Ruckus R350 vs. R710

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tubs-ffm

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Sep 1, 2013
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Hello,

how the Ruckus R350 performs in 802.11ac (Wifi 5) mode in comparison to the R710?

I am upgrading my small home network from an old Cisco 802.11ac AP. Speed is not my main focus today, but a good connection in my home with concrete walls. Today, most of my devices are wired (home server, workstation PC, smart TV, home automation, IP phone). WiFi is used by mobile phones, tablets, and laptop for internet browsing). Today no real need for WiFi 6 or WiFi 6E.

I have good experience for more than the last 2 decades in buying used and oversized enterprise stuff for home use in some areas like networking. Therefore, my idea was to take a Ruckus R710 and one or two smaller devices like Ruckus H510 for the dark spots when I can get it for cheap. While searching I see that in Europe a Ruckus R350 is not much more expensive than a R710.

Better choice to be fit for the future? Any recommendation or experience?
 

ms264556

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Sep 13, 2021
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The R350 is advertised as for smaller areas, and sure enough the datasheet shows 2dbm less transmit & receive power. So right away that's one less drywall wall or ceiling it'll go through. Even up close though, the R350 won't manage the same per-client max throughput as an R710. Maybe 100Mbps less.

But your concrete walls are going to ruin your range, so you might find you need an AP every room or 2, unless you have non-concrete ceilings and mount high up in the cavity. The R710 will give you much better throughput than the R350 at the very edges of coverage, so it might be that you need 1 or 2 fewer APs, if the deadspots are in rooms where 2.4GHz is adequate.

The R350 is much smaller than the R710. So if you're going to need a few, they'll be less obvious. They'll also run off 802.3af rather than 802.3at. And you'll get software updates for 3 or 4 more years than the R710.

The H510 is nice for single rooms, but is a little chunky compared to a normal RJ45 wallplate. Since it's giving you 4 Gb ports (incl one PoE passthrough) it's basically free if you were going to buy a switch for the room anyhow.

You don't say where in Europe you are (but I guess maybe Frankfurt from your username). I have a few APs, including an R710 and some H510s, sitting boxed up and unused in my London flat. If you're S.E.-England based then feel free to contact me and you can grab them to try out.
 

ms264556

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I didn't mention above, but I'd recommend looking at R500/R600s if your walls are opaque to WiFi. These run an older version of unleashed, so no WPA3, but they have roughly the same performance as the R350 and cost next to nothing. So you could litter them around your ceilings for not much money.
 

tubs-ffm

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Sep 1, 2013
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Even up close though, the R350 won't manage the same per-client max throughput as an R710.
But your concrete walls are going to ruin your range, so you might find you need an AP every room or 2, unless you have non-concrete ceilings and mount high up in the cavity. The R710 will give you much better throughput than the R350 at the very edges of coverage, so it might be that you need 1 or 2 fewer APs, if the deadspots are in rooms where 2.4GHz is adequate.
Thank you. This helps me to make up my mind.

Concrete ceiling in a flat. The main device will be mounted at the ceiling at a central point in about 2,60 m hight. From there the main living area is in sight and this is the area where I might need "speed". I expect that I need for one room an additional AP. I all other areas I can live with 2.4 GHz at lower speed.

The R350 is much smaller than the R710. So if you're going to need a few, they'll be less obvious. They'll also run off 802.3af rather than 802.3at. And you'll get software updates for 3 or 4 more years than the R710.
The second device I will power from my Ruckus switch that can support 802.3at. For the main device, today I already use a PoE injector that even supports 802.3bt. So, power will be not an issue, only the energy bill.

The H510 is nice for single rooms, but is a little chunky compared to a normal RJ45 wallplate. Since it's giving you 4 Gb ports (incl one PoE passthrough) it's basically free if you were going to buy a switch for the room anyhow.
I gave up on Hxx models. The PoE input is on the backside. Don't want to make complicate wiring in this area. Jus hook it to the wall in a not visible area. Just fine for one room.


You don't say where in Europe you are (but I guess maybe Frankfurt from your username).
Yes, Germany. No so many used Ruckus devices on German and EU market.


I didn't mention above, but I'd recommend looking at R500/R600s if your walls are opaque to WiFi. These run an older version of unleashed, so no WPA3, but they have roughly the same performance as the R350 and cost next to nothing. So you could litter them around your ceilings for not much money.
My first idea was to switch to WiFi 6E when I wanted to upgrade my network. I changed my mind and changed my plans from consumer grade WiFi6E to enterprise grade WiFi 5 for now and think about if an upgrade is worth again in 5 to 10 year.

All Rx10, Rx20 and Hx10 devices are "end of sale" since Jan 2022 and will get supported till 2027. This seems to be the compromise with a view of 5 years+. WPA3 was in my mind when upgrading from my current set-up.
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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Test drive offer is valid also if you dont want to buy it from me since you want warranty or so:)
 

tubs-ffm

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Sep 1, 2013
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The selling option you did not mention before. :)
I am home user. No need for invoice and no need for warranty. That's why I am looking on used stuff on eBay.
 

tubs-ffm

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Sep 1, 2013
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Feedback after I made the decision to go with an R710.
Thank you @Rand__ !

I am impressed by the Ruckus R710!
It is not yet installed at the ceiling and it is located on a shelf behind a wall. But I get a stable connection with my mobile phone in a room wehre I continuously lost the connection to my Cisco AP.
 

colinb

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Jul 19, 2022
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You don't say where in Europe you are (but I guess maybe Frankfurt from your username). I have a few APs, including an R710 and some H510s, sitting boxed up and unused in my London flat. If you're S.E.-England based then feel free to contact me and you can grab them to try out.
@ms264556 You're the first UK-based person I've found with direct experience of Ruckus APs (only looking around for a few days tbf), so apologies for piggy-backing this thread. I'm completely renovating our house (Victorian, 240mm solid brick walls, lath and plaster) and extending it (open plan, plywood). Any chance I could pick your brains on siting and models, or perhaps even borrow one/some if you've still got them boxed and sitting around

Not interested in paying the premium for ax at the moment, so looking to R600s and the like. Need to find a way to make them invisible though...visual clutter is definitely not allowed!
 

ms264556

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Sep 13, 2021
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@ms264556 You're the first UK-based person I've found with direct experience of Ruckus APs (only looking around for a few days tbf), so apologies for piggy-backing this thread. I'm completely renovating our house (Victorian, 240mm solid brick walls, lath and plaster) and extending it (open plan, plywood). Any chance I could pick your brains on siting and models, or perhaps even borrow one/some if you've still got them boxed and sitting around

Not interested in paying the premium for ax at the moment, so looking to R600s and the like. Need to find a way to make them invisible though...visual clutter is definitely not allowed!
Sorry, bad news all round.
I'm ex-London really. I haven't been back to UK since COVID started (which is why pickup was needed).
And I have no spare Ruckus APs left.

My experience has been that R500/R600 APs have similar reach to a modern 802.11ax AP/router (but better at reliably providing a slow but stable connection at the very edges).
So you can use WifiAnalyzer or similar on your phone to see how much signal strength you lose from your existing router/AP through one wall. You can take this attenuation and guess how many rooms your R500/R600 it'll reach by starting at -32dbm in the same room, and stopping when you get to ~-70dbm. If you have a chimney or big appliance in a wall then probably you won't get a signal directly behind this. If you're buying wall mounted APs, like an H510, then start at -42dbm.

My experience in London and NZ was that ceilings were much easier for the WiFi to penetrate than walls, and a carefully positioned AP up inside the ceiling cavity can do the entire floor below + most rooms in the floor below that.

R500s were still going unsold at ~£40 on eBay UK last time I checked (a few weeks ago). If you see a few of these, they're probably still worth £40.
And if you just want to try Ruckus to see if it's an improvement then the R700 and 7982 both have fantastic performance, but are typically almost-free because they can't run unleashed. I would be completely happy to still run an R700 or 7982 if I had to buy in the current market.
 

colinb

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Jul 19, 2022
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Thanks for the reply, super helpful. I've just picked up an R600 for not-insane-money, so will wire that up and physically test what that does to signal strengths.

I'm hoping that I can get away with just two APs for the whole house - one under the attic floorboards towards the front of the house (i.e. in the upstairs ceiling), and one under the ground floor floorboards towards the back of the house, pointing up (chipboard vs plasterboard aside, radiation doesn't care if it's being blasted out downwards of upwards). We shall see...

If you had a choice between R600s for £80ish, and R720s at £270ish, which would you go for? Do you think:
  • ac Wave 1 vs ac Wave 2
  • 3x3 vs 4x4 MIMO
  • +4dB Rx sensitivity
  • integrated Zigbee
  • ongoing Unleashed updates
is worth £200 extra? There are only four of us in the house, and the Zigbee network is robust as-is. I'm leaning towards "not really", but appreciate any other opinions.

Thanks for the help again, very much appreciated
 

ms264556

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People round here seem to "need" an R710/R720/R750. So maybe ask them. I stuck with R600s at home until I replaced them with R650s (bought before the used-price spike).

I think I remember (it was a while ago) the R720 was maybe 40% faster than an R600. And the R650 was 40% faster than the R720.

On the R720 minus side, you need a much beefier PoE injector for the R720, and it's much harder to hide - it's huge, gargantuan.

Software updates are nice in theory, but there aren't many features you're missing. WPA3 and improved wifi calling are the main things you miss by having an R600. ZigBee is disabled in Unleashed. So nothing I'd notice personally.
And the R720 is End-of-Sale now, so you maybe don't have too many major Unleashed releases left.

I have 9 APs split over 5 houses (using R600s as cheap VPN appliances), so I've gotten good use out of a ZoneDirector. This gives the R600s WPA3, so they're not feeling too old at all. Now that the ZD1200 is nearing End-of-Sale, I've started putting all my documentation on modding ZDs onto GitHub, so if you like to tinker then I can recommend one of these.
 

colinb

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Jul 19, 2022
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Faster meaning time to boot? I really couldn't care less about that - the whole point of going down this route is that they basically shouldn only very rarely need to be rebooted.

I'll get this R600 and do some testing, which will I guess also answer the +4dB Rx sensitivity question. Sounds like all else doesn't matter to me, and R600s will do me just fine until the chip shortage sorts itself out and/or WiFi 7/8 is available for a genuine step-change upgrade.

Good to know re ZD1200, I'll keep my eyes peeled

Cheers for all the input, really appreciate it
 
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ms264556

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Faster meaning time to boot? I really couldn't care less about that - the whole point of going down this route is that they basically shouldn only very rarely need to be rebooted.
Faster meaning throughput, sorry. I think I measured the fast.com maximum speeds as ~480Mbps for R600, ~560Mbps for an R610, ~620Mbps for an R710, ~720Mbps for R720, and ~930Mbps for an R650 (but 930Mbps is my internet speed, so I'm not sure what the actual maximum is).
 

Becks0815

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Oct 15, 2022
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does anyone know the actual power consumption of ruckus APs, especially the one of the R650?