Got a new blue-LED night lite for my upstairs hallway. Doubles as a WiFi AP...a pretty damn good one.
Replaced two old APs - uptairs was an off-brand Versa-TEK and downstairs an older Cisco running dd-wrt. Got the Versa AP because (at the time) it was the only thing with N, PoE, GigE downlink and VLAN separation of SSIDs. At least the thing didn't cost a right arm. Together they've been a constant annoyance. The Versa has compatibility issues with certain i-devices (iPad3 and iPhone 4s, though oddly its perfect with the iPhone-4 and iPhone-5). The Cisco is reliable but does not have enough power to cover the whole house by itself. Even though the setups were matched, WiFi "roaming" between the two was a complete joke.
The UniFi AC was actually the easiest AP I've ever installed. 4 screws with anchors to mount a backplate, plug it in to the existing PoE cable in the ceiling, load the software on a PC and configured it in less than 10 minutes - including setting up two SSIDs (one of them hidden and the "open" one on a VLAN that routes it right out to the internet for guests). The management software is designed to manage an enterprise full of the things, but its pretty intuitive and useful for just a single one. It has a cute "map" feature that I'll probably never use...but some people love that type of thing.
Its mounted in the upstairs hallway ceiling, top of the stairs, central to the house. Same place the Versa was before. An initial walkabout with my Galaxy S-III finds strong signal through the whole house, garage and a good part of the yard. I was planning to give this one a test drive and if I liked it I'd get a second unit downstairs. From first impressions that doesn't seem to be necessary.
Now, if I only had some 802.11ac clients to give the beast a speed test!
Replaced two old APs - uptairs was an off-brand Versa-TEK and downstairs an older Cisco running dd-wrt. Got the Versa AP because (at the time) it was the only thing with N, PoE, GigE downlink and VLAN separation of SSIDs. At least the thing didn't cost a right arm. Together they've been a constant annoyance. The Versa has compatibility issues with certain i-devices (iPad3 and iPhone 4s, though oddly its perfect with the iPhone-4 and iPhone-5). The Cisco is reliable but does not have enough power to cover the whole house by itself. Even though the setups were matched, WiFi "roaming" between the two was a complete joke.
The UniFi AC was actually the easiest AP I've ever installed. 4 screws with anchors to mount a backplate, plug it in to the existing PoE cable in the ceiling, load the software on a PC and configured it in less than 10 minutes - including setting up two SSIDs (one of them hidden and the "open" one on a VLAN that routes it right out to the internet for guests). The management software is designed to manage an enterprise full of the things, but its pretty intuitive and useful for just a single one. It has a cute "map" feature that I'll probably never use...but some people love that type of thing.
Its mounted in the upstairs hallway ceiling, top of the stairs, central to the house. Same place the Versa was before. An initial walkabout with my Galaxy S-III finds strong signal through the whole house, garage and a good part of the yard. I was planning to give this one a test drive and if I liked it I'd get a second unit downstairs. From first impressions that doesn't seem to be necessary.
Now, if I only had some 802.11ac clients to give the beast a speed test!
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