Finally upgraded my home wifi to something that works - managed wifi review

[rage2]

Wifi analyzer (android + Windows 10) and the site survey option in my new setup.

[msommers]

Originally posted by revelations


Some of my clients live in wood condos with 40 WIFI units broadcasting and they have no issues with the proper (typically ASUS for consumer-level) WIFI device.... although they dont have walls to deal with in their suite for their own signal.

Our condo is just like this and found the powerline method to work the best. Basically have 2.4 and 5 setup in the living room and services the rooms nearby that need it.

For a home I don't know if that's ideal or not, but at least one wouldn't have to worry about signal interfering going from one router to the next wirelessly, if that was the case.

[phreezee]

Thoughts on Luma?


http://www.techhive.com/article/3001...with-eero.html


Supposed to be the same idea as eero, but $249 for 3 devices pre-order deal.

Wondering if I should bite for the discount.

[rage2]

Can't really compare Luma till it's not vapourware. Eero was delayed for a year, so if Luma follows the same path, you'll be waiting a while to save $200.

[phreezee]

Originally posted by rage2
Can't really compare Luma till it's not vapourware. Eero was delayed for a year, so if Luma follows the same path, you'll be waiting a while to save $200.

True. Facebook says they are on track for this Spring. I bit, and ordered it.
Moving to a bigger place this summer and Killramos' Asus thread the other day made me nervous.
I have the RT-AC87U and never realized you had tried two RT-AC87U in your place.
I'm gonna gamble since it's backed by Google Ventures.

[rage2]

Is your new place not wired where the 2 remote AP's go? If there is Ethernet wiring, you probably want to use something not wireless mesh. The UniFi setup is $450 for 3 AP's. For $150 more than the sale price (or $50 less than regular price) you have way more features and performance and not tied down to wireless mesh.

Personally, I wouldn't go for the Eero or Luma unless I'm in a home with zero Ethernet wiring and forced to go wireless mesh for all remote APs.

[phreezee]

I may be wrong, but I'm hoping all Lumas can be hard wired since I do have ethernet all over:

Ports
Two Gigabit ethernet ports of WAN and LAN
USB 2 port

If I am wrong, then I'll have to hope this claim is true:
"Luma's mesh network does not result in speed drops or bandwidth splits, only smooth, reliable WiFi. "

I'll give it a shot once I get it and report back. Worst case, I sell it on Kijiji for what I bought it for

Edited the price, it was $249usd

[rage2]

Each Eero has Ethernet ports too, but it's wireless mesh only. Looks to be the same for Luma.

Luma is basically Eero + Disney Circle for the same price.

[KISS_ME]

have you looked into fortinet appliances? i use their 90D wifi and it has a built in WLC. i pair that to 2 additional APs and i can get signal to my mailbox.
i think discounted price for those are around ~$800 and it includes 1 year of next gen firewall, then source two fortinet APs off ebay and you're set!!


edit - aruba and rukus might be worth considering too. i use to use the aruba rap and that took care of all my wifi needs.

[adam c]

Originally posted by KISS_ME
have you looked into fortinet appliances? i use their 90D wifi and it has a built in WLC. i pair that to 2 additional APs and i can get signal to my mailbox.
i think discounted price for those are around ~$800 and it includes 1 year of next gen firewall, then source two fortinet APs off ebay and you're set!!


edit - aruba and rukus might be worth considering too. i use to use the aruba rap and that took care of all my wifi needs.

Fortinet is such a garbage appliance

[rage2]

Originally posted by KISS_ME
have you looked into fortinet appliances? i use their 90D wifi and it has a built in WLC. i pair that to 2 additional APs and i can get signal to my mailbox.
i think discounted price for those are around ~$800 and it includes 1 year of next gen firewall, then source two fortinet APs off ebay and you're set!!

So spend $800 for a security appliance so that you can buy and use their APs? That makes no sense.

[Buster]

I think I am going to go with a Ubiquiti setup in the new house.

What are you guys putting in your rack to handle the actual router/firewall duties?

Should I just disable the wifi on my asus router, and use that? Should I setup a 1u/2u server and run one of the Linux distros that does this?

[rage2]

For router I have a D-LINK DIR-868L router with wifi disabled. For switching, I have a Linksys 48 port rack switch, as well as a 8 port DLINK POE switch.

The DLINK routers are rated pretty high up in handling network throughput as well as large concurrent packets which is useful for guys that torrent.

I wouldn't bother with building a Linux firewall/router to handle it when these relatively cheap wifi routers can do the same job with no fuss.

[CLiVE]

Originally posted by PAV
Thanks for the write up Rage2.

I was curious if you had looked into using Apple Extreme Routers to do the same thing.

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202056

It doesn't have all the same features as some of the products you mentioned. However, it was very easy to set up. I have it with one latest model Airport Extreme and an older one. Seems to do the trick. I was going to connect them wired, but wireless seemed good enough for our needs (and was too lazy to run wire if it wasn't needed). Also used it to move the printer to where the 2nd router was.

I'm running 3 Apple routers with dlink powerlines. Works well enough for me. Very easy set up.

[revelations]

Originally posted by rage2
I wouldn't bother with building a Linux firewall/router to handle it when these relatively cheap wifi routers can do the same job with no fuss.

I have been quite impressed with my pfsense setup, running on an old Vista machine. The features alone are worth what you typically get on a enterprise-level router. No issues with lag, even with DPI on.

[jacky4566]

Originally posted by rage2
Yea, coming in from the garage all the time sucks. Wireless is always connected to the AP closest to garage since that's the first one it sees, then in the house I'm in the damn settings page on the phone haha. It got to the point where I would "forget" the garage AP just so it wont connect to it when I got home and just re-entered the password to that AP when I actually need it in the garage.

Rage i know your not using this setup anymore but this makes no sense. If all the APs have the same SSID and password your device should only "see" 1 network. Asus routers actually have a setting called "Roaming assistant" that seems to help with that exact problem.

I also suggest reporting your neighbor to Industry Canada since I believe they are the ones who control signal strength issues, not the CRTC. Its one quick email that might do something. I know if you complain about illegal HAM or over power HAM they get really serious about that.

[rage2]

Originally posted by jacky4566
Rage i know your not using this setup anymore but this makes no sense. If all the APs have the same SSID and password your device should only "see" 1 network. Asus routers actually have a setting called "Roaming assistant" that seems to help with that exact problem.

Read carefully what I wrote. That description is for setting different SSID for each AP so I can get around the roaming problem with the same SSID. Yes, Asus has roaming assistant, but those routers are priced near/higher than the Unifi ones, so why not go that route? Plus there are a lot of people that struggle with roaming assistant, not fully seamless, not detaching properly, etc.

There's another thread where killramos went the Asus route, ran into a ton of problems with a loopback bug and gave up.

Now that I've had some time with this, if I had to do it again, I think I would go with the more expensive open mesh route that I did. The cloud based management is nice, I can check settings everywhere without running my own server which Unifi needs. The roaming is great in the house now, I can stream video from one corner of my house in the basement all the way to the other corner on the top floor without dropping a single frame. First world problems haha.

I've minimized the family's wifi issues to 0. It's great that I don't have to fiddle with devices from gf or kids anymore. Think the only thing left is to wire and add an outdoor enclosure AP to the backyard for a little better coverage.

[killramos]

Originally posted by rage2

Read carefully what I wrote. That description is for setting different SSID for each AP so I can get around the roaming problem with the same SSID. Yes, Asus has roaming assistant, but those routers are priced near/higher than the Unifi ones, so why not go that route? Plus there are a lot of people that struggle with roaming assistant, not fully seamless, not detaching properly, etc.

There's another thread where killramos went the Asus route, ran into a ton of problems with a loopback bug and gave up.

True Story, I went to completely unreasonable lengths for a consumer to use what is literally an advertised feature. Custom firmware, telnet into the routers CLI to adjust custom settings. No. Dice.

I have thought about maybe picking up an RP-AC68U which is Asus's new wifi access point that should solve the problem, but i can't find any info to confirm that they have fixed the bug and i also am not sure if I want to give them the second chance with my money.

I am currently looking into a Unify setup but haven't been able to justify the cost since my impatience with the Asus debacle. Unify gets pricey quick as i want 3 of their fastest AP's, including one outdoor, and the need to pickup a POE switch( i know i can use the poe adapters but that's a half baked messy solution) to run them. If anyone is interested in running unify in the near future or a poe camera setup MemEx has the netgear POE 8 port managed switch on sale tomorrow.

[rage2]

Originally posted by killramos
I am currently looking into a Unify setup but haven't been able to justify the cost since my impatience with the Asus debacle. Unify gets pricey quick as i want 3 of their fastest AP's, including one outdoor, and the need to pickup a POE switch( i know i can use the poe adapters but that's a half baked messy solution) to run them. If anyone is interested in running unify in the near future or a poe camera setup MemEx has the netgear POE 8 port managed switch on sale tomorrow.

http://ubnt.ca/unifi/393-unifi-ap-ac-international.html

$150US a piece for the AP. That's their newest fastest one, don't look at last gen one which was double the cost.

Don't bother with the pricey outdoor LR units, those are more designed for 2 long range units to connect to one another. They will not help any of your devices range, as they won't transmit at the same power levels as the LR AP to actually hit those ranges. Just use the standard $150 AP.

As for POE:

http://www.ncix.com/detail/d-link-dg...-ff-106297.htm

That's the cheapest 8 port POE GB switch I could find that actually has the capacity to power 8 ports. Well you can really only use 7 as you need 1 to uplink to the rest of your network.

[GQBalla]

I am going to be implementing Meraki in my house.

i got the switch/AP/Firewall for free with 3 year licensing though