Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

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coxhaus

Active Member
Jul 7, 2020
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Has anybody looked at the new Cisco CBW240ac wireless APs? Cisco has added traffic shaping with voice as 1 one of the categories for roaming. The price is cheap especially if you buy them in a multi-pack somewhere around $169 each.

The controller is built-in to every AP so the cluster can promote a new master controller if you lose 1. I think Rukus does this also.

The way I understand it Cisco also added Facebook and google for authenticating a guest network.

I don't own any yet but I own the older Cisco wireless APs with plans to upgrade. Amazon sold out before I ordered them.
 

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
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@Seaside
I get this error in OH

2020-09-23 16:33:23.914 [WARN ] [.core.thing.binding.BaseThingHandler] - Handler UnleashedControllerThingHandler tried updating the thing status although the handler was already disposed.


What does it mean?
 

Scarlet

Member
Jul 29, 2019
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I just received my H510 and learned a few things while integrating this as a mesh node into my unleashed network.

I only want to use the H510 to act as a MESH node that provides LAN Ports to client devices, i.e. it should only provide LAN access and not broadcast any SSIDs. To achieve this I had to move the AP to a new manually created AP Group: manually created AP Groups allow the selection of SSIDs to broadcast on the APs in that group, even the selection to broadcast no SSID.

Meshing is not related to AP groups, so even though all my other APs are in the "System Default" AP Group and the H510 is in its own AP Group all APs are part of the same Mesh Network (there is only one system-wide Mesh SSID).
 

Dave Corder

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Dec 21, 2015
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Just out of curiosity, are there any specific technical requirements for the 802.11r FT Roaming and 802.11k Neighbor-list Report? What are peoples' experiences with clients roaming between APs with those turned on?

Scenario: I have two R710 units, one on each level of my house (on opposite ends). One is connected directly to my core switch (ICX6610-48P), the other is connected to the core switch via a MoCA network, which adds about 2-3 ms of latency. I have 802.11r and 802.11k enabled on my main WLAN, but I usually see disconnect and reconnect alerts (via the Unleashed app) for my phone (Google Pixel 3 XL running Android 11) when I go up and down the stairs with it and I feel like I shouldn't be seeing that behavior. So, I'm wondering if maybe that extra latency on the MoCA-connected AP is preventing the fast roaming from working seamlessly, or if something else is not quite right with my network, or if my expectations are just too high.

This is mostly an academic question, though, as (if all goes smoothly), this weekend I will be installing an ICX6450-24P upstairs to feed the upstairs AP, some IP cams, and my office and running the necessary cabling through the attic, which will then let me retire the MoCA network.
 

sth

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Oct 29, 2015
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I've had zero issues with seamless roaming between APs on my r710, r720 and r730's controlled through smartzone.
It "just worked" once I had power levels dialed in. If you power levels aren't right, devices will be unwilling to disconnect and migrate. Primarily tested with iOS/ OSX.
 
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ramblinreck47

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Aug 3, 2019
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I've had zero issues with seamless roaming between APs on my r710, r720 and r730's controlled through smartzone.
It "just worked" once I had power levels dialed in. If you power levels aren't right, devices will be unwilling to disconnect and migrate. Primarily tested with iOS/ OSX.
I’m thinking about going with Ruckus when I build my house in the next couple of years.

What you mean by dialing in your power levels?
 

sth

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Oct 29, 2015
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broadcast levels for each AP needs to be set optimally, too strong and devices will be less liable to exit to migrate to a stronger signal from a neighboring AP. If you just whack them all to maximum it will be less than optimal.
 
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ramblinreck47

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Aug 3, 2019
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broadcast levels for each AP needs to be set optimally, too strong and devices will be less liable to exit to migrate to a stronger signal from a neighboring AP. If you just whack them all to maximum it will be less than optimal.
Do you have any pointers for how to do that?
 

sth

Active Member
Oct 29, 2015
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You can use something like netspot and your laptops built in WiFi capabilities to get most of the way there. It’s on sale pretty frequently. A more robust solution is something like chanalyzer and a WiSpy 2.4/5ghz device which can help get the rest of the way as well as identify sources of interference. It’s expensive though although there may be folks willing to rent one out for a week too.
 

Sealside

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May 10, 2019
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Stockholm/Sweden
I used to run 3x unifi aps at home. I have replaced it with one r710 which i run full power on. I then have a r510 in my shed outdoors and a r500 in the garage located far away from the house. So for me it works well with full output power.

When experimenting with roaming, the auto settings seems to work ok for me (intrducing additional aps). But to sum up, one r710 covers my entire house in full tx power mode.
 

dswartz

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Jul 14, 2011
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I used to run 3x unifi aps at home. I have replaced it with one r710 which i run full power on. I then have a r510 in my shed outdoors and a r500 in the garage located far away from the house. So for me it works well with full output power.

When experimenting with roaming, the auto settings seems to work ok for me (intrducing additional aps). But to sum up, one r710 covers my entire house in full tx power mode.
same here. replaced 3 unifi APs with 2 R710. One downstairs, one upstairs in a 2000 sq ft house. Everyone gets a great signal. Flashed with unleashed. Very handy since I also replaced my ubiquiti switch with 2 brocade 7250-24 switches in a stacked configuration. With newer firmware, they can be made visible in the unleashed GUI.
 

dswartz

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Jul 14, 2011
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I have 3 r610s coming next week.


Interesting.. Which firmware? For the 7250s I'm assuming?
Correct, 2 stacked 7250-24 units. Version:08.0.92bT211. I'm not sure which released pushed out unleashed support, but the 92b version has it for sure.
 
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Scarlet

Member
Jul 29, 2019
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A new unleashed firmware is available: Build 200.9.10.4.212

• Fixed an R750 target-assert issue. [ER-8674]
• Adjusted MU-MIMO functionality for better-distributed throughput in environments with a large number of MU-capable clients.[ER-8417]
• Added a mechanism to detect a surge of phy errors after an offchannel scan so that recovery can occur before a large dip in throughput is
observed. [ER-8416]
• Resolved an issue where traffic flooding would sometimes occur. [ER-8625]
• Resolved an issue so that an error message pops up in the GUI when the number of configured MAC address has exceeded the limit.
[ER-8781]
• Resolved an issue where an AP would unexpectedly reboot under certain conditions. [ER-8862]
• Hiding some unnecessary information in syslog. [ER-8875]
• Fixed an issue where an imported certificate was not working after a master failover. [UN-4771]
• Fixed an issue where the location-based services (LBS) function was not working with Unleashed APs. [UN-4725]
• Fixed an issue where clients were experiencing intermittent packet loss. [ER-8946]


I had to start the Upgrade twice: on the first try the firmware was downloaded to the APs, but this try resulted in a deploy timeout on the meshed H510 - maybe this device is too slow? On the second try the downloaded firmware was already present and the upgraded started immediately without issues so far.
 
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dragonian

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Jan 3, 2020
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I've got one R610 that doesn't seem to like being powered by POE. ICX6450-24p says PD fault detected. I found a 12 VDC adapter, and was able to upgrade the firmware, but POE is still faulting.
I'm assuming that it's going back to ebay... no other tricks that I'm missing?
 

fohdeesha

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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I've got one R610 that doesn't seem to like being powered by POE. ICX6450-24p says PD fault detected. I found a 12 VDC adapter, and was able to upgrade the firmware, but POE is still faulting.
I'm assuming that it's going back to ebay... no other tricks that I'm missing?
tried a different cable and/or a different icx port?