No controller required WAP suggestions?

[AnotherSiteAnotherName]

It's time to update from my RT-AC86U. I'm going to be new to the WAP world. I'll need two WAPs to cover my home due to a masonry chimney in the middle. I'll run wired backhaul to each WAP, so meshing isn't necessary.

With there only being max of two unmeshed WAPs, I'd rather avoid the expense of a controller and just log in locally to each device to manage them.

Are there any recommendations for Wifi 6 WAPs that specifically don't require a controller? My intention is to create a few SSIDs with corresponding VLANs to separate network traffic.

 

[Tech Junky]

Most don't need a controller if you don't mind using the web GUI. I use Zyxel but any brand should have the ability to manage through the end GUI. Price depends on where you're located though but the Nwa210ax is around $130.

 

[coxhaus]

You might take a look at Cisco 150ax wireless APs. Each unit has a controller built-in so there is no need for an external controller. The first one setup will be the master controller until it goes down and another takes over. You can manually change which one is the master controller in the software but it is really transparent and it just runs behind the scenes.
They are setup with your phone and are web based. They cost $102 each the last time I ordered one.

 

[tgl]

Like @Tech Junky, I use a pair of Zyxel NWA210AX's, manually managed through their web GUIs. The only real issue with this is you don't get 802.11k/v roaming support because the WAPs act totally independently. Some clients will roam pretty cleanly between the two WAPs anyway, but some are "sticky" and tend to hang onto even a much worse signal after you move them. I've been meaning to experiment with adjusting the disconnect RSSI threshold to see if I can get better roaming behavior, but it's not a real high priority for my usage.

I believe that if you manage the WAPs with Zyxel's "Nebula" cloud control offering, you can get proper 802.11k/v support. I haven't gone that way because I don't trust cloud management as to security, reliability, or privacy; not to mention the subscription fee.

The other makes I've looked at have largely the same problem: without a controller you don't get proper roaming support. I'm intrigued by @coxhaus' report that Cisco solved this by building in controllers ... but that's got to have inflated the price of the units by some amount.

 

[coxhaus]

There is no 802.11k/v in the Cisco 150ax wireless APs. I believe you need to jump to enterprise if you want that. You get 802.11r and 802.11i. But there is a central management controller built in.

These are cheap to compete with others.
"802.11r, which is the IEEE standard for fast roaming, introduces a new concept of roaming where the initial handshake with the new AP is done even before the client roams to the target AP, which is called Fast Transition (FT)."

PS

What is 802.11r? Why is this Important?

Fast BSS Transition 802.11r (often abbreviated to Fast Transition or FT) describes mechanisms by which a mobile device can reestablish existing security and/or QoS parameters prior to reassociating to a new AP.

blogs.cisco.com

My guess is you would be better off running Cisco's 150ax APs instead of independent APs. I ventured away from Cisco years ago for a little bit but then realized Cisco is usually ahead of the curve when it comes to code inside networking devices. In a business environment I would run a radius server of some type. At home maybe not so much. I do use VoWiFi a lot at home as my cell service in my house is weak unless I stand by an outside Window.

And last but not least you manage all the Cisco 150ax wireless APs from 1 IP address which is web based. So, you can make global changes to all APs with one change. You don't have to hunt down each AP to make a change which would not be fun if you have say 15 or 20 APs. You upload code to the management IP address and it distributes firmware updates to all APs.

I think these are great for home and small businesses.

PS
My belief is in the future we are going to run a lot of APs so you can have high speed connections in all major rooms as walls degrade signals. Keeping the price down is going to be a big deal when you need multiple APs.

 

[AnotherSiteAnotherName]

Thanks for this discussion. It was really helpful.

 

[coxhaus]

I believe that if you manage the WAPs with Zyxel's "Nebula" cloud control offering, you can get proper 802.11k/v support. I haven't gone that way because I don't trust cloud management as to security, reliability, or privacy; not to mention the subscription fee.

So how much is a subscription fee for 3 Zyxel's for 802.11k/v support? And I wonder how well it works.

 

[Tech9]

Omada Controller is a free download, runs on Windows/Linux. Hardware version is like $90. Not only enables 802.11k/v/r, but also tracks the clients for better roaming and dynamically adjusts the Tx power of the APs. The system works much better with it, just needs some time to learn the environment. Also offers Captive Portal for Guest Networks, network stats, Wi-Fi heatmap, remote management, etc. Multiple Omada compatible ceiling, wall plate, outdoor APs starting from about $100 for dual band AX1800 all the way to $500 for quad-band monsters AX11000 with Wi-Fi 6E. One of the best price/performance systems.

 

[coxhaus]

So, can you block a Omada controller on a Windows PC to where it can't talk on the internet and it still works?


I am still interested in Zyxel's subscription service. What's it cost?

PS
Are you guys using WPA2/WPA3 for roaming? I have it defined in my Cisco APs.

 

[Tech9]

As far as I remember it's called On-premises Controller and the cloud account is not required. The cloud account is needed for multi-site and remote management. I don't run Omada and I see the software was updated few times after my tests. Someone running it may provide more details. There is no subscription fees though unless the controller itself is on the cloud, also called Cloud-based Controller.

The controller manages Wi-Fi/APs related features, but also coordinates and expands features of supported SafeStream routers and JetStream switches. Some of the features are only available with Omada Controller. The devices have own GUI, but everything listed with * in specifications is controller related.

 

[tgl]

I've spent a few hours nosing around, and found out a number of interesting things. AFAICT, you will not get 802.11k/v on any of these systems without central control of some sort, which is probably reasonable: the APs have to know which other APs in the area should be considered part of their network. Given that:

* The only option with my Zyxel NWA210AXs is to subscribe to the Nebula cloud control service, which I'm unwilling to do. While Zyxel do offer an on-premises hardware controller for some of their APs, the NWA series is specifically stated not to work with that. Very annoying.

* As said upthread, Omada has on-premises hardware controllers, of which the smaller OC200 (~$100) should be plenty for any home use. They also have a cloud-based subscription service of course. Also, the control software is available as a free download if you want to self-host it on some local machine. It's not very clear whether the controller has to be on 24x7, which might be an issue for self-hosting. (If I have to have a dedicated machine, it might as well be an OC200 and skip all the setup/compatibility worries.)

* I also looked into Ubiquiti UniFi, which has the same three options as Omada for how to run the controller. Importantly, I found it clearly stated that once your APs have been "adopted" by the same controller, they will exchange 802.11k/v/r control info without the controller needing to be up 24x7. They still recommend having 24x7 controller but it's for monitoring not essential functionality. A downside is that the cheapest hardware controller option that you can get today seems to be the Cloud Key Gen2+, which is $200, plus highway-robbery $99 if you want a rack mount kit.

So, much as I like the NWA210AXs, I have a feeling that Omada or Ubiquiti APs are the next step if I want roaming to work better. If I have to spring for new APs, it's probably about time to get 6E capable gear (I do actually have some 6E clients now, and am likely to have more before long). These lines' only available choices today seem to be Omada's EAP690E HD for $450 (ouch) or Ubiquiti's U6 Enterprise for a much more reasonable $279. So even with the overpriced controller, a Ubiquiti setup is cheaper (especially if I need 3 APs, which I think I do), and it's a more mature ecosystem according to Evan McCann's thorough reviews.

So I'm curious if anyone here has experience with UniFi? Is there a good reason to go with Omada instead?

 

[Tech Junky]

6E capable gear

That idea is DOA since BE is now hitting the shelves. It's a waste of money since BE doubles the bandwidth on 6ghz which is the only reason you would venture into 6E anyway.

As for any of the options they all play the same and roaming is kind of a gimmick to sell more stuff. If you setup things properly in the first place with opposing channels and adjusting the power limits so clients feel the change in channel strength it's going to happen naturally. Controllers just aggregate the settings like a server / client setup and simplify multiple AP control. I've dealt with controllers with hundreds of APs connected to it and there's nothing special going on in them. If you don't have an active/standby of at least 2 controllers you're going offline if you have to reboot it for some reason.

 

[tgl]

That idea is DOA since BE is now hitting the shelves. It's a waste of money since BE doubles the bandwidth on 6ghz which is the only reason you would venture into 6E anyway.

Perhaps we're getting off the thread topic ... but nope, I disagree. I'm interested in the 6GHz spectrum because it's nearly unused where I am, while 2.4GHz is completely saturated and 5GHz is pretty busy. (The fact that 6GHz is shorter range is a feature, not a bug, for me: it means there will always be fewer neighbors close enough to create contention on 6GHz.) So either 6E or 7 gear would do what I need done now. If WiFi 7 routers weren't overpriced unobtainium, and if I expected to have any compatible clients in the near future, I'd certainly consider WiFi 7 instead. But it's probably going to be several years before that's really a sensible use of money for me. All of my mobile gear is Apple hardware, and Apple are well known for not messing with bleeding-edge WiFi standards, so I don't expect to own any WiFi 7 clients for a couple years more.

 

[tgl]

As for any of the options they all play the same and roaming is kind of a gimmick to sell more stuff. If you setup things properly in the first place with opposing channels and adjusting the power limits so clients feel the change in channel strength it's going to happen naturally. Controllers just aggregate the settings like a server / client setup and simplify multiple AP control. I've dealt with controllers with hundreds of APs connected to it and there's nothing special going on in them.

This part definitely is on topic for this thread, at least if @AnotherSiteAnotherName is concerned about his phone not dropping connections while walking around the property. The problem that I'm trying to solve is that in my new digs (a long narrow apartment with one AP near each end) I observe my phone behaving badly when I carry it from one end to the other --- it will drop or glitch VOIP calls, for example. This seems to be partly because Apple deliberately design their gear to be sticky clients (they document that iOS gear will not consider reassociating to another AP until the current one's RSSI drops below -70), and partly because reassociating takes a second or two. The stickiness could be alleviated with 802.11v transition management, and the reassociation time could be cut with 802.11k neighbor reports and 802.11r fast transitions. All of which Apple supports; but my Zyxel APs don't do any of that, because it's not implemented in standalone mode. That is what needs to be fixed, and at least for the APs we're talking about here, you need a controller to configure the APs to do these things.

 

[Tech Junky]

6GHz

My point was not that it's a bad thing it's that doubling the bandwidth from 160 >> 320mhz = 5gbps in terms of speed and not having to buy new gear as soon as there's another change in the pipeline.

Now, if you want 6ghz on the cheap then consider the NWA220AX-E which is hovering around $180 but the tradeoff is you either use 5 OR 6 since it's not a tri radio. There's another model though that is tri radio but the price jumps per unit to $280 IIRC. Or if you went Netgear there's a model that's ~$350.

Apple

is always going to be an issue. If you're moving around though the cell radio should cover the gaps between hand over between APs. Android doesn't have the issue at least on newer phones.

Apple are well known for not messing with bleeding-edge

More than just WIFI. They lag behind the mass market and lock users into proprietary HW. Take their USBC conversion for instance and the varying speeds of the ports on the new gear when they tout TB on their ports as a feature. Then the whole M1/2/3 CPU design is lackluster as well if you dig under the hood and look at the design.

Though there's been whispers that Apple will be picking up the pace on tech adoption moving forward to compete better.

I do agree pricing on BE right now is a bit much but, that's the same thing that happens with new tech. Remember when DDR5 launched? Intel WIFI cards are still over priced for AX/E if you don't look for a deal. I picked up AX411 cards under $20 but now they're about $30. If you have the will to make your own APs though you can get 6E modules for $85 and pop them into a "PC" and activate them for use with hostapd and host your own APs and enable K/V for roaming through adding a command to the config for it. If the APs we're using weren't locked down you could do th same since that's how they operate with hostapd controlling things.

 

[coxhaus]

This part definitely is on topic for this thread, at least if @AnotherSiteAnotherName is concerned about his phone not dropping connections while walking around the property. The problem that I'm trying to solve is that in my new digs (a long narrow apartment with one AP near each end) I observe my phone behaving badly when I carry it from one end to the other --- it will drop or glitch VOIP calls, for example. This seems to be partly because Apple deliberately design their gear to be sticky clients (they document that iOS gear will not consider reassociating to another AP until the current one's RSSI drops below -70), and partly because reassociating takes a second or two. The stickiness could be alleviated with 802.11v transition management, and the reassociation time could be cut with 802.11k neighbor reports and 802.11r fast transitions. All of which Apple supports; but my Zyxel APs don't do any of that, because it's not implemented in standalone mode. That is what needs to be fixed, and at least for the APs we're talking about here, you need a controller to configure the APs to do these things.

I am not sure you have to have 82.11k to have VOIP roaming. I use VOIP all the time in my house as cell does not work well in my old house. VOIP roaming works with my Cisco 150ax with no dropped calls. I think it is how well the coding is written. There is a thread that talks more about this. There are levels of how well it works. With my current Cisco 150ax APs a VOIP roam drops a couple of words but not the call. I am sure if you move to enterprise Cisco it has much better coding and works better with much more extensive coding. How well the 802.11k/v standards work depends on how well it is coded and how much of the standard is coded. There are some 802.11K/v standards which are coded only enough to claim it and not fully implemented.

I test APs in my house with 2 iPhones. I have my wife using 1 back AP with her iPhone and I call her with my iPhone on the front AP. I then walk past the back AP from the front AP so that it will roam and see how it goes.

 

[tgl]

My point was not that it's a bad thing it's that doubling the bandwidth from 160 >> 320mhz = 5gbps in terms of speed and not having to buy new gear as soon as there's another change in the pipeline.

Yeah --- I'm not saying BE is bad mind you, just that its additional gain over 6E is pretty marginal for me right now, especially compared to the cost. There is little point in 320MHz bandwidth until I have a better-than-1Gbps internet connection, and that's another thing that is some years off. But avoiding contention with neighbors, and getting a DFS-free 160MHz channel, are things I can use right now. I realize I might want another upgrade in three or four years.

Now, if you want 6ghz on the cheap then consider the NWA220AX-E which is hovering around $180 but the tradeoff is you either use 5 OR 6 since it's not a tri radio.

Yeah, I've looked at that unit, but the 5-or-6 design makes no sense at all to me. It'll be many years before I don't have a lot of clients that can only do up to 5GHz, so an AP with no 5GHz signal seems fairly useless. If they wanted to put in just two radios, they should have skipped 2.4GHz and done 5 and 6 only. The other problem with that AP, for our present purposes, is that the roaming/standalone situation is exactly like the NWA210AX.

Then the whole M1/2/3 CPU design is lackluster as well if you dig under the hood and look at the design.

Apple hater eh? I own a lot of Intel gear, and I can't help noticing that my M1 Apple machines outperform all of it, and run cooler as well. But for certain we're off topic now.

I do agree pricing on BE right now is a bit much but, that's the same thing that happens with new tech.

Indeed. If I want to wait a year, I expect I could get BE for something reasonable. I'm looking at what I can get today.

 

[Tech Junky]

1Gbps internet connection

I use mine internally on the LAN as ISP plans are a rip off in terms of spending unless you DL a good percentage of the time or hosting services and then you run into the lop sided UL BW if you're not using fiber.

I think we're beating this horse to death at this point.

 

[tgl]

I am not sure you have to have 82.11k to have VOIP roaming. I use VOIP all the time in my house as cell does not work well in my old house. VOIP roaming works with my Cisco 150ax with no dropped calls.

You mentioned that your Ciscos do 802.11r fast reassociation; maybe that's enough to prevent drops for you. I'm also trying to switch to VOIP because the cell signal here isn't great, but so far it's just not reliable enough. I'm sure that I'm not getting 802.11r behavior, because I can see that the reassociation time is not small.

 

[coxhaus]

You mentioned that your Ciscos do 802.11r fast reassociation; maybe that's enough to prevent drops for you. I'm also trying to switch to VOIP because the cell signal here isn't great, but so far it's just not reliable enough. I'm sure that I'm not getting 802.11r behavior, because I can see that the reassociation time is not small.

I assume you have your APs close enough so the signal does not drop and not too close to where they will not roam. It could be the coding is not very good.

PS
Here is some older talk about roaming.

Does 802.11k/v/r work with APs individually configured? Or different vendors?

Hello gurus! I am wondering if 802.11k/v/r works with consumer/pro-summer grade APs (Netgears/Asus) configured independently via a wired network? Or do they only work in their respective Mesh or repeater configs? For instance, I have a pair of Asus Zenwifi XT8 and they can act as APs or in...

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