Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

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hmw

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Apr 29, 2019
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@Vesalius - thanks for the bss-minrate and ofdm-only commands. I think that's basic config that needs to be done for a modern site, it's a pity that Ruckus doesn't offer GUI options for this on Unleashed firmware (I know there's GUI options for these if you use Zone Director)
 

hmw

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Apr 29, 2019
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For some reason the Ruckus R720 will NOT work properly with any SFP transceiver I have. Even when it will negotiate a 2500 mbps rate, the actual speed fluctuates badly and I get < 50 mbps download as a result. Clamping the ethernet speed to 1Gbps will resolve the issue. Oh well, will probably keep an eye out for a XS724EM and at some point get rid of the ICX-6610 :-(
 

tommybackeast

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Jun 10, 2018
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The R series APs are not designed to be wall mounted. The antenna pattern is designed to be ceiling mounted. The H series is designed specifically to be wall mounted and not ceiling.
Question re a Ruckus r510 AP : per your comment, it is designed to be ceiling mounted. If mounted on drop ceiling in a finished basement; would this "work" as usage will be on the 1st and 2nd floor of the house. (wood studs)
 

dragonian

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Jan 3, 2020
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For some reason the Ruckus R720 will NOT work properly with any SFP transceiver I have. Even when it will negotiate a 2500 mbps rate, the actual speed fluctuates badly and I get < 50 mbps download as a result. Clamping the ethernet speed to 1Gbps will resolve the issue. Oh well, will probably keep an eye out for a XS724EM and at some point get rid of the ICX-6610 :-(
It has nothing to do with the R720. It has all to do with the ICX6610. All ICX6xxx and most 7xxx do not support anything other than 1G or 10G, this is due to the Clock Driver IC not being able to configure the clock to the right rate. If you look in the big ICX thread, there are several posts about it.

I believe that the icx7150-c10zp is the only one with the appropriate hardware to work at 2.5G or 5G.
 
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Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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It has nothing to do with the R720. It has all to do with the ICX6610. All ICX6xxx and most 7xxx do not support anything other than 1G or 10G, this is due to the Clock Driver IC not being able to configure the clock to the right rate. If you look in the big ICX thread, there are several posts about it.

I believe that the icx7150-c10zp is the only one with the appropriate hardware to work at 2.5G or 5G.
there are other flavors of 7150 zp too. ICX-7150-48ZP-E2X10G for example, usually more expensive and louder. Will not do 5G, but will do 1g/2.5g on 16 of the 48 ports a well as POE.

@hmw you can try this ebay listing if you are willing to go out on a limb on a seller with few reviews:

 
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tommybackeast

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adman_c

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Feb 14, 2016
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I have a single Ruckus r510 AP and noticed there is new Firmware, from Oct 27 2020, version 200.9.10.4.212


Does anyone have any comments on this firmware version? (for I know sometimes "new" firmware on any product has issues). Curious if anyone has put it down and their thoughts on it.
I'm running 200.9.10.4.212 on my Ruckus APs (2x R610 + H510), and it seems pretty solid. BUT, take this with a grain of salt, as I only just switched from UniFi to these Ruckus APs last week, so I have nothing to compare this version to. Reliability and performance have been top-notch thus far.
 

Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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I have a single Ruckus r510 AP and noticed there is new Firmware, from Oct 27 2020, version 200.9.10.4.212


Does anyone have any comments on this firmware version? (for I know sometimes "new" firmware on any product has issues). Curious if anyone has put it down and their thoughts on it.
What firmware are you on now? Been running 200.9.10.4.212 since it came out and haven't noticed any issue.
 
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gizzard

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Nov 21, 2020
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Question re a Ruckus r510 AP : per your comment, it is designed to be ceiling mounted. If mounted on drop ceiling in a finished basement; would this "work" as usage will be on the 1st and 2nd floor of the house. (wood studs)
I have a r610 mounted on the ceiling in a closet on the main floor. Have a finished basement beneath and 2nd floor above. It is centrally located and basically covers the entire house with 2.4 Ghz, except for the very edges of the top floor. Some devices at the periphery seem to hold on to 5 Ghz well while others jump off - I am not sure if that is related to traffic or signal or what. Typically these are cell phones or wifi IP cameras that don't need much bandwidth anyway. The datasheets have the antenna patterns.

agree. recovering unifi user here :)
Me too! Although I still have a Unifi switch and a USG. I am planning to go back to virtualized opnsense in a few weeks but I may stick with their switch. I can't seem to find alternatives to things like the Switch Flex (outdoor, powered by 802.3at alone) in the same price range. I wish Ruckus / Brocade made a 5-8 port non-POE switch that could be managed with Unleashed, or even a 8 port POE switch limited to ~65w at the $100-150 price point.
 
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hmw

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Apr 29, 2019
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It has nothing to do with the R720. It has all to do with the ICX6610. All ICX6xxx and most 7xxx do not support anything other than 1G or 10G, this is due to the Clock Driver IC not being able to configure the clock to the right rate. If you look in the big ICX thread, there are several posts about it.

I believe that the icx7150-c10zp is the only one with the appropriate hardware to work at 2.5G or 5G.
I have several things connected via the SFP transceivers at 2.5G and 5G and all working perfectly at the lower speeds - except for the R720. I’m not connecting the R720 directly to the ICX6610. There’s either an Ipolex or an Aquantia SFP transceiver in the path - and even when it SAYS it connects at 2.5G - it gives horrendous results for traffic. There’s no way to run arbitrary code on the R720 else I’d have run tests to see why the traffic FROM the R720 to the switch is so abysmal when connected via the SFP transceiver
 

adman_c

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Feb 14, 2016
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I have a r610 mounted on the ceiling in a closet on the main floor. Have a finished basement beneath and 2nd floor above. It is centrally located and basically covers the entire house with 2.4 Ghz, except for the very edges of the top floor. Some devices at the periphery seem to hold on to 5 Ghz well while others jump off - I am not sure if that is related to traffic or signal or what. Typically these are cell phones or wifi IP cameras that don't need much bandwidth anyway. The datasheets have the antenna patterns.



Me too! Although I still have a Unifi switch and a USG. I am planning to go back to virtualized opnsense in a few weeks but I may stick with their switch. I can't seem to find alternatives to things like the Switch Flex (outdoor, powered by 802.3at alone) in the same price range. I wish Ruckus / Brocade made a 5-8 port non-POE switch that could be managed with Unleashed, or even a 8 port POE switch limited to ~65w at the $100-150 price point.
Yeah, the only UniFi gear that's left for me is a pair of Flex Mini switches--there's really nothing else that competes at anywhere near the price/size/power envelope for a managed switch. Although I was able to replace several of my 8 port UniFi switches with a single ICX 6450, there are still a couple of places where I need to add ports and the Flex Minis are great for that.
 

dragonian

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Jan 3, 2020
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I wish Ruckus / Brocade made a 5-8 port non-POE switch that could be managed with Unleashed, or even a 8 port POE switch limited to ~65w at the $100-150 price point.
Mikrotik has a 5 port $80 small switch. The Hex PoE. It can be PoE out if you buy a alternate 48V adapter. It does af/at, but Type B only.
I have one of these in my garage, that I use to power cameras and support vlans.
For the price point, I like it.
 
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coxhaus

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Jul 7, 2020
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Are you guys using BT POE power to run the 710 and 720 Ruckus units? I have they run better with BT POE power. What switch do you use for power?

I run multiple Cisco small business wireless APs at my house using a Cisco L3 switch.
 

Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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Are you guys using BT POE power to run the 710 and 720 Ruckus units? I have they run better with BT POE power. What switch do you use for power?

I run multiple Cisco small business wireless APs at my house using a Cisco L3 switch.
Only the r720 and r730 need BT to perform without limitations in function. The r710 and all the rest of the newly released r*50 lineups with wifi6 only need AT to function without limitation.

Power Limitations by PoE Mode and AP Model
 

jjacobs

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Dec 25, 2020
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I found this thread while searching for a path away from Unif. Although aware of Ruckus I knew very little about how their AP's would fit into a home network. Thank you to all of the folks that have contributed their experiences. It looks like Ruckus will be exactly what I am looking for. Stability and performance without having to navigate through the mess that is Ubiquiti's firmware and disappearing features (6.x.x controller and not able to simply turn off a 2.4 radio on one AP).

We're in a transition period with WiFi. WiFi 6E has it's appeal for my use case. That extra spectrum solves a lot of issues in a high density (multi unit, urban home, ugly RF environment) situation. However, the way my upgrade cycles play out, I'm at least 2 years away from that. Apple has just released their first WiFi6 laptops. iPhones and iPads are not an issue for me. If they can connect I'm good. Everything else is wired. 6E devices may or may not be available in the next year when I will be upgrading. I almost certainly will be upgrading Laptops sometime in the next year, other stuff later. The new Apple Silicon MacBooks are very appealing.

So, r750s look like the way to go. 2 will more than cover our space (upstairs/downstairs). I should be happy with that for at least 2 years at which time the industry will have caught up with the new standards and I can line up the upgrades to take advantage of that.

I'm looking at a switch replacement along with the new (used, maybe) AP's. The refreshed Cisco small business switches, CBW350, tick most of my boxes. Specifically the 24 port POE+ fanless switch. Fanless is a big advantage for me, my current SG220-50P is too noisy.

I would welcome any comments or advice concerning the AP's or the switch, I'm going to let the holiday chaos settle down and then get going in a few weeks. I'll have a look at used gear but I'm not against spending some money to get 2 years or so of 'set and forget' utility.

Thanks again for all of the information shared in this thread, it has been enormously helpful.
 
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Rand__

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At this point i'd not recommend going for the r750/850/ax line.
With Wifi 6E requiring yet another HW change its unlikely the r750/r850 will support this with a FW update, so at this point I'd be getting a regular ac device cheaply off Ebay and then upgrade to a more long term solution when the next line is available (new or used, whatever your checkbook agrees with).

From a management point of view (for the set&forget part) it will not make a difference if you get old or new model, that will not change.
 
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jjacobs

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At this point i'd not recommend going for the r750/850/ax line.
With Wifi 6E requiring yet another HW change its unlikely the r750/r850 will support this with a FW update, so at this point I'd be getting a regular ac device cheaply off Ebay and then upgrade to a more long term solution when the next line is available (new or used, whatever your checkbook agrees with).

From a management point of view (for the set&forget part) it will not make a difference if you get old or new model, that will not change.
I was thinking the incremental step to WiFi6 would have some value to me. Looking more carefully at the new MacBooks and noticing that they have only 2x2 radios I'm also questioning that thinking. The real improvement will come from 6E and that's a way's out and, as you point out, not something that will come from a firmware update. I still think moving away from Unifi has value at this time. Unifi is just a dumpster fire.

Looking at the Unleashed documentation I noticed this about IPv6:

Screen Shot 2020-12-26 at 08.29.28.png

I'm assuming that means the APs will not take an IPv6 address but that they will still pass IPv6 traffic (the clients will still be dual stack). If not, having an IPv4 only network isn't the end of the world but does feel a bit retrograde...

Answering my own question, of course IPv6 traffic is passed. In the Unleashed interface you, apparently, don't see IPv6 addresses for clients, etc. That's fine, if clients are unmanaged (slaac) and self assigning IPv6 addresses the management interface wouldn't see those anyhow. I suppose if your using a DHCP6 server on the master AP you could see something. I'm not sure I see the use case for doing that...
 
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