Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

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Parallax

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Nov 8, 2020
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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.
I did email and ask specifically if they would provide support, they said "no problem," but as you say you never know until you have a problem. But the units are built like a tank so agreed this is pretty theoretical.

A vSZ and vRIOT I think is more than what I paid per unit. o_O
 
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Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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The problem is that neither of those comes with licenses either, so these come on top... You can get SmartZone HW devices cheaper every now and then but with needing extra licenses... this is not a solution for @ home :(
 

Parallax

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Nov 8, 2020
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The problem is that neither of those comes with licenses either, so these come on top... You can get SmartZone HW devices cheaper every now and then but with needing extra licenses... this is not a solution for @ home :(
ZigBee USB key it is then. :confused: It's a shame given the hardware is in the AP, unused.
 

LodeRunner

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Apr 27, 2019
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Yeah, they want more money. I mean, I see why, the software dev side obviously isn't free, though the hardware is probably a minimal extra cost in the BoM of the AP. Just annoying as a home user without the enterprise level budget (when talking about APs that are north of $1k USD each at any rate).

I'm still searching for a pair of R750's to replace a pair of UniFi AP Pros. I could probably get away with one R750, but the geometry of my house creates some funky dead zones. Ruckus' antenna design would probably make up for that, but the market is such that I would be annoyed if I got one, then had to wait or pay significantly more for the second. I missed out on some outstanding R750 prices before or mid-pandemic, but that was an expense I couldn't budget for at the time.
 

Parallax

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Nov 8, 2020
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Yeah, they want more money. I mean, I see why, the software dev side obviously isn't free, though the hardware is probably a minimal extra cost in the BoM of the AP. Just annoying as a home user without the enterprise level budget (when talking about APs that are north of $1k USD each at any rate).

I'm still searching for a pair of R750's to replace a pair of UniFi AP Pros. I could probably get away with one R750, but the geometry of my house creates some funky dead zones. Ruckus' antenna design would probably make up for that, but the market is such that I would be annoyed if I got one, then had to wait or pay significantly more for the second. I missed out on some outstanding R750 prices before or mid-pandemic, but that was an expense I couldn't budget for at the time.
I think given the hardware is in there I've already paid for it, and it's sold with "IoT radio" in the list of features without an asterisk to say "by the way, turning on the IoT radio costs more than the AP did." So I find this method pretty mean, they're happy to allow you to run Unleashed on it so they understand it's not always going into huge enterprise installs. Why not allow IoT for low cost up to say 5 APs? Or even 2-3?
 

LodeRunner

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Apr 27, 2019
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Welcome to enterprise hardware and software licensing. Gotta have something to upsell. I feel somewhat the same about the differentiation between ESXi editions (Enterprise vs Enterprise+ in particular; though they appear to have simplified it down to standard vs e+).

10g ports on some of their switches are still a licensed feature, even though the hardware is already there.
 

sth

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Oct 29, 2015
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They recently changed the licensing for vRIOT 2.x to support Device-based licensing from the previous AP-based licensing model. The Device-based licensing model allocates licenses by connected devices instead of APs but still based on 1,3 or 5 year subscriptions. If I understand the docs correctly it looks to be around $2500 for 5 years and 250 devices.
 

ms264556

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epicurean

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Sep 29, 2014
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Need help from my learned friends here:

After updating the firmware in my unleashed network ( 3x R610 and 1 x H510) to the latest 200.13.6.319, the 3 R610 have intermittenly been disconnecting on and off. Previously, my master AP WIFI(on 2nd floor) is usually off, and so is the H510 WIFI,and the WIFI coverage is great with just the 2 R610s (attic and ground floor). The master AP is on the 2nd floor, and the H510 is in the masterbedroom -on the 2nd floor as well.

Now the R610 in the attic does not come back on, and the H510 takes on a lot more clients on WIFI and the R610 on the ground floor comes on and off. How do I revert back to the original AP arrangement or at least prevent the Attic and Ground floor APs from being turned off?
 

tubs-ffm

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Sep 1, 2013
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Now the R610 in the attic does not come back on, and the H510 takes on a lot more clients on WIFI and the R610 on the ground floor comes on and off. How do I revert back to the original AP arrangement or at least prevent the Attic and Ground floor APs from being turned off?
If you can get access the unleashed web interface you can downgrade to the firmware running before:
--> Administration --> Upgrade --> Select Firmware Version --> xxx.xx.xx.xxx.xxx (Downgrade)
 
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epicurean

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If you can get access the unleashed web interface you can downgrade to the firmware running before:
--> Administration --> Upgrade --> Select Firmware Version --> xxx.xx.xx.xxx.xxx (Downgrade)
I dont think it has anything to do the firmware per se, but the so called upgrade certainly borked my setup. I got someone's attention at Ruckus when I posted this issue on their forums so hopefully they can help me fix this

Update- This firmware is really driving my network crazy. Any suggested firmware that is stable? I dont need the bleeding edge features.
 
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ms264556

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I'm working on improving the Unleashed/ZoneDirector python API with better performance, reliability and functionality.

If you have some functionality you'd like to be able to script then add an issue to my fork:-

I've already added methods to control AP LEDs, block/unblock clients, enable/disable SSIDs, and change SSID passphrases. I'm currently working on DPSK editing.

I targeted Python because this should let me create an improved Home Assistant integration & Linux shell scripting commands. If you use PowerShell for your scripting let me know too, and I may do a port.
 
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epicurean

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Sep 29, 2014
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I'm working on improving the Unleashed/ZoneDirector python API with better performance, reliability and functionality.

If you have some functionality you'd like to be able to script then add an issue to my fork:-

I've already added methods to control AP LEDs, block/unblock clients, enable/disable SSIDs, and change SSID passphrases. I'm currently working on DPSK editing.

I targeted Python because this should let me create an improved Home Assistant integration & Linux shell scripting commands. If you use PowerShell for your scripting let me know too, and I may do a port.
Can this be integrated into Openhab?
 

ms264556

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Can this be integrated into Openhab?
Yes and No.

Definitely it won't be integrated by me.
Openhab is Java based, and I find Java annoying enough so I won't work on it in my limited free time.
Home Assistant seemed to have more momentum, and I didn't mind learning some Python.

Having said that, most of the hard work was finding AJAX queries which would reliably succeed on all ZD and Unleashed versions: the necessary requests have changed over time, and Ruckus has very fussy AJAX parsing, which will crash and reboot your AP/ZD if you send it something unexpected.
So using the same logic and payloads should be easy enough for someone who cares (e.g. maybe @Sealside ).
Compared to Expect code targeting the SSH CLI, the AJAX queries can be orders of magnitude faster, and don't require taking a single-user lock. So there's plenty of upside, even if you don't need the new functionality.
I licensed everything as no-attribution BSD, so the code can be stolen wholesale and whacked into any other project.

Edit:
Just as an idea of the performance difference I see with the python client (connecting to ZD and various models of Unleashed, with various numbers of clients, APs and WLANs), most operations are 3x - 5x faster.
 
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ms264556

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What feature are you missing in the current binding for openhab?
Definitely using AJAX simplifies client blocking: there is no initial acl setup required.
And you can e.g. pull up client rx/tx/rssi/etc stats history (which was a feature request I saw when I was considering whether to hack on the openhab integration).
 
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