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Upgrading my Router + AP setup - need advise

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Siljesyl

New Around Here
Hi all,
Today I have a D-link D855 set up as a router with 2x Dlink DAP 1522 and Dlink Dir 868 set up as wired AP's. I just bought and installed a bunch of wifi enabled electrical heathers on top of everything else, and suddenly my net is now gummed down. Too many devices (60+) is my theory. Good excuse for an upgrade! But it must be simple to setup and maintain.

The fiber comes into the house in the cellar where also my router is placed. All cabled connections end up at the same place. Having wifi on the router is really a waste, since the wifi goes nowhere.
Question number 1: are there any wired routers available, or do everybody end up buying a wireless router these days because it's hard to find any good wired ones made for the prosumer market?
Question number 2: I would love to have the same SSID across all the AP's getting seemlessly switched to the AP with the best signal quality. Is this available in the prosumer Market?
Question number 3: Among the forum members what would be the recommended router and wired AP combination for my setup?
 
Question number 1: are there any wired routers available, or do everybody end up buying a wireless router these days because it's hard to find any good wired ones made for the prosumer market?
Question number 2: I would love to have the same SSID across all the AP's getting seemlessly switched to the AP with the best signal quality. Is this available in the prosumer Market?
Question number 3: Among the forum members what would be the recommended router and wired AP combination for my setup?


if you have the structured ethernet cabling in place look at

uniquiti edge router and a 3 pack of ubiquiti unifi AC ap's , you can buy a switch with POE to power the AP's or use their own POE adapters , some of the ubiquiti are able to run in zero handoff mode to achieve seamless roaming but it depend on how seamless you need it , as true seamless roaming is where the client never disconnects or do you just want it so the client just change from one to the other automatically , as changing from one to the other is as simple as just naming all ssid name and passphrases the same and doesnt require zero handoff
 
Thanks for your answers! I have tried to learn more about the Uniquiti routers and AP. On the forum they say that the routers GUI is not for the novice. Those comments are from 2013 and 2014. Are they still a bit to complicated for the prosumer to set up, or have it improved? Are there other Routers out there which is more ready out of the box and simpler to set up? Thanks again for your comments.
 
Thanks for your answers! I have tried to learn more about the Uniquiti routers and AP. On the forum they say that the routers GUI is not for the novice. Those comments are from 2013 and 2014. Are they still a bit to complicated for the prosumer to set up, or have it improved? Are there other Routers out there which is more ready out of the box and simpler to set up? Thanks again for your comments.

Ubiquity has added more GUI Wizards, but it is a good idea (IMO) to have some sort of networking background, and be willing to pick up some CLI skills. With that said, the Ubiquity forum has alot of information, whether it be on the Knowledge Base, or, by posting questions. Using the Search fieldd on the UBNT site, will also provide alot of information. At the end of the day, it's about whether you want to take the junp, or not. As in everything in life, YMMV.
 
Thanks for the answers! Have also viewed some pretty informative YouTube videos about how to set it up. Less afraid now.
Will put in an order for the Ubiquiti Router, and the Ubiquiti AP's and some Poe switches. Does Ubiquiti work well with POE switches in general, or do they have special requirements?
Which AP's does people in general select for home setups?
 
Thanks for the answers! Have also viewed some pretty informative YouTube videos about how to set it up. Less afraid now.
Will put in an order for the Ubiquiti Router, and the Ubiquiti AP's and some Poe switches. Does Ubiquiti work well with POE switches in general, or do they have special requirements?
Which AP's does people in general select for home setups?

Post 2 of this thread has your answers RE: switches and power. I have 2 AC PRO's and work well, but I have AC clients. I also use the power injectors that come with the WAP's, to power them. No issues roaming between the two AP's. with Android and iDevices, and 4K TV which supports .AC. Can stream 4K off these WAP's, no problem. Wireless printer on 2.4ghz, will stay connected will stay connected to WAP.

If you go with AC Pro's, you will need controller software. Either run it on a PC / Unix box, (you will need to search the UBNT site to find where the software is) or, you can purchase the cloudkey ( I opted to purchase the cloudley), which runs the controller software. Just plug it into your network and configure.

Two sites that have alot of Ubiquity / Unifi videos, are here and here.
 
Thanks again for the answers. I have WHS 2011 (server 2008) in the net, could this machine be doing the job hosting the software? Would you recommend going for the EDgerouter ERPoe-5 or ER-8 to get better performance for a home installation?


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I *think* you may be able to run the controller software on your MS Server, but I would post that question on the Unifi forum, unless someone here knows.

I have the PoE5 and I also have a bunch of ERX-SFP's, which are less expensive than a PoE5, have quicker CPU's (but less RAM). I like the ERX's as you can configure it, the way you want, without a performance penalty. (hwnat was introduced for the ERX in fw 1.8). Some of the ERX's I have, are configured as a switch, which supports VLAN's. Also, the ERX's use about 5 watts of power, and run way cooler than a PoE5.

The ER-8's ports, are routing ports, only. If you want to have more than one port in a given subnet, you would have to bridge the router ports, which introduce a performance (throughput) penalty.
 
Thanks! Guess I will do the Unify software on the dedicated dongle. I guess this takes up one of the ports of the router, or could it be added to a connected switch? Since the Edge router x have fewer ports, I would need to add some switches. No problems adding Dlink switches to edge router X?


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You can hang a switch off of one of the ERX ports. I don't see why Dlink would not work. I use Netgear GS108t's and ERX SFP's as switches also. All the switches I use, except one, are all managed / vlan aware switches...
 
Hi all, In the meantime I have also upgraded my internet connection to 1T, 8 EUR more pr month, than the 0,5T plan. Is still ERX, ERpoe or maybe the 8 port Egderouter / edgerouter pro the right companion? Will the consumer type smart gigabit switches (D-Link, zyxel, TP-Link) be ok as well?


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ditch the dlinks. Before picking a router what is it you want from one? You really didnt mention much

First your connection speed, Most routers will handle gigabit speed with hardware acceleration until you start using more features on them. If you want gaming stuff asus is really the only choice unless you want to manually put in the L7 hash of the games you play manually. When you start using QoS ubiquiti starts to be very slow.

Mikrotik is another area for wired only routers.

What a lot arent saying is that routers are actually ubiquiti's weakpoint and for mikrotik routers are their strongpoint. Mikrotik's weak point are switches. pfsense is up for consideration too as the cost is dependent on what you have laying around (from salvaging a PC to getting a new one) and PCs are small enough to fit into your hands nowadays. I have an intel skull canyon NUC and its only 2x bigger than a raspberry pi.

As for APs working together there are solutions for that but i dont think ubiquiti/mikrotik offers that. For a low cost home network however i would suggest going with mikrotik as the router, ubiquiti for switch (if you need the ports or POE) and ubiquiti AC AP lite. Although ubiquiti does have a router with 3 POE ports (but you have to make sure that it can supply the needed wattage). Its very dependent on what you need from a router. You can also reuse your dlinks for wifi if you flash them with 3rd party firmware (dd-wrt, openwrt, tomato).
 
Thanks for the comments. You are right. I define myself as a consumer. I want a good setup that I don't have to tinker with. I live in a very internet of things type of home. I have more than 30 wired devices.. (TVs, PlayStation's, radios, home server, stationary pcs) on top of that there is also some 40 wifi devices. The household consists of 5 people that sometimes plays, Skype's and streams at the same time. The house is a fairly large three storied house. The plan was 1 router, three AP's and 5 switches. One switch at the 3 different multimedia rooms. . I have understood that Ubiquiti may need a bit more tinkering with, but hoped that YouTube could help me to set it up. So open for advice. And very thankfully for this great community.


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