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Looking for access points (or similar solutions)

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EeK

Regular Contributor
I've recently upgraded my home internet to 300 Mbps and am now in the process of replacing some of the older network devices. My apartment is wired with Cat5e in almost every room, because it's rather large, with brick walls, and I prefer Ethernet over Wi-Fi whenever possible.

Here's the current setup:
  • Asus RT-AC86U router running Merlin's latest firmware (behind a closet, near the bedrooms, where the fiber and all other cabling sources are);
  • TP-Link 8 Port Gigabit switch connected to an Actiontec MoCA 2.0 adapter (in the living room, behind the cabinet, where all entertainment devices are located and there is no Ethernet, only coax);
  • Apple AirPort Time Capsule 802.11ac (in the living room, opposite from the cabinet, wired via Ethernet, as an access point);
  • Apple Airport Express 2nd gen (in the kitchen, extending the Time Capsule's Wi-Fi, as there's no Ethernet there);
  • Apple Airport Extreme 5th gen (in one of the bedrooms, wired via Ethernet, as an access point).
The Airport Express was in my bedroom until very recently, but has been moved to the kitchen, as it's still 802.11n and not Gigabit, limiting speeds to 100 Mbps.

My top priority is to find a replacement for it that's 802.11ac and Gigabit. Extra LAN ports would be nice, but not an absolute necessity, as the TV and other entertainment devices are located across from where the Ethernet is located, so I'll probably end up purchasing another MoCA adapter and switch in the near future, as to benefit from the existing coax.

The next step is to replace the Airport Extreme, so, compatible devices are a plus. Also, on the case of this replacement, LAN ports would definitely be beneficial, as I already have devices connected to the Airport Extreme. And unless absolutely required, I'd rather not have yet another switch there.

Finally, after all remodeling is done, I'll need yet another device in the office (where there's Ethernet). But, for now, I only need one, and would rather purchase the products individually, rather than in a pack.

Also, bear in mind that I'm not in the US or Europe, so not all products may be available in my region. The big brands are easy to find (Asus, TP-Link, etc.), but more specific ones would require importing, and that's not an option at the moment (it takes too long).

I look forward to hearing your recommendations. Thanks in advance!
 
Hi Eek. A few questions:
You mention remodeling. Any chance of fishing ethernet into all the places where it currently isn't, to forgo wireless repeating/mesh/MoCa, and just home-running everything back to a core switch? If not, no biggy, just figured I'd ask first.
May I ask which country you're in, so I know what I can/can't recommend, brand-wise?
Lastly, do you have a ballpark budget for the overhaul, or at least this round of upgrades?
 
Sound like a lot of WiFi devices for an apartment. One router with really good WiFi near the bedrooms, another AP in one of the bedrooms, one repeater in the kitchen... is it really necessary? Without knowing the physical layout of your place it is hard to recommend a working solution. And 300Mbps fill speed you'll get only on wired devices and 2x2 AC clients close to AC router or AC access point. There is no need to have full 5-bar reception in every single corner of your apartment to get decent WiFi speeds to clients not able to get 300Mbps anyway.

My apartment is long, from one side of the building to almost the middle. Bedroom 1 -> Living Room + Kitchen -> Bedroom 2 + Bathroom -> Bedroom 3 + Bathroom ... all in one line, one after another. Concrete building, load bearing concrete wall in the middle. I have a single RT-AC86U located almost in the middle and it covers the entire area. I can see my 5GHz WiFi about 10m outside my entrance door, almost where the elevators are. My ISP speed is also 300Mbps, wired clients (including ones connected to the wireless bridge) and 2x2 AC clients reach 280-300Mbps, 1x1 AC and 2x2 N clients reach about 200-215Mbps, 1x1 N clients are limited to about 100Mbps... all on 5GHz. Are you running an airport with all those Airports? Sometimes simple solutions work better.
 
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As @Val D. suggested, a single broadcast point via one AP or all-in-one might do the trick. Tough to confirm, though, without knowing more about the layout.
 
Hi Eek. A few questions:
You mention remodeling. Any chance of fishing ethernet into all the places where it currently isn't, to forgo wireless repeating/mesh/MoCa, and just home-running everything back to a core switch? If not, no biggy, just figured I'd ask first.
May I ask which country you're in, so I know what I can/can't recommend, brand-wise?
Lastly, do you have a ballpark budget for the overhaul, or at least this round of upgrades?
Sound like a lot of WiFi devices for an apartment. One router with really good WiFi near the bedrooms, another AP in one of the bedrooms, one repeater in the kitchen... is it really necessary? Without knowing the physical layout of your place it is hard to recommend a working solution. And 300Mbps fill speed you'll get only on wired devices and 2x2 AC clients close to AC router or AC access point. There is no need to have full 5-bar reception in every single corner of your apartment to get decent WiFi speeds to clients not able to get 300Mbps anyway.

My apartment is long, from one side of the building to almost the middle. Bedroom 1 -> Living Room + Kitchen -> Bedroom 2 + Bathroom -> Bedroom 3 + Bathroom ... all in one line, one after another. Concrete building, load bearing concrete wall in the middle. I have a single RT-AC86U located almost in the middle and it covers the entire area. I can see my 5GHz WiFi about 10m outside my entrance door, almost where the elevators are. My ISP speed is also 300Mbps, wired clients (including ones connected to the wireless bridge) and 2x2 AC clients reach 280-300Mbps, 1x1 AC and 2x2 N clients reach about 200-215Mbps, 1x1 N clients are limited to about 100Mbps... all on 5GHz. Are you running an airport with all those Airports? Sometimes simple solutions work better.
As @Val D. suggested, a single broadcast point via one AP or all-in-one might do the trick. Tough to confirm, though, without knowing more about the layout.

"Running an airport with all those Airports", haha, love it.

I got all those Apple devices when I was living in the US and attending university. Since I had a Macbook Pro, I was deep in the Apple ecosystem and liked the ease of access of their wireless devices. They don't make them anymore, and I've since switched back to Windows PCs, so there's no point in sticking with Apple.

I still have an iPhone (XS) and an iPad Pro, though, both of which can absolutely hit 300 Mb/s on 5GHz (ac), not to mention my laptop. I'm always moving between the bedroom and the living room, so those areas are top priority, to me. And if a device can run wired, I'll try to connect it to Ethernet to the best of my ability.

I also tend to cycle through devices, instead of simply getting rid of them. I've already retired a bunch of D-Link wireless stuff (never going back to that brand), and if I can put an AP in every corner of my home, why not? When I say that there are brick walls here, it's because every single one of them is made of that material, so signal (and speeds) drop significantly when moving from room to room. There's also about 500m² to cover.

For now, I'd simply be purchasing one new access point for my bedroom, and, in the near future, replace the other Apple devices, but there's no rush to that (which is why I mentioned I wasn't planning on purchasing one of those packs with three devices as "all-in-one" solutions). I'm in Brazil, where everything is ridiculously expensive and mostly unavailable. And since I'm also remodeling the apartment (without any way of running even more wires, as there's no room, unfortunately), I can't spend all on network devices. :p

I'm basically torn between the Ubiquiti AP AC Lite and the TP-Link EAP245. Both have their own downsides:

The AP AC Lite has no web interface for configuration, its software (Unifi controller) requires Java to run (which I'd never install on any of my machines), and it doesn't have a single extra LAN port.

The EAP245 seems to have a web interface, aside from the Omada controller, has one LAN port, and beats even the AP AC Pro in terms of speeds, according to some reviewers. But it seems to lack an Ethernet backhaul feature (which I'm also not sure if the AP AC Lite supports).

I also considered the Google WiFi and TP-Link Deco M5, but the lack of customization options and the fact that both devices phone home to their companies' servers made me gave up on that idea.

What do you think? Can I live with Ubiquiti's iOS app? Or is the EAP245 the better option? They're both around the same price here and readily available.
 
I replied to everyone on this thread, but my post is "awaiting moderator approval", for some reason.

That has only happened to me once before, when I included a domain whitelist in my comment, and I had to edit it out, leaving only a link to it.

This time, there's nothing in the body of message that should require mod intervention. Sorry if you guys can't see it yet. :/
 
I still think you may not need that many WiFi transmitters in an apartment and it is not a good idea in general to have routers or access points in your bedrooms.
 
@EeK - Mesh at its core just equates to wireless backhaul capability. That's it. Practically all other centralized wifi benefits are not mesh-exclusive --- 802.11r/k/v, AAA, centralized management, etc. So wire-only products such as regular UniFi (different from UniFi Mesh) or Cisco small business WAPs would work just as well for you, presuming you could wire in all your APs.

Regarding the UniFi controller, you can run it on a CloudKey Gen2 for <$200, which alleviates the need for a PC or dealing with Java. But you are correct in that the UniFi APs have no standalone web interface for controller-less operation. If you want to go with UniFi but anticipate needing wireless backhaul at some point, then you would need UniFi Mesh, which is a separate hardware product line.

With Omada, you've actually got it backwards. Omada was, until earlier this month, a wire-only system. Is does have mesh now, but it's new, so I'm sure it may have some issues for a few firmware releases. The EAP access points do have standalone functionality and web interfaces, which is nice.

All that said, I think a single EAP245 would probably be a good fit. If you ever need to scale out to multiple APs, you could do so by wired and/or mesh backhaul, with a second (or more) EAP245(s) and an OC200 controller, and away you go. As @Val D. suggested, though, I would give a single AP a shot first and see what kind of coverage to can actually get, then maybe scale out, but only as absolutely necessary.

Lastly, in terms of integrated switch ports on APs, it's not something you see all that often. There are the exceptions, such as the Netgear WAC104, but they typically only function standalone and can't integrate into a centralized and/or mesh-capable product, unless it's more of an on-wall hospitality type solution, such as a Ruckus H510, but then you'd be buying into an enterprise product that may be excessively expensive and possibly not be so available in your market. If you're just looking for fewer wires and can push PoE from a central switch to your remote drops, perhaps you could run a PD-powered switch, such as a Netgear GS105PE. Otherwise, I would just simply resign to settling on a plugged-in switch or two, hidden away if possible, where you need them.
 
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I still think you may not need that many WiFi transmitters in an apartment and it is not a good idea in general to have routers or access points in your bedrooms.

Do you mean that because of health concerns, or something else?

@EeK - Mesh at its core just equates to wireless backhaul capability. That's it. Practically all other centralized wifi benefits are not mesh-exclusive --- 802.11r/k/v, AAA, centralized management, etc. So wire-only products such as regular UniFi (different from UniFi Mesh) or Cisco small business WAPs would work just as well for you, presuming you could wire in all your APs.

Regarding the UniFi controller, you can run it on a CloudKey Gen2 for <$200, which alleviates the need for a PC or dealing with Java. But you are correct in that the UniFi APs have no standalone web interface for controller-less operation. If you want to go with UniFi but anticipate needing wireless backhaul at some point, then you would need UniFi Mesh, which is a separate hardware product line.

With Omada, you've actually got it backwards. Omada was, until earlier this month, a wire-only system. Is does have mesh now, but it's new, so I'm sure it may have some issues for a few firmware releases. The EAP access points do have standalone functionality and web interfaces, which is nice.

All that said, I think a single EAP245 would probably be a good fit. If you ever need to scale out to multiple APs, you could do so by wired and/or mesh backhaul, with a second (or more) EAP245(s) and an OC200 controller, and away you go. As @Val D. suggested, though, I would give a single AP a shot first and see what kind of coverage to can actually get, then maybe scale out, but only as absolutely necessary.

Lastly, in terms of integrated switch ports on APs, it's not something you see all that often. There are the exceptions, such as the Netgear WAC104, but they typically only function standalone and can't integrate into a centralized and/or mesh-capable product, unless it's more of an on-wall hospitality type solution, such as a Ruckus H510, but then you'd be buying into an enterprise product that may be excessively expensive and possibly not be so available in your market. If you're just looking for fewer wires and can push PoE from a central switch to your remote drops, perhaps you could run a PD-powered switch, such as a Netgear GS105PE. Otherwise, I would just simply resign to settling on a plugged-in switch or two, hidden away if possible, where you need them.

Thank you very much for the incredibly informative answer.

The EAP245 does sound like the ideal solution for me. I'll follow both your and @Val D.'s advice and start with a single AP for now, as I tend to do upgrades one at a time. If required, in the future, I'll replace whatever old technology is lying around. By that time, newer Wi-Fi 6 devices will most likely already be widely available.

Thanks again for the replies!
 
Do you mean that because of health concerns, or something else?

There is no scientific evidence yet about low power RF radiation causing negative effects on human body. The key word is "yet". RF technologies we use today are relatively new and we are all kind of guinea pigs. It may be safe, may be not. We don't know yet. Think about it and decide for yourself.

- RF radiation levels never been so high in our environment
- this type of RF radiation is not part of the natural environment we evolved in
- medical science knows about 5% of the processes in our bodies on molecular level
- cigarette commercials in the past, big business involved, everything is fine, buy more
- you don't want to find out in 10 years from now that the brain tumor of your family member was probably caused by the wireless router you installed above his/her head or on his/her desk

The last one is harsh, I know. Hopefully never happens to anyone.
Wish you and all your family all the best, my friend.
 
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