Between TP-Link and Engenius, who supports their APs the longest?

[Flak]

Between TP-Link and Engenius, who supports their APs the longest? In terms of firmware updates at least?

 

[thiggins]

It would be a race to the bottom.

 

[det721]

TP-Link is horrible with firmware often only updating a product once or twice before dropping support.

 

[Trip]

Both brands are about the same in terms of support longevity, and somewhat par for the course in the SMB segment -- typically only a handful of firmware releases over two, maybe three years, receiving just enough development hours to make their added code (on top of very similar OpenWRT innards) work as close to advertised as possible. Then they tend to move on, usually lagging slightly behind the newest wifi standard. Almost consumer-like in their cadence. If I had to give an edge it might be to Senao (EnGenius), as I prefer their work over the years to that of TP-Link, but overall, not a whole lot of difference if you just look at what they have out there today.

For better support in the same segment, you'll want to look to vendors like Cisco, an example being their Small Business wifi APs, like the new CBW series (CBW140AC, CBW240AC, etc.). They tend to push out a half-dozen or more updates over a multi-year span on that class of gear (typically 5-7 years of support, sometimes longer). Or, if you have the technical chops to self-support, any Qualcomm hardware that is OpenWRT compatible -- many APs have received 10+ years of OpenWRT support. Also, certain series of Ubiquiti or Mikrotik products; they might not have quite as much support longevity as Cisco stuff, but definitely longer then most TP-Link or EnGenius gear.

For much beyond that, you'll need to look to enterprise stuff -- Aruba, Cisco Aironet/Catalyst, Mist, Ruckus, etc.

 

[Flak]

The driving issue is obviously cost. They also want WiFi 6 as every primary device owned is WiFi 6. I personally run EAP245s, which I've never had issues with. Granted the older v1 hardware hasn't had a firmware update in 2yrs and is no longer compatible with Omada. And the biggest complaint I can find on TPLink is their seemingly extremely early abandoning. I was hoping Engenius would lean to being better in that department but its' hard to tell since their firmware releases don't appear to be dated. If they weren't so stuck on WiFi 6 I'd just buy some used Ruckus APs from eBay. Unifi does have some WiFi 6 aps, in early release. But going the Unifi route you tend to be a perpetual beta tester for them as they never seem to release a firmware that is truly stable. Every time I've tried Unifi, and I've tried many many times, I've always had some kind of issue.

 

[K-2SO]

EAPs are cheap for a reason. Hardware is nothing. Software development costs money. I also run Omada at home. Wanted to see how it works. And it works very well for the price. Like $350 for the switch, 2 APs and the controller. I run UniFi in my office. No rush to update every single time, no issues with it. It's a mid-grade equipment anyway. High-end is $500 per AP, you know. Show them some Ruckus WiFi 6 APs to think about. Unless it's a bank or a government office. They always pay.

 

[Greg72]

The dates for the Engenius Firmware can be found at https://www.engeniusnetworks.eu/downloads/ Those dates would also be the same or close to the other country release dates.