Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

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Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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Well I think you're spot on. I enabled smart roam through CLI, and at values above 5, devices will constantly bounce between the two APs. Even at low values there are some difficulties with disconnects. Overall I think I get better performance and results with just one AP which is disappointing. My goal was to have an AP on opposite sides of the house since it's more elongated and hopefully improve my wifi outside. I may have to nix the idea. I assumed that ruckus would provide a better experience than say consumer related equipment, but I guess my expectations are too great. No idea how Linus from LTT has so many Ruckus APs in his house and has any reasonable experience on it.
Roaming depends on the clients having well-functioning roaming implementations as much as the AP's.

Smart Roam however has no Client dependency and the AP simply cuts off a client and refuses to allow reconnection if below a specified connection strength. The client has no forewarning or list of other AP's to immediately shift to, so several seconds of disconnect ensue.

802.11k and R are more dependent on your device doing the right thing in combination with the AP giving suggestions.

802.11k - helps devices search quickly for nearby APs that are available as roaming targets by creating an optimized list of channels. When the signal strength of the current AP weakens, your device will scan for target APs from this list.

802.11r - When your device roams from one AP to another on the same network, 802.11r uses a feature called Fast Basic Service Set Transition (FT) to authenticate more quickly.
 
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custom90gt

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Nov 17, 2016
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IMO, It’s worth buying or renting some WiFi site analysis tools to get the most out of your existing access points to ensure reliable and performant coverage with robust hand off between devices. I’m running a combination of 6x r750/r850 currently in a 3000sqft home and it’s 100% reliable at ~gigabit speeds.

I recommend
Chanalyzer | Spectrum Analysis for Complex Networks

WiFi Explorer Pro 3 - Professional Wi-Fi Scanner Analyzer for Mac

I'm impressed you're able to do so in such a small space. Do you mind sharing some of your configuration settings (I realize they are not applicable to me, just curious what you are adjusting). As much as I'd love to pick up something like a spectrum analyzer, it doesn't make sense when 1 R650 is enough to cover my whole 3000sqft home with reasonable speeds (eg my wife would not be happy with that purchase, lol).

Roaming depends on the clients having well-functioning roaming implementations as much as the AP's.

Smart Roam however has no Client dependency and the AP simply cuts off a client and refuses to allow reconnection if below a specified connection strength. The client has no forewarning or list of other AP's to immediately shift to, so several seconds of disconnect ensue.

802.11k and R are more dependent on your device doing the right thing in combination with the AP giving suggestions.

802.11k - helps devices search quickly for nearby APs that are available as roaming targets by creating an optimized list of channels. When the signal strength of the current AP weakens, your device will scan for target APs from this list.

802.11r - When your device roams from one AP to another on the same network, 802.11r uses a feature called Fast Basic Service Set Transition (FT) to authenticate more quickly.
I do have both 802.11k and R enabled however most of my devices were sticking to the first powered on AP, that's likely a function of having too much signal coverage from it though. I may have to disable smart roam and mess around with power levels. I may try the netspotapp as suggested by sth as that is more within my price range. One potential bummer is I am fairly limited in where I can run each AP because my house does not have any significant runs of Cat6 other than in my basement from my laundry (server) room to my office on the other end of the house.
 
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Vesalius

Active Member
Nov 25, 2019
252
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IMO, It’s worth buying or renting some WiFi site analysis tools to get the most out of your existing access points to ensure reliable and performant coverage with robust hand off between devices. I’m running a combination of 6x r750/r850 currently in a 3000sqft home and it’s 100% reliable at ~gigabit speeds.

I recommend
Chanalyzer | Spectrum Analysis for Complex Networks

WiFi Explorer Pro 3 - Professional Wi-Fi Scanner Analyzer for Mac

Wow, I thought I had some overkill with 2 r650 and a single r750 in a similar size home, but you win. :) Also experiencing good handoffs on all modern devices (almost 100% apple iOS here). Only some older Leviton "smarthome" wifi switches do not play nicely, but they are the problem.

Are all three of those links needed separately or are they separate individual options?
 

custom90gt

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Nov 17, 2016
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Wow, I thought I had some overkill with 2 r650 and a single r750 in a similar size home, but you win. :) Also experiencing good handoffs on all modern devices (almost 100% apple iOS here). Only some older Leviton "smarthome" wifi switches do not play nicely, but they are the problem.

Are all three of those links needed separately or are they separate individual options?
Also curious what you are using for your settings for good handoffs. Perhaps not smart-roam? Are you adjusting power on the bands to get devices to switch over?
 

adman_c

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Feb 14, 2016
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Also curious what you are using for your settings for good handoffs. Perhaps not smart-roam? Are you adjusting power on the bands to get devices to switch over?
Not who you asked, but I'm just using the Unleashed defaults for the radio settings and my devices seem to do well on handoffs. All iOS though, and my home has a layout that's very vertical, so maybe I get less radio overlap since I don't have more than one AP per floor?
 
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Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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Also curious what you are using for your settings for good handoffs. Perhaps not smart-roam? Are you adjusting power on the bands to get devices to switch over?
No I also found smart-roam to be more of a bull in a china shop than I needed.

I enabled 802.11r on wpa3 SSID, 802.11k is not available on wpa3 SSID in 200.12.*. I have both 802.11r and K enabled on a separate wpa2 SSID.

I have all AP set to AUTO on TX power.
I specifically assign both 2.4 and 5GHz channels to my three AP's. My house is more rectangular single story, so basically a line of 3 AP's.
2.4GHz the two outside AP's on Channel 6 and the center AP on Channel 1
5GHz the 2 outside AP's on separate higher non-DFS channels and the middle AP on lower Non-DFS channel.
 
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Vesalius

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ms264556

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Sep 13, 2021
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And I confirmed that the Unleashed 200.13 Dedicated Master mode works fine on an R650. I expect it will also work on an R550 (since these all share the same firmware).
I'm sure performance won't be up to R750/R850 standard, but I'm not running short on memory or storage space, and I haven't seen any issues after a day of testing.

You need to patch in a root shell, and lie about the model number (bsp set model R750 then bsp commit). Now you can enable Dedicated Master mode.
 
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edac

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Jun 1, 2022
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I finally got around to patching free URL Filtering licenses onto ZoneDirector and Unleashed.
(I don't do filtering on my APs, so I'd forgotten it needed licensing).

Add a URL Filtering License to Unleashed

Add Licenses and Support to ZoneDirector
Added the URL filtering license(128 APs) to unleashed and it worked. However, new/existing APs cannot join/rejoin the unleashed network any more with error "Connection request from AP is refused;AP limit reached in URL Filtering license" until URL filtering was disabled on WLANs.
 

coxhaus

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Jul 7, 2020
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There is a difference between having wireless and having high speed wireless. An easy test is to turn off your 2.4 GHz wireless and see how well your wireless works now. I have done this. I ran my house 3200+ sqft in the past using only 5 GHz only in the past before 6 GHz. It takes a lot more APs for coverage.
 

custom90gt

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Nov 17, 2016
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There is a difference between having wireless and having high speed wireless. An easy test is to turn off your 2.4 GHz wireless and see how well your wireless works now. I have done this. I ran my house 3200+ sqft in the past using only 5 GHz only in the past before 6 GHz. It takes a lot more APs for coverage.
What are you using for 6GHz wireless?
 

coxhaus

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Jul 7, 2020
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What are you using for 6GHz wireless?
I am not worrying about it right now as I don't have any clients. At some point I will upgrade my wireless. I have a couple of Cisco 2.5 gigabit ethernet wireless APs but not 6GHz. I still don't have a 2.5 gigabit switch. I run L3 switching and the Cisco is still a little pricey for home use.
 
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RoachedCoach

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Feb 4, 2020
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Anyone here have much experience with the Guest network? I set one up for the when the family visited over Thanksgiving and every user (regardless of device type/OS) had to login twice. First time would always fail, second time would work.

Is this a known thing, or anyone have any thoughts on it?

Running an R610 and two R510s on latest Unleashed.
 

coxhaus

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Jul 7, 2020
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Anyone here have much experience with the Guest network? I set one up for the when the family visited over Thanksgiving and every user (regardless of device type/OS) had to login twice. First time would always fail, second time would work.

Is this a known thing, or anyone have any thoughts on it?

Running an R610 and two R510s on latest Unleashed.
Just create a VLAN and call it guest. It will give you more control in the end. You can lockout the new VLAN to where it does not have access to the rest of the network unless you want to share a printer or something. More control.
 
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Parallax

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I bought a couple of R750s, new, through Taobao via Superbuy; they were ~£400 each shipped, over 50% less than buying new here in the UK at the time (late 2021). They are really superb units, and registered fine online for warranty and support with Comscope. So might be worth keeping an eye on Taobao.

The only thing I'm missing is the licence for the ZigBee IoT radios; are they really that expensive to activate? :(
 
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ms264556

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I bought a couple of R750s, new, through Taobao via Superbuy; they were ~£400 each shipped, over 50% less than buying new here in the UK at the time (late 2021). They are really superb units, and registered fine online for warranty and support with Comscope. So might be worth keeping an eye on Taobao.

The only thing I'm missing is the licence for the ZigBee IoT radios; are they really that expensive to activate? :(
Nice purchase!

If you also pay for vSZ & vRIOT then Ruckus will let you use the IoT radios.

Just to temper your expectations, I've also had no problem registering my used APs & ZoneDirectors for warranty & support. But when you try to RMA or raise a support request then they'll insist you provide proof you purchased from an authorized dealer or are the 1st purchaser of a Lennar home.

On the other hand, after buying ~300 used/grey-market APs I've only had one AP die on me. So this is a largely theoretical problem.