Which Wifi AP for home use

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rscole86

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Topic # 230535 28-Feb-2018 11:59

Right, so moving on from my home network thread, I am now looking at putting some access points.

The house is a 1970 two story, with the bottom story being concrete cinder blocks and top floor being brick. To get wifi coverage atm I am relying on two old routers set up as AP's only. It works, but it is not pretty.

The house is L shaped, with the primary living area above the garage at one end of the house, with the other ending being bedrooms above the 2nd living area and closest to the back yard. The house is approx 150sqm per level, on 500sqm of land. I intend to have a dedicated ethernet cable to any AP from the poe switch.

I have just purchased an Edgerouter4, and am currently trying to get my head around it. So which AP should I get? I am hoping two will be enough, and I am currently considering;

UAP-AC-LITE - assuming I can gaurantee that it is an 802.3af model.
Xclaim XI-3 - seems to be hard to find in NZ now.
Cambium E400 - missed the boat on that stupidly low price two years ago.

Any pros/cons over each would be appreciated, especially around their cloud configuration services. I obviously do not want something that will become useless if cloud configuration disapears in a years/2 time, or costs me a yearly fee to maintain.

Cheers

michaelmurfy

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Reply # 1965775 28-Feb-2018 12:25

Don't go with the Xclaim anymore - it is pretty-much out of support.

The UniFi AC-LR or the Grandstream GWN7600 / 7610 are very good options. The Cambium E400 is a little expensive for what you're getting. The Grandstream have an integrated controller where the UniFi has a self hosted option (I also host a controller).

Also, if you go with the Grandstream don't forget buying a PoE injector with each AP.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
A quick guide to picking the right ISP | The Router Guide | Community UniFi Cloud Controller | Ubiquiti Edgerouter Tutorial

rscole86

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Reply # 1965779 28-Feb-2018 12:35

Thanks, consider the ~~xlclaim~~.

I have a poe swtich so injectors are not required. I was looking at the AC-LITE, as the PRO is so much more $$$, and it appears it now supports 802.3af so does not need its own passive injector.

The GWN76*s do seem to be well priced.

michaelmurfy

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Reply # 1965801 28-Feb-2018 12:44

The GWN's are better performance for the money.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
A quick guide to picking the right ISP | The Router Guide | Community UniFi Cloud Controller | Ubiquiti Edgerouter Tutorial

Mattmannz

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Reply # 1966426 1-Mar-2018 11:28

The new TPLink EAC models are good, have a controller almost identical to the Unifi's and perform very well.

chevrolux

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Reply # 1966440 1-Mar-2018 11:53

I personally just prefer Unifi because I have a controller in place to manage it - much like the community controller that MM runs for Geekzone.

So UAP-AC-LR is my pick. But that grandstream unit does have 3x3 antenna instead of of UAP's 2x2 so should be better for higher device counts. I like Unifi's management and actually can't remember the last time I've had to manually set up an AP - so many better things to do. I think the reality is in the home environment the throughput requirements really aren't all that much. A tablet streaming some HD video is probably going to be the highest consumer which is really all that much for modern access points to deal with.

networkn

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Reply # 1966444 1-Mar-2018 12:01

I really really rate the Cambium E400 (and now the E410). We have them deployed a lot. The range is nothing short of amazing. We used to deploy Engenius, they were ok for range, but reliability was an issue.

Paul1977

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Reply # 1966912 2-Mar-2018 09:54

If going Unifi I'd be looking at the UAP-AC-LR instead of the LITE if you are looking at only 2 APs. Price difference isn't much.

I have a single UAP-AC-LITE in my small single story house. It does the job, but in retrospect I would have been better with an LR (or maybe 2 LITEs).

The only real advantage of the LITE (in my opinion) is it has a smaller form factor so is aesthetically less obtrusive looking on the ceiling.