has a raw max bit rate of 867Mbps and gives ~400Mbps in real-world throughput (iperf3 to LAN).

Its modern replacement at the same price point is the U6+ which gives you Wifi 6. It still only has a gigabit ethernet uplink, but that should be fine for domestic use. It's what I'd buy if I were buying again today.

If you want Wifi 6E or 2.5G uplink then it gets a lot more expensive.

3 TP-Link APs here. EAP 245, 265 and 610. Managed by the Omada app on the phone. Can also be managed over the LAN to their IP addresses. Can't fault them, they do what they say on the tin.

I am using 2 x Zyxel NWA90AX in the house which seem to work very well
Personally I control them locally, not in the cloud
Give them a unique IP address, such as 192.168.1.150 and they can easily be controlled in any browser then

Mine are Flex HD. Good thing about UI is that they do (usually) give access to all channels, up to 13 at 2.4GHz and up to 165 on 5 GHz so easy enough to find empty slots.

In reply to a post by Adduxi:

3 TP-Link APs here. EAP 245, 265 and 610. Managed by the Omada app on the phone. Can also be managed over the LAN to their IP addresses. Can't fault them, they do what they say on the tin.

Same here, I used to have cloud controller with a third party, you can setup a cloud VM in oracle cloud (the free tier) that can make the software controller cloud based if you know how to configure it, I've done it before in a different cloud platform.

In my case the Omada Software controller is running on a Dell PowerEdge R720 in its own VM with 16GB RAM allocated and 4VCPU but it can cope with a lot less, extra RAM makes the database access a bit snappier and makes it quicker to open and access.

As my host has 164GB RAM and 2 E5-2650v2, and I had loads of capacity I over provisioned it.

It used to run on a VM with 2GB RAM as the host it used to be on didn't have much power and 1 Core and would struggle a bit and lag and hang on the web portal. It was also on a iSCSI SAN which would break each time a config change was made.


In terms of hardware:

ER7206 v1.0 - Firewall - I'm on gig symmetric and it can cope however IDS/IPS does lower performance to under 300Mbps so isn't in use.

TL-SG3210XHP-M2 v1.0 - 8 port 2.5GB Poe Switch with 2 SFP+

TL-SX3008F v1.0 - 8 Port SFP+ (backhaul)

EAP610-Outdoor(EU) v1.0 - For the back garden as the internal APs are located at the other end of the property and can't cover the full back garden. (partial kitchen coverage)

EAP660 HD(EU) v1.0 - two of these both on upper floor one above garage covering home office, front / side garden, Kitchen and bathrooms and other in second home office covering living room, dining room, Front garden, another bathroom (upstairs and downstairs)

There is also some "legacy" 10GB Netgear hardware from before I overhaled the network Around lockdown.

I had previously always suggested Ubiquiti but in recent years found a set of nanoHDs were underperforming and requiring a reboot every week to restore full speed. Whether this is related to firmware updates, increasing RF congestion or misconfiguration I can't say, but I spent a bit of time on it and tried several reconfigurations with no improvement. My gut feeling is that they are a decent choice for detached houses but not terraces or apartments these days where the RF environment is unfriendly.

For the price I have been impressed with the TP-Link stuff, it is basic but does the job. I have no experience with their multi-AP system controllers.

Personally, I replaced the nanoHDs with Ruckus R350s as I was able to get a batch at a good price. They have been rock solid, but at retail prices they do not suit many home budgets.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

As per the subject. Whatever I find on the internet always seem to come with two opposing feed back information with a glowing report on one hand and another suggesting the product is rubbish.

Would someone please hold my hand and point out what I should buy?

Isn't the question about PoE? Not wifi?

I understood the question to be about [wi-fi] access points with PoE.

In reply to a post by ParksidePeter:

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

As per the subject. Whatever I find on the internet always seem to come with two opposing feed back information with a glowing report on one hand and another suggesting the product is rubbish.

Would someone please hold my hand and point out what I should buy?

Isn't the question about PoE? Not wifi?

No.

An Access Point can be connected to the internet by:
1) An ethernet cable with or without Power over Ethernet
2) Wirelessly
3) Through the house wiring

I was narrowing down the the choice of AP to (1) above.

I have been using a Netgear WAX220 for the last year, no issues.
It has 2.5G POE, WiFi6 (160MHz) and I have it installled in my roofspace which gives good coverage.
You can usually pick one up for less than a £100

Depends on budget

I've installed Ubiquiti Unifi U6 pros a year ago and they have been soild. Unifi is a ok balance between price, physical design, features and being relatively easy to manage. Apart from setting up the controller software. Which I host on promox used to run it on a rasberry pi before. Network professionals are happy to recommend them.

I think Rukus is also good and can be managed using the inbuilt software no need to host the software externally.

I think any AP that has a wired backhaul should work well.

I can recommend both TP-Link and Ubiquiti Wi-Fi 6 APs
I have installed both over the past year.
TP-Link tend to be cheaper and have less stock issues.

Thanks
Dan

Thanks. I get it now.