My personal opinion, don't go with a fan powered device next to your desk.
Can I get an amen!
The non-poe was a cool 800 bucks less than the poe models I had seen over the previous 2ish months before I bought. Thankfully, no shortage of power points there, and the circuit is overprovisioned at the switchboard so I’ll survive the lack of power
Here I cannot follow. But for me it is hard to imagine where "one network" (SSID) that is span via multiples AP across the whole location. These can be connected wired to your switches in the best case wherever is possible or connected wireless by mash. Multiple networks with multiple SSID and VLAN are possible for sure.
So it’s not an issue of getting the IoT devices to see my wifi network, it’s an issue of them being able to transmit back to the AP. Most of them are little ESP devices, so when they try to transmit information to the wifi network, they often time out, with the AP never receiving the message. I’ve put it down to interference from all the wifi networks from other apartments. When I use Netspot, there’s a minimum of three independent networks for every channel, and when I look for the captive network a bare ESP32 is broadcasting as a test, it stops being visible when moved about 4 meters from the desktop running netspot.
I did the same test at my folks, with the same desktop and ESP, and it had good signal strength to about 30 meters (then it dropped below -80 RSSI). They are in a detached house, and you can only faintly detect one other network from a neighbour.
With some playing around with a really long Ethernet cable and a travel Wifi AP, I found a spot at each end of the apartment where the wifi IoT devices would connect and stay connected while the AP was there, so while we run the cables in the roof and walls, I figured I’d put a AP in each spot and power them over twisted pair.
As your are using 100% Ruckus switches I would recommend Ruckus AP with Ruckus unleashed. Ruckus unleashed gives you the possibility to manage all AP via a web interface. No controller required, one AP is the controller and all other could be fall back. If you WiFi 5 fulfills your needs, go with Ruckus R710, R610 or R320 depending on the power you need. If you need WiFi 6 go with an R750, R650 or R350. Ruckus unleashed even gives the possibility to integrate all your ICX switches for monitor purposes. In such a centrally managed network that is span across the complete location you have the plausibility to provide certain SSID only at certain APs. The bigger enterprise APs mange their power level in such a network to get best overlapping situation.
Ruckus Unleashed, ay… I will definitely look at that.
Honestly, the tablet and phone are basically for messaging and web browsing, and I don’t really consume video off the net a la YouTube, social media, so I don’t even really need high bandwidth wifi for them. Everything that I need lots of bandwidth for is connected by copper Ethernet at the moment, the upgrade is moving all that into the walls instead of along skirting boards.
I cannot imagine a use case as you described where separate AP with separate SSID gives any benefit. Maybe there are.
Yeah, it’s a pickle, hey? The multiple APs are to have APs in range so that the low powered devices can reach them, and it doesn’t matter how powerful a single AP I can get, it won’t make the signal coming back from the devices stronger, and it can’t clean up the interference from all the other networks that drowns them out.
If I could, I’d spend a week going around the apartments, help everyone tune their wifi routers TX levels and channel choices to work more harmoniously, I really would! But apparently that would be “weird” and “off putting”. And I’d have to spend some time doing it to every new person’s router too
I probably could use the two APs for my main network too, have it on the 5ghz and VLAN off the 2.4Ghz, since all my “client” devices that use wifi are happy enough on 5Ghz, however I don’t know how far apart they need to be to support roaming connections. Still could be worth doing.
Optics is a good way to connect infrastructure devices. I do not know how much effort it is in your case for puling all the cables. Today 10 GBit is fine. Think about if it is worth to spend a little bit more for the cables to be 100 GBit ready.
Yeah, we’re cutting open most of the walls and roof to remove a failed aircon unit, it’s drain pipe and coolant pipes, and installing its (more powerful) replacement in a different part of the unit that will let it reach the bedrooms and kitchen better. When I worked out everything we’re opening for that, I realised that I could network everything and only open 3 more spots, so why not?
And getting in there is such a nightmare as it is, I figured putting in optics means there will never be a reason to open the walls again. I’m gonna try and push flexible conduit just in case, but not sure how that’s gonna turn out.
Pretty sure the optics will be OM5, since it has more multiplexing possible, so highest possible bandwidth, and it really doesn’t cost any different to OM4 anyway, not at the lengths I’d be getting
I did consider OS2 since it nearly has a limitless ceiling, but even the short range transceivers get well pricey, well fast!
Thanks for the viewpoints, it does really help just to see what questions come to mind for others looking at it all!
