Finally bailing on AiMesh in favor of Ubiquiti

[adambean]

I've been waiting for so damn long to hear Uniquiti announce AX AP's, and yet ... nothing. Not sure I can keep waiting at this point. My AiMesh gets the job done, but I'm ready for a redesign.

Some quick background:
- ~3,500 sq ft (Basement + 2 floors)
- Cat6 run to almost every room
- Basement + first floor I do not have center of floor drops, only in corners/sides
- Second floor has a perfect middle of the floor run in the ceiling
- ~80 devices on network

So for gear, this is what I was thinking:
- Gateway: https://amzn.com/B00LV8YZLK
- Switch: https://amzn.com/B01DKXT4CI (I'll need to another later, for now will use an old NetGear)
- AP's (x2 - basement + 2nd floor): https://amzn.com/B015PRCBBI (the pro has more bandwidth, but I don't think I need it, I'd rather have the coverage)
- Cloud Key: https://amzn.com/B07HLLC1TC

So the Cloud Key, I'm still not really sure this is "needed". While I'm familiar with Ubiquiti, I've never fully implemented. I know you can run software on a machine on your network, but isn't there now a cloud option that doesn't require hardware?

Anyone have feedback?

Thanks!

 

[Trip]

I wouldn't be too concerned about UBNT (or anyone for that matter) having or not having AX in their lineup right now. For all the obvious reasons... but namely: pre-draft hardware/drivers and very little real-world benefit for at least the next year (or more) -- no applicable OFDMA, AX MU-MIMO, BSS coloring, wake timing, etc. etc. You're best off creating the wireless layer you need via proven AC Wave 2 stuff and working more on the wired infrastructure where/when you can (Cat6a, fiber backbone, etc.).

Proposed gear isn't bad. If you're internet is <1Gb aggregate and you don't need to run anything special on the gateway (IDS/IPS/QoS/VPN), then I supposed the USG it will suffice. Otherwise, I'd look at a Dream Machine, which will get you several times higher throughput, the UniFi controller, plus what basically amounts to a FlexHD, all in one unit. From there, you can build out as you see fit, but I would advise you run as flat and converge a switching fabric as possible -- ie. all ports on one larger switch -- and doing something like the fanless USW-16-POE, if you can swing the extra $100 or so. From there, yes, for more performance for more clients, go with a higher number of lower-power, medium-density APs (AC-LITE, FlexHD, NanoHD, etc.) versus a lower number of higher-power and longer-range APs (UAP-AC-PRO, etc.).

Hope that helps!

 

[adambean]

@Trip Thanks! Crazy enough, I just stumbled upon the UDM!

For around $75 more, I can redo it all as such which in theory would give me more ...
- UDM
- 8port 60w
- FlexHD
- NanoHD

Better setup? The UDM + 8 port (4 poe), will be exactly what I need vs. having to spend on the larger switch (+ the mount room would be an issue).

 

[adambean]

Should I be concerned about mixing and matching different AP's? I feel confident this was the root of my issue with AiMesh. The above proposal has three different styles, although all are wave 2.

 

[Trip]

I like your redone approach with a UDM, US-8-60W, Flex and Nano. Plenty of PoE for just the two APs, and you'd be all AC Wave 2, using cell size/density appropriate for the job. Presuming you're copper cabling is legit, this has the makings of a solid network written all over it.

 

[adambean]

Awesome, thanks @Trip. Now to figure out how best to mount this onto my wood board ... zip ties here we come!

 

[Trip]

Haha indeed.

If you could/would ever want to mount a horizontal or vertical telco rack, you might consider a UDM Pro. More £££, but the nerd factor is definitely 1,000/10.

 

[adambean]

Haha indeed.

If you could/would ever want to mount a horizontal or vertical telco rack, you might consider a UDM Pro. More £££, but the nerd factor is definitely 1,000/10.

Ugh, I saw that ... would have been tempting if it was in stock, but yeah ... I don't have a great spot to put it. Next house for sure.

 

[haykong]

If you are waiting for WiFi 6 hardware, not why get some cheap used ruckus r500 hardware which should do better than your AImesh hardware depending on what you have. Also it will be better than a new unifi ac Lr, lite, or pro minus 1 antenna. Right now,on eBay there’s this one reseller selling the r500 for $50 each or make an offer of 3 or more for $40 each and he’ll more likely accept it. Just note R500 are 2x2 radios. 802.11ac wave 1. They can be mesh together if you want using unleashed firmware 200.7.10.200.94. True enterprise gear that have enterprise WiFi chipsets which the lower end unifi APs do not have such as Ac LR, Pro, lite. Also note, ruckus APs can cover much larger area than unifi per AP. And has this unique beamflex+ tech. It’s really good tech. Just note. R500 are EOL and will not get anymore firmware updates and you can get the last firmware update free without support contracts.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ruckus-901-R500-US00-802-11ac-Indoor-Access-Point-Base-ONLY-/392530608997

 

[Trip]

@haykong - That's been a battle cry of mine for some time here (can search my posts on it all), and they are a better mousetrap for all the reasons you listed (and a few more). Still, it's a bit of a tough sell to the average Joe (perhaps thankfully, so there's more to go around for us!).

 

[haykong]

@haykong - That's been a battle cry of mine for some time here (can search my posts on it all), and they are a better mousetrap for all the reasons you listed (and a few more). Still, it's a bit of a tough sell to the average Joe (perhaps thankfully, so there's more to go around for us!).

Well I’ve deployed them at some small schools, some businesses that had a lot of WiFi inference, laundry mat, other small businesses, high end client homes that can afford it. And then I buy the used ones for my friends and family members. Actually, I became interested in ruckus because of a small school when I first deployed. Back in 2014, I was debating Unifi AC square model which was $299 and ruckus 7372 (N) new which was $350 at the time. So glad I choose ruckus or it would have been a mess. Only recently did I decided that it’s pretty safe getting a used Ruckus for friends and family since I haven’t see one fail yet.. my clients will just the new ones.

 

[Trentors]

@Trip Thanks! Crazy enough, I just stumbled upon the UDM!

For around $75 more, I can redo it all as such which in theory would give me more ...
- UDM
- 8port 60w
- FlexHD
- NanoHD

Better setup? The UDM + 8 port (4 poe), will be exactly what I need vs. having to spend on the larger switch (+ the mount room would be an issue).

I just switched from AiMesh to this exact setup. It works quite well. I used ROG routers from Asus and they are simply not very stable (the none-ROG stuff are more stable). And the lack of updates annoyed me. GT-AC5300 had issues in AiMesh since september due to an software issue (and also the infamous Let's Encrypt bug) but no stable releases has fixed it yet.
The performance of the Nano / Flex is quite good. Not quite up to the performance of the GT-AC5300 in range but it is close. But especially the discrete look of the Flex means it has been placed in the middle of the room and thus giving everyone a better connection. Putting any Asus router in the middle of a living room would spell divorce for most people ;-)

PS: The performance of the old USG and the previous APs (Lite, Pro, L/R) are seriously inferior to the new stuff. Avoid no matter how many "good" advices you hear. The same with all this Ruckus stuff. There is no prove they perform better. This is SNB - facts and reviews and actual testing should be used.

 

[Trip]

The same with all this Ruckus stuff. There is no prove they perform better. This is SNB - facts and reviews and actual testing should be used.

I'll make this disclaimer right up front: my stance comes only from experience of a few dozen deployments of both UniFi and Ruckus. That being plainly understood, I think you're largely comparing apples to oranges. Ruckus is an enterprise product, from software to hardware to support, focused mainly on a superior campus endpoint experience, and is aimed at that market. UniFi is a lowest-common-denominator ecosystem, built to democratize solid L2 connectivity, from campus endpoint to PtP to wide-area WAN. The first is based on almost completely proprietary engineering and licensed firmware trains. The second is grounded on base-reference SoC designs and "free" community-style development. They both have their place, and by and large UniFi is way more appropriate for most SOHO use cases, but make no mistake about it, Ruckus, from what I've observed, is still the superior product when it comes to the quality of the actual wireless link layer, especially for mobiles (which change polarity constantly), and especially in the presence of a lot of RF/physical interference.

That being said, I can't bowl anyone over with peer-reviewed studies and/or controlled comparisons, but suffice it to say, if one was to look at other writings of those who deal with this gear in the real world on a routine basis, such as /r/networking, I think a similar trend would be noticed. Of course, I understand full well that neither my opinion nor something like Reddit can be used to seriously support or refute anything. But going so far as to say there is "no proof [Ruckus] performs better" is perhaps a bit outside of one's pay grade. Or at the very least, a bit unfounded, considering that, by and large, they are two very different animals.

 

[Trentors]

Yes but they still run the same chipsets as everyone else (though they are not transparent about this). So how much of a actual difference there is (if any) is hardly enough to justify the price difference. Sure there might be a difference in 2.4GHz where there can a lot of interference but hardly in 5GHz and no-one should rely on the former anyway for performance.

Well Ubiquiti once sponsored a 3rd party comparison and Ruckus did not come out on top. So they are very much comparable though the Ruckus "serious business aura" makes it seem like they are not. They provide the EXACT same low level service as an AP and for the end user there is no difference. It would be like stating an AMD x86 architecture is not comparable to an Intel x86. It is ideas like this - that they cant be compared - that just makes it so easy for companies like Ruckus. They don't have to prove anything - the myths takes care of this.

I simply do not believe just because Ruckus cost more and create this "business" vibe it is actually a better product. Like so many other things in the business world it is a mass delusion.

Remember in the day when everyone would claim that IBM was better than anything else. I mean it HAD to be. It was IBM. They had Business in the name and the cost alone meant that it was better right? But I say if it is not proven or documented then it is just a rumor or a myth created by a marketing department.

I am not trying to be mean or anything but I simply do not understand why people simply buy into the idea that a product is better just because it costs more and because the vendor throws a lot of fancy business-grade PR at everyone. Especially when this company tries to hide the fact that they use the same chipsets as everyone else. It is like buying into that the man in the business suit is always right. He isn't - Silicon Valley should have proved that ;-)

 

[MichaelCG]

Same chipset only matters if the chipset is a pile of crap. There is waaaaaaay more to a proper device than just the chipset. Overall system design, firmware, antenna design, board design, software, blah, blah, blah. I don't care if we are talking about Ruckus, Cisco, Aruba, Ubiquiti, Asus, Netgear, etc....it really comes down to the entire offering....not just the chipset.

I have nothing against any of the vendors....in my professional life, I was a huge Aruba fan and deal with Cisco. I have zero personal experience with Ruckus gear, but many of my more networky friends love it. I personally have Ubiquiti gear and have been extremely pleased with it at my house.

 

[Val D.]

There is no doubt business gear is better, but so called AiMesh can be setup on 2 x RT-AC66U B1 routers for under $200. Some single access points discussed above are way more expensive. OK, not really "Ai" and not really "Mesh", but cheap and sounds cool.

What do you have, Ruckus? Looser... I have AiMesh!

 

[Trentors]

...it really comes down to the entire offering....not just the chipset.

You are right. TP-Link EAP225v3 performs much better than Unifi Lite despite using the same chipset. But what are the evidence of Ruckus being so superior?

As an example take the 2x2 APs round up review on this site. The winner is EAP225 despite the Linksys and others being far mor expensive and others really selling their whole professional "grade" PR BS. It is fluff and BS when such a cheap AP performs so much better in every category.

Without actual testing this is just beliefs. It is like a a religion created by a PR department somewhere.

 

[MichaelCG]

Where is the proof that the TP-Link holds up well in a busy/chatty environment? Where is the proof that anything any vendor claims is more than marketing fluff? Most educated users could give a rat's a** about top speed of an AP. I could care less than BrandA gets 15Mbps higher than BrandB for a single client.....especially business users. Do I care if there is a 25% performance difference? Maybe, but I care a lot more about management and multi-client performance.

We can go back and forth on this all day long without getting anywhere. Look at the specs, look at the reviews, look at the prices, look at your requirements....make a semi-educated decision. There is NOT any single right or wrong answer to any of this.

As for Ruckus...no idea....I just know they exist in many use cases that you would never expect them to be in...arenas, stadiums, airplanes, etc. They either have good enough performance, good enough pricing, or some level of customization that other vendors don't accommodate.

As for Ubiquiti...well...it does work. The price isn't bad, the performance isn't bad. Are there other options near the same price point? You betcha. I didn't know about the Omada stuff when I replaced my Asus gear or I would have at least taken a closer look at it. I already knew about Ubiquiti from previous jobs and co-workers.

 

[Trentors]

Where is the proof that the TP-Link holds up well in a busy/chatty environment? Where is the proof that anything any vendor claims is more than marketing fluff? Most educated users could give a rat's a** about top speed of an AP. I could care less than BrandA gets 15Mbps higher than BrandB for a single client.....especially business users. Do I care if there is a 25% performance difference? Maybe, but I care a lot more about management and multi-client performance.

We can go back and forth on this all day long without getting anywhere. Look at the specs, look at the reviews, look at the prices, look at your requirements....make a semi-educated decision. There is NOT any single right or wrong answer to any of this.

As for Ruckus...no idea....I just know they exist in many use cases that you would never expect them to be in...arenas, stadiums, airplanes, etc. They either have good enough performance, good enough pricing, or some level of customization that other vendors don't accommodate.

As for Ubiquiti...well...it does work. The price isn't bad, the performance isn't bad. Are there other options near the same price point? You betcha. I didn't know about the Omada stuff when I replaced my Asus gear or I would have at least taken a closer look at it. I already knew about Ubiquiti from previous jobs and co-workers.

Yes. The did test exactly that: https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/33191-2x2-ac-access-point-roundup-part-2

So you flip it and argument that it is all about multi-client performance. But still no evidence that a device actually is better at this task than other. The only actually testing is done on this site and unfortunately Tim is becoming busy with other stuff so now every PR claim is hereby unchallenged.

I actually thing we somewhat agrees. The is hardly any proof or anything that shows Meraki vs Ruckus vs Unifi etc. Except Ubiquiti actually sponsored one but people seem to largely ignore this even though it is not performed by them (and it has to be this way since the other vendors APs are very expensive and they dont borrow them out for reviews - I wonder why...). But okay let us just boil it down to "we dont know". And that is why it bugs me other that people than claim vendor X is better than others since we do NOT know.


BTW: Here is the test between Ruckus, Meraki, Unifi and others:
https://alethea.in/wifi-performance-benchmark-testing-class-room-environment/

Be aware that is sponsored by Ubiquiti but they were not involved. I would not expect a result made by others to differ greatly from this. And certainly not enough to claim Ruckus is better than Unifi.

 

[Trip]

We can go back and forth on this all day long without getting anywhere. Look at the specs, look at the reviews, look at the prices, look at your requirements....make a semi-educated decision. There is NOT any single right or wrong answer to any of this.

+100000 This is ultimately the only "right" takeaway here.

@Trentors - If Ruckus or anyone else's claims bother you that much, I'm not sure what to tell you. Perhaps create your own test with a mix of identically-spec'd APs, controllers and clients for whatever use-case you're looking to accommodate, and see for yourself. Maybe TP-Link wins out. If so, awesome.