Engenius ECW230 (Wifi6 4x4 AP) - $125

[elvisimprsntr]

Anyone know what the difference is between the EWS377AP HW versions?

The v3 has a finned aluminum heat sink base for better heat dissipation. (Device v.3.0 on the label)

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/ruckus-wifi-6e-ap.32388/page-2#post-336648

Unfortunately, many sellers post the stock Engenius v1 photos without the finned heat sink.

I coud not discern any differences from their FCC filings. Maybe a rev of the QCOM chip or board layout differences.

https://fccid.io/A8J

 

[frameshift18]

Thanks!

Looks like the antenna and board layout are different between them, relatively substantial difference. V3 uses a second revision of the IPQ8072 SoC. Whether that means anything in the real world though, who knows.

https://fccid.io/A8J-EWS377AP
https://fccid.io/A8J-EWS377APV3

 

[bvd]

Oh my! Do you need to be on a mailing/customer list for this? Or just keep an eye on the webstore?

I switched to Engenius a while back because I was tired of the "un-meshness" of Asus AI Mesh, and reviews said that Engenius's fast roaming worked really well. In the end, I was able to position a single EWS377AP to cover my entire 2600sq ft (241m2) house, due in part to its rather open floorplan. Since then we've added some outdoor security cameras/lights/IoT stuff, and signal to them isn't great. So it may be time to expand.

How they announce it is something of a mixed bag tbh - sometimes they only mention it in their webinars (through their youtube channel), but usually they'll announce it in their newsletter - here's an example from when they released the ECW336 (6E AP):


The prices on their web store are usually higher than you'd get elsewhere when it comes to 'current' product lines, I'm guessing as they want to keep from undercutting their partners/distributors. They do often have decent deals on their wifi 5 hw though even through their own store.

Are there any outdoor-rated EnGenius APs? The Ruckus ones are ridiculously expensive compared to the indoor ones. My house has foil-lined insulation in the exterior walls, which makes wifi reception not so great outside. I want to throw an AP or two outside (ideally one in front and one in back) to increase coverage out there, but the Ruckus prices make that near impossible on a hobbyist budget.

I use the ECW160 (wifi 5) APs at both my parents and in-laws house - I think I paid something like 190 bucks for them? Looks like they're going for 220-250 now. I really wish I would've noticed this earlier:

EnGenius Store

EnGenius Store

www.engeniustech.com

Looks like they're doing a deal now on their indoor wifi 5 APs with 5 years of the pro license... They only recently released the 4x4 wifi 5 units, I didn't even think to look there, or I'd have picked up a couple for my sisters house lol.

The biggest annoyance I've had with engenius is that their marketing guys seem to be all over the place. One day, they might straight up 'remove' one of their products from their product listings for no reason (ex. the ECW160, which is still an active product, still being manufactured and sold), then the next day they might re-list it seemingly for no reason. Basically, if you don't keep up with the product stack, it's a hugely confusing mess

:-|

And the pricing on those damned PDU's!! I got so excited when I heard about them, they're treating them just like the switches as far as local vs cloud mgmt, the ability to power monitor and have SNMP traps... But 500 bugs for a 6 port? Puhleeeeaazzzee.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

I'll wait for WiFi 7 products, then pick up 6E access points at a substantial discount from the early adopters who paid a price premium for 6E.

 

[Dave Corder]

Well, I just snagged a ENS620EXT on eBay for under $50 (not sure I could even buy a Ruckus outdoor mounting kit for that...), so I guess I'm delving into the EnGenius world now, starting with outdoor coverage. Cloud management would be nice, but I don't mind spinning up another container on my Proxmox server to run ezMaster.

I may soon be swapping my Ruckus R710 units for ECW230 (if they can be adopted into ezMaster) or the non-cloud equivalent. And figuring out the best way to get 2.5 Gbps PoE to the APs from my ICX6610 core switch...oh my, what have I started? Curse you, STH!!

 

[bvd]

Appears someone just scored 5 more of em, but likely not from here as it looks like they paid full asking

Both of mine just arrived today - extremely well packaged. Came in fortinet boxes, even with protective sleeves that look to have been cut for each unit... I'm guessing the "devices from another manufacturer for enhanced integration into other network systems" were the fortinet APs, as (at least some of them are) actually the same HW (well, they were anyway at one point) with fortinet specific FW and a custom bottom half of the AP shell:

Fortinet FortiAP 831F - wireless access point Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 6 - FAP-831F-A - Wireless Access Points - CDW.com

Buy a Fortinet FortiAP 831F - wireless access point Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 6 at CDW.com

www.cdw.com

I've gotta re-deploy ezMaster, but I'll report back once I've tried to adopt em locally.

Side note: It seems Engenius has finally caught on to this, so I don't feel bad mentioning - it used to be that any time any ECW AP was registered under a new top level organization, it automatically had a free year of the pro license, regardless of it's previous status under earlier registration. No longer appears to be the case, as both of mine have pro through January 2024 this time. Shucks!

 

[elvisimprsntr]

@bvd

Is the $2,184.99 price for a Fortinet FortiAP 831F for real? 1 year of enterprise support costs more than I paid for a EWS377AP at 1/10th the price.

 

[bvd]

@bvd

Is the $2,184.99 price for a Fortinet FortiAP 831F for real? 1 year of enterprise support costs more than I paid for a EWS377AP at 1/10th the price.

Oh its real. Nobody actually pays that though, at least not that I'm aware.. Folks typically buy through their rep, and get hugely discounted rates on their P.O. so the sales guys look like they're "cutting them a deal".

I've not personally worked with fortinet in some time, but its probably still the same game - double the price for 'MSRP', just so you can halve it when the P.O. is cut so it looks like you're getting a "deal" (similar things happen with damn near everything with 'enterprise' attached, storage, backup, etc).

 

[Cruzader]

This is my pet peeve with hardware pricing overall towards enterprise.

Why even have the fake/inflated list prices when everybody knows that nobody is paying them, they are just pointless.
Its gone from "we might get a deal" to incresingly "no idea what this actualy costs" straight from even brands own reps, as they have to check what in the 30-80% off list the real price is.

If they can even check directly rather than send a request through 2-3 layers to get a bid.

And if you got the bid early quarter you even gotta get a new one later in quarter to get a good price.
Since chasing the quarterly sales numbers is also so well known now that increasingly you wait intil end of quarter to buy when they dump pricing to reach the quotas.

 

[bvd]

This is my pet peeve with hardware pricing overall towards enterprise.

Why even have the fake/inflated list prices when everybody knows that nobody is paying them, they are just pointless.
Its gone from "we might get a deal" to incresingly "no idea what this actualy costs" straight from even brands own reps, as they have to check what in the 30-80% off list the real price is.

If they can even check directly rather than send a request through 2-3 layers to get a bid.

And if you got the bid early quarter you even gotta get a new one later in quarter to get a good price.
Since chasing the quarterly sales numbers is also so well known now that increasingly you wait intil end of quarter to buy when they dump pricing to reach the quotas.

It's absolutely a steaming pile, worse than used car sales IMO. You find you're asking silly questions of yourself, like "when's the end of their sales quarter/fiscal year, so I can try to get my purchase in while they're trying to 'make their quota'", or "should I run a POC so I can get the vendors to compete with each other on price".

I feel like any product which is never sold at list price is one I've difficulty purchasing. And if I have to have a meeting with a sales person before I even get to discuss pricing, then I'd just rather walk away.

... Probably why I've avoided anything along the management track in my career, I just don't have the patience for it lol

 

[Cruzader]

... Probably why I've avoided anything along the management track in my career, I just don't have the patience for it lol

Ive done team lead and incident manager stuff running the helpdesk along with processes/QC around it and thats about as high as im willing to go in that direction.

A few systems that im incharge of and have control over in a T3 position and im good as it is.
Already enough meetings/projects, would be looking for a good bridge to jump off if in meetings all day like management.

 

[DouglasteR]

EXTRA tempting..........

 

[Stephan]

Why even have the fake/inflated list prices when everybody knows that nobody is paying them, they are just pointless.

Actually, they are not pointless, because of the so-called "anchoring bias". Check Wikipedia and scroll down. Even if you are aware of it, you can't help it. The first price (here the list price) you see, is the one which you assign the most importance to. Sales depts worth their salt know this and use it every day to achieve a higher sales price. There is a whole bunch of these tricks. If you know them, you can sell refridgerators to eskimos.

 

[bvd]

Actually, they are not pointless, because of the so-called "anchoring bias". Check Wikipedia and scroll down. Even if you are aware of it, you can't help it. The first price (here the list price) you see, is the one which you assign the most importance to. Sales depts worth their salt know this and use it every day to achieve a higher sales price. There is a whole bunch of these tricks. If you know them, you can sell refridgerators to eskimos.

I won't disagree, and understand it totally makes sense, at least tactically from the sales side of things...

... I still hate it :t-p:

(edit: didn't realize the bbcode smilies didn't work here lol)

*D

(mo' edit: should've spent more time posting and less time lurking so I'd have known this!)

 

[bvd]

Well, I just snagged a ENS620EXT on eBay for under $50 (not sure I could even buy a Ruckus outdoor mounting kit for that...), so I guess I'm delving into the EnGenius world now, starting with outdoor coverage. Cloud management would be nice, but I don't mind spinning up another container on my Proxmox server to run ezMaster.

I may soon be swapping my Ruckus R710 units for ECW230 (if they can be adopted into ezMaster) or the non-cloud equivalent. And figuring out the best way to get 2.5 Gbps PoE to the APs from my ICX6610 core switch...oh my, what have I started? Curse you, STH!!

So it took me far longer than I'd like to admit, but I finally got ezMaster set back up. I spent what felt like forever trying to get their ovf file to work (extract that and the vmdk from the OVA they provided as I'm running proxmox), but eventually just gave up, created a new base VM, then imported the VMDK - sooo much easier, ugh.

I got a couple of the switches added, no problem (ECS1112FP, as well as an ECS1152) - kinda figures I guess, as both have full local mgmt GUIs. The ECW APs though, they don't have any check codes printed on them, so they're unable to register... I used to have an ECW230(v1) that I swear had it printed on it, but unfortunately I no longer have it to check (got soaked when water was coming into the basement from the room above and went to recycling )

I'm going to reach out to engenius support when I get a moment to see if they've got some alternative method for those who wish to have local mgmt of the newer HW - I'll update here after.

 

[Dave Corder]

So it took me far longer than I'd like to admit, but I finally got ezMaster set back up. I spent what felt like forever trying to get their ovf file to work (extract that and the vmdk from the OVA they provided as I'm running proxmox), but eventually just gave up, created a new base VM, then imported the VMDK - sooo much easier, ugh.

I got a couple of the switches added, no problem (ECS1112FP, as well as an ECS1152) - kinda figures I guess, as both have full local mgmt GUIs. The ECW APs though, they don't have any check codes printed on them, so they're unable to register... I used to have an ECW230(v1) that I swear had it printed on it, but unfortunately I no longer have it to check (got soaked when water was coming into the basement from the room above and went to recycling )

I'm going to reach out to engenius support when I get a moment to see if they've got some alternative method for those who wish to have local mgmt of the newer HW - I'll update here after.

Thanks for looking into this! I appreciate the information you've provided so far in this thread (my wallet does not appreciate it as much, lol). Please keep us posted (my pair of ECW230's should arrive tomorrow).

BTW, for anyone else looking to virtualize ezMaster on Proxmox, these two resources gave me all the info I need to extract the disk image from their download and attach it to a new VM with the right settings (disk and network): Notes on Running EZMaster on Unraid – Realtime's Blog and https://ostechnix.com/import-qcow2-into-proxmox/

 

[bvd]

The problem I had was that the download from their website provided the oldest possible version, v1.0.24 (did for me anyway!) - that one imported OK, but they require stepped upgrades, and to get to v1.0.72 would've taken for friggin ever. I'm not patient enough I guess lolol

So I pulled the one from their EU synology share (also 'lol'), which has the vmdk name and location hard-coded in the ovf. At that point, it's just easier to create a base 2 CPU vm, them `qm importdisk` to get it running imo

 

[Dave Corder]

My ECW230 units just arrived. They've been thoughtfully reset to defaults and mine have firmware v1.5.56. Tinkering with them now. Thought maybe I could crossflash them with the EWS377APv3 firmware so I could adopt them into ezMaster, but no dice - the web UI rejects the .bin files currently available on enGenius's site (3.9.1, 3.9.3, and 3.8.2.2).

Doing some quick & dirty research on flashing these units, I stumbled upon this guy: Netgear WAX218 (hey, that looks familiar ). There's a way to use SSH access to the Netgear variant to install OpenWRT. SSH seems to be running but locked down on the ECW230 cloud firmware, though. But maybe that's a place to start.

 

[bvd]

My ECW230 units just arrived. They've been thoughtfully reset to defaults and mine have firmware v1.5.56. Tinkering with them now. Thought maybe I could crossflash them with the EWS377APv3 firmware so I could adopt them into ezMaster, but no dice - the web UI rejects the .bin files currently available on enGenius's site (3.9.1, 3.9.3, and 3.8.2.2).

Doing some quick & dirty research on flashing these units, I stumbled upon this guy: Netgear WAX218 (hey, that looks familiar ). There's a way to use SSH access to the Netgear variant to install OpenWRT. SSH seems to be running but locked down on the ECW230 cloud firmware, though. But maybe that's a place to start.

If I'm remembering properly (and it's been a while, so take it with a grain of salt!), you had to initiate the upgrade via API in order for it to 'take' the EWS firmware - the AP started an API server on port 4430 I think(?)

I can't remember all the details, but I'm pretty sure I still have a saved config from back when I was messing around with it stored somewhere. I'd have to dig it up, but the older firmware revs had the option to take a back up from the UI (just like the EWS models), and that backup was just a zip of the entire /etc directory, including the dss and rsa keys for dropbear...

 

[Dave Corder]

If I'm remembering properly (and it's been a while, so take it with a grain of salt!), you had to initiate the upgrade via API in order for it to 'take' the EWS firmware - the AP started an API server on port 4430 I think(?)

If you have any information on how to use that API, I would appreciate it! There's an API of some sort available on port 80, via /api/ - been playing around with that with Postman, but I'm not sure how to discover any hidden API calls - all I've been successful with so far are what's in the source code for the web UI pages.

Edit: I did find this interesting tidbit hiding in the page source for /lsp/countDown.html:

    //system("curl -v -k -X POST \"https://127.0.0.1:4430/api/sys/fw_upgrade\" -H \"accept: */*\" -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" -H \"Authorization: Basic YWRtaW46YWRtaW4=\" -d \"{\"enable\":true}\"");

No luck yet figuring out how to actually upload the firmware on the port 4430 endpoint, though.