6 ms·

try wiring your home with enterprise grade APs ... the stability and performance when multiple devices are connected is vastly superior to anything consumer. An

try wiring your home with enterprise grade APs ... the stability and performance when multiple devices are connected is vastly superior to anything consumer. And that's not only because the APs are better designed but because most firmware on consumer equipment is total crap based on old outdated sdk. On the other hand enterprise APs spend a lot of time optimising the AP even after launching it.

k_sze 6y ago
Do you consider Mikrotik enterprise grade? Because that’s what I use at home. Specifically, I use this: https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_5hacq2hnd_in https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_5hacq2hnd_in It’s not AX, but still does N and AC over 5Ghz nonetheless.
- baybal2 6y ago
  I kind of don't get people discerning things into "enterprise," and not grades. All mass market electronics today is made of common list of chipsets for a device. There is no way to change fundamental limits of hardware being used. So, the best thing to look at is the chipset, and its specs. The best example of this is the scam called "enterprise servers" whose only distinction from no-name OEM ones is that "enterprise server" name, and 3-4 times bigger price. They are all made of sometimes 1-to-1 identical motherboards, chassis, and other components.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    > The best example of this is the scam called "enterprise servers" whose only distinction from no-name OEM ones is that "enterprise server" name, and 3-4 times bigger price. They are all made of sometimes 1-to-1 identical motherboards, chassis, and other components. It's more than just the parts used: * Support contracts * On-site, next-day or even same-business-day technicians * Guaranteed parts availability * Often from a company your org will have a procurement contract with already (Dell, HP, etc).
- petre 6y ago
  Mikrotik consumer routers are quite decent. A hAP² handles my apartment just fine.
  - tumblewit 6y ago
    I am yet to try Mikrotik but I have heard good things about it.
- glogla 6y ago
  There's a lot of magic around MIMO, beamforming and other stuff where Mikrotik is kinda behind other manufacturers. Enterprise grade here would mean something like Cisco WAP or HPE Aruba. Surprisingly, the "prosumer" things like more expensive Asus routers work better than you would expect. If you want a deep dive, I suggest this page https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html
DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
I'll admit I'm a Ubiquiti fanboy now. I got fed-up with consumer-grade wifi gear when my old TP-Link AP+Router combi crapped out after ~20 wifi clients connected. Initially I kept the router but disabled its wi-fi AP and started using Ubiquiti APs - just one to begin with, but it handled 50+ simultaneous wi-fi clients like a champ - 6 years later I now have a UDM, PoE switch, LTE failover, three APs, and I'm considering moving-away from Google Nest to Ubiquiti for home-automation now too, because Google/Nest's video service makes no sense considering they don't let you access the video locally or save the video locally (what's the point of a video surveillance system that can be defeated simply by snipping the Internet coax connection outside?!?).
- violetgarden 6y ago
  I’m a fan too! The dream machine, aps, and a poe switch were cheaper than what I’ve paid for just a single “enterprise” device before.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    Ubiquiti's gear falls into a weird market segment: it's got 85% of the capability of true Enterprise-scale equipment (i.e. the kind you absolutely have to employee someone - or two, plus pager-duty, full-time for) for a fraction of the cost, but costs 2x or 3x more than the consumer-crap it's replacing - but has a _hint_ of vendor lock-in that at least with the full-time-employees you could task them with building and implementing an exit migration strategy.
- tumblewit 6y ago
  My current APs are old and I got fiber recently so I am looking for cheap AX APs if they are worth the price. I know AX is still early but because I am in the market and both my daily devices are AX I might as well try (Unifi 6 Lite or LR though both don't support AX in 2.4GHz so something with 160MHz in 5GHz and AX in 2.4GHz). If you buy consumer AX now forget updates in a year or two. On the other hand the first AC Lite still receives updates and that board has gone through more than 30 revisions (I recently bought one for someone and that had board revision 36 or something). Sadly I haven't had the same luck with their wired routers. The EdgeRouters are running some old Debian and I have had trouble with their PPPoE client. So I flashed OpenWRT recently on it but it didn't run great (for my fiber) either. I am looking for either an R4S NanoPi or one of those protectli devices for just routing. I think in the router part these devices are not cutting it for me (I can do things like dnsmasq blocklisting and stubby with openwrt and cake sqm works great). Anyway I need to plan my WiFi 6 Fiber upgrade well otherwise its easy to get carried away and blow up the budget.

k_sze 6y ago

Do you consider Mikrotik enterprise grade? Because that’s what I use at home. Specifically, I use this: https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_5hacq2hnd_in https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_5hacq2hnd_in It’s not AX, but still does N and AC over 5Ghz nonetheless.

baybal2 6y ago
I kind of don't get people discerning things into "enterprise," and not grades. All mass market electronics today is made of common list of chipsets for a device. There is no way to change fundamental limits of hardware being used. So, the best thing to look at is the chipset, and its specs. The best example of this is the scam called "enterprise servers" whose only distinction from no-name OEM ones is that "enterprise server" name, and 3-4 times bigger price. They are all made of sometimes 1-to-1 identical motherboards, chassis, and other components.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > The best example of this is the scam called "enterprise servers" whose only distinction from no-name OEM ones is that "enterprise server" name, and 3-4 times bigger price. They are all made of sometimes 1-to-1 identical motherboards, chassis, and other components. It's more than just the parts used: * Support contracts * On-site, next-day or even same-business-day technicians * Guaranteed parts availability * Often from a company your org will have a procurement contract with already (Dell, HP, etc).
petre 6y ago
Mikrotik consumer routers are quite decent. A hAP² handles my apartment just fine.
- tumblewit 6y ago
  I am yet to try Mikrotik but I have heard good things about it.
glogla 6y ago
There's a lot of magic around MIMO, beamforming and other stuff where Mikrotik is kinda behind other manufacturers. Enterprise grade here would mean something like Cisco WAP or HPE Aruba. Surprisingly, the "prosumer" things like more expensive Asus routers work better than you would expect. If you want a deep dive, I suggest this page https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

I'll admit I'm a Ubiquiti fanboy now. I got fed-up with consumer-grade wifi gear when my old TP-Link AP+Router combi crapped out after ~20 wifi clients connected. Initially I kept the router but disabled its wi-fi AP and started using Ubiquiti APs - just one to begin with, but it handled 50+ simultaneous wi-fi clients like a champ - 6 years later I now have a UDM, PoE switch, LTE failover, three APs, and I'm considering moving-away from Google Nest to Ubiquiti for home-automation now too, because Google/Nest's video service makes no sense considering they don't let you access the video locally or save the video locally (what's the point of a video surveillance system that can be defeated simply by snipping the Internet coax connection outside?!?).

violetgarden 6y ago
I’m a fan too! The dream machine, aps, and a poe switch were cheaper than what I’ve paid for just a single “enterprise” device before.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  Ubiquiti's gear falls into a weird market segment: it's got 85% of the capability of true Enterprise-scale equipment (i.e. the kind you absolutely have to employee someone - or two, plus pager-duty, full-time for) for a fraction of the cost, but costs 2x or 3x more than the consumer-crap it's replacing - but has a _hint_ of vendor lock-in that at least with the full-time-employees you could task them with building and implementing an exit migration strategy.
tumblewit 6y ago
My current APs are old and I got fiber recently so I am looking for cheap AX APs if they are worth the price. I know AX is still early but because I am in the market and both my daily devices are AX I might as well try (Unifi 6 Lite or LR though both don't support AX in 2.4GHz so something with 160MHz in 5GHz and AX in 2.4GHz). If you buy consumer AX now forget updates in a year or two. On the other hand the first AC Lite still receives updates and that board has gone through more than 30 revisions (I recently bought one for someone and that had board revision 36 or something). Sadly I haven't had the same luck with their wired routers. The EdgeRouters are running some old Debian and I have had trouble with their PPPoE client. So I flashed OpenWRT recently on it but it didn't run great (for my fiber) either. I am looking for either an R4S NanoPi or one of those protectli devices for just routing. I think in the router part these devices are not cutting it for me (I can do things like dnsmasq blocklisting and stubby with openwrt and cake sqm works great). Anyway I need to plan my WiFi 6 Fiber upgrade well otherwise its easy to get carried away and blow up the budget.