Router for Aruba APs

[jrobin9]

I obtained 5 Aruba APs from my employer (unused spares from a change out to Cisco equipment). 4 are Aruba 515 and 1 is a 567 (outdoor) with a 2019 date on them. If I set these up at my home, is it best to turn off the wifi from my router? It seems it isn't a requirement but with 4 potential indoor units I could go either way. Plan is 2 APs with current router wifi enabled or 3 without. If it would be best to turn off, is there a recommended router that would match better than the AX86U I currenly use (with 1 AX86S in mesh). I'm not a novice but no where near an expert and looking for suggestions. Current setup works fine but I'm wanting to tinker since these appear to be high end APs and I have nothing in them. As FYI, I have been able to access via TFTP, flash firmware and set up a makeshift mesh.

 

[tgl]

Best to avoid mix-n-match AP sets. The main thing you lose if you do that is that the units will not support 802.11k/v roaming between APs from different manufacturers ... and in a multi-AP household, you really do want smooth roaming.

There should not be any problem with continuing to use the router features of the AX86U after turning off its wifi. If you have other reasons to be dissatisfied with the AX86U, you could look at replacing it later, but otherwise sticking with it seems fine.

Also, you need to do some research about how these Aruba units are supposed to be configured. I know in some product lines, k/v roaming requires an always-on controller managing the APs. In others, once the APs are configured to know they are siblings, they do the rest themselves. (My UniFi APs do the latter, but I don't know about Aruba.)