Enterprise vs Consumer routers for many devices

[Richywilson]

Hey Everyone,

 

I'm looking for some information about consumer vs enterprise routers. I have a "smart home" so there's lots of (mostly 2.4ghz) devices throughout the home, say 20 to 30 devices in total. I've tried consumer grade routers like the AC86U but found I would continually get drop outs on the 2.4ghz band, the 5ghz band had no issues so ended up returning it for credit. I've been told to not go consumer this time and instead head into more enterprise gateways with an indoor access point instead as according to the person I was talking to at the time, I shouldn't have any issues because they're far better quality.

 

This lead me looking at the two following gateways below and I have a couple of questions:

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETUBI1070/Ubiquiti-EdgeRouter-ERPoe-5-Gigabit-Router-5-x-Gig
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETUBI1211/Ubiquiti-EdgeRouter-ER-X-SFP-Advanced-Gigabit-Rout

1. There's a massive price difference between these two but aside from the different W I'm not sure what the difference is. 

2. With POE, could i plug a normal ethernet cable into that to connect something like a streamlink, phillips hue hub or Fire cube into it or do I need a separate switch for this?
3. With the 86U I'm assuming it didn't work largely because the smart devices probably weren't enabled for Mu-mimo even if the router is. What are the odds of running into the same issue with the following access point?

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETUBI1226/Ubiquiti-UniFi-UAP-AC-LR-Dual-band-AC1350-450867Mb?fbclid=IwAR1_OaSiR-ZTU8Y5t-z4EsUz7DJghRjWfhr3ll-W1hVOteIbh2Q7HSHrnw4

 

I'd appreciate your advice and if you know anything you think I should know about these different types of routers/gateways please let me know

[Bruno_A]

I believe the main difference between consumer and enterprise networking hardware, such as routers, is features. Some of these enterprise routers you see, offer really useful features for businesses, which you don't see on consumer routers, even expensive ones. I have messed with both types of routers, and this is the only thing I know for sure. I never tested them with multiple devices, however, it would actually make sense that enterprise routers can have more devices connected to it, while maintaining stability, as some businesses really have a lot of people connected at the same time.

[SupaKomputa]

Some cheap wifi router has a hardware limit of 32 simultaneous link, even less, this is to differentiate it from the PRO lineup but also to conserve the processing power so it would not overheated. The cheaper model also have less powerful cpu, less memory or storage.

 

1. Both have the same 2 cores running at 800mhz, but the X have 256 mb memory and storage, now the other one has 512mb memory and 2gb of storage.

https://www.ui.com/edgemax/comparison/

2. Yes if the devices also support POE, otherwise most devices are Wireless connected (bluetooth / radio).

3. Mu-Mimo has a limit of 4 users, i'm not very familiar with the concept, but it suppose to allow smoother simultaneous connections.

the AC86 specs: https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/asus/asus_rt-ac68u

the UAP specs : https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/ubiquiti/ubiquiti_unifi_apac_lr

Raw specs the AC86 is better since it has higher clock speed, more memories and storage.

 

 

[brwainer]

2 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Raw specs the AC86 is better since it has higher clock speed, more memories and storage.

 

 

Comparing memory, CPU, and storage between dedicated network devices is meaningless because their functionality is defined by the networking features built into the SOC, and the software they run. Unifi APs are a business grade solution, and the APs are focused solely on getting wireless devices connected - so they are doing less work than a combined router/switch/AP unit like the 86U. In particilar, the APs don’t have to track IP connections and apply firewall and NAT, which takes a decent amount of CPU and RAM, compared to just processing new connections and copying packets from the wireless interface to the wired and vice versa.

 

2 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

1. Both have the same 2 cores running at 800mhz, but the X have 256 mb memory and storage, now the other one has 512mb memory and 2gb of storage.

https://www.ui.com/edgemax/comparison/

Using that same page, you must have been comparing the wrong devices, as these two do NOT have the same CPU (ER-X-SFP has 880MHz, ERPoe-5 has 500MHz). Also, you can’t focus on the differences in reported CPU specs to determine which is faster. The better part to look at is the Routing at the bottom. For large packets (1518 bytes - streaming or downloads) the ER-X can sustain 1Gbps, but the ERPoe-5 can do 3Gbps (this would require sending and receiving traffic on more than 2 ports). However for small packets the ER-X-SFP has a huge advantage: 1.4 million Packets Per Second (957Mbps), versus 730,000 pps (490Mbps) for the ERPoe-5. This is because the ER-X was specifically designed to handle 1Gb even with small packets at a low price point. This means however there is one place where they cut cost - all of the ports other than the WAN1 are connected to the CPU via a switch chip (the row “Internal Switch) whereas the ERPoe-5 only has 3 of the ports connected via the switch chip. This means there is an inherent bottleneck between the CPU, and all of the LAN ports on the ER-X models. That is part of the reason that with large packets, the ER-X can only do 1Gbps - internally it can’t go any faster even if the CPU has capacity.

 

3 hours ago, Richywilson said:

This lead me looking at the two following gateways below and I have a couple of questions:

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETUBI1070/Ubiquiti-EdgeRouter-ERPoe-5-Gigabit-Router-5-x-Gig
https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETUBI1211/Ubiquiti-EdgeRouter-ER-X-SFP-Advanced-Gigabit-Rout

1. There's a massive price difference between these two but aside from the different W I'm not sure what the difference is. 

As I eluded to with my responses to @SupaKomputa, the differences are in the internal architecture (CPU and which ports connect to the CPU directly versus via a switch chip). The only reason I would choose the ERPoe-5 over the ER-X-SFP, is if you have more than one ISP and both are faster than 500Mbps. Otherwise (if you just have one ISP) then the ER-X / ER-X-SFP would be perfect for you. The LAN traffic between the ports on the switch chip will run at full speed regardless, meaning if you do file transfers between devices on the LAN ports they won’t be slowed down. The limitation on the ER-X is just that between the switch chip (with all of the LAN ports) and the CPU there is only a 1Gb/s connection - basically you can think about it as an ethernet cable between a single LAN port and an external switch which has all of the physical LAN ports.

 

3 hours ago, Richywilson said:

2. With POE, could i plug a normal ethernet cable into that to connect something like a streamlink, phillips hue hub or Fire cube into it or do I need a separate switch for this?

Non-POE ethernet devices can be plugged into the POE ports without issue, as long as you don’t force the POE ports to output power to a device that can’t support it.

 

3 hours ago, Richywilson said:

3. With the 86U I'm assuming it didn't work largely because the smart devices probably weren't enabled for Mu-mimo even if the router is. What are the odds of running into the same issue with the following access point?

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETUBI1226/Ubiquiti-UniFi-UAP-AC-LR-Dual-band-AC1350-450867Mb?fbclid=IwAR1_OaSiR-ZTU8Y5t-z4EsUz7DJghRjWfhr3ll-W1hVOteIbh2Q7HSHrnw4

MU-MIMO is a relatively new feature that only works with client devices that support it also - and particularly only works on 5GHz. In the 802.11ac standard, there was no changes or improvements to 2.4GHz - everything was done to 5GHz only. This means that the 2.4GHz radio on any AC wireless device, has not changed since 802.11n. That being said, devices with AC wireless will still often work better on 2.4GHz than devices with N wireless, because even though the standards didn’t change, the chipset manufacturers (Broadcom, Qualcomm, Intel, etc) still have gained a lot more experience and knowledge since the time they made the 802.11n chipsets.

 

There are a number of reasons why the 86U might have had issues on 2.4GHz with a large number of devices. I can’t fully promise to you that any particular device would work. I am very confident however that the combination of a Unifi AP and a non-wireless router is you best option. And if you continue having issues with all of the IOT devices on a single 2.4GHz AP, you could just get a second AP and put them on opposite sides of the house, so each one is only handling half of the devices (assuming the devices are evenly spread out).

[Richywilson]

7 hours ago, brwainer said:

Comparing memory, CPU, and storage between dedicated network devices is meaningless because their functionality is defined by the networking features built into the SOC, and the software they run. Unifi APs are a business grade solution, and the APs are focused solely on getting wireless devices connected - so they are doing less work than a combined router/switch/AP unit like the 86U. In particilar, the APs don’t have to track IP connections and apply firewall and NAT, which takes a decent amount of CPU and RAM, compared to just processing new connections and copying packets from the wireless interface to the wired and vice versa.

 

Using that same page, you must have been comparing the wrong devices, as these two do NOT have the same CPU (ER-X-SFP has 880MHz, ERPoe-5 has 500MHz). Also, you can’t focus on the differences in reported CPU specs to determine which is faster. The better part to look at is the Routing at the bottom. For large packets (1518 bytes - streaming or downloads) the ER-X can sustain 1Gbps, but the ERPoe-5 can do 3Gbps (this would require sending and receiving traffic on more than 2 ports). However for small packets the ER-X-SFP has a huge advantage: 1.4 million Packets Per Second (957Mbps), versus 730,000 pps (490Mbps) for the ERPoe-5. This is because the ER-X was specifically designed to handle 1Gb even with small packets at a low price point. This means however there is one place where they cut cost - all of the ports other than the WAN1 are connected to the CPU via a switch chip (the row “Internal Switch) whereas the ERPoe-5 only has 3 of the ports connected via the switch chip. This means there is an inherent bottleneck between the CPU, and all of the LAN ports on the ER-X models. That is part of the reason that with large packets, the ER-X can only do 1Gbps - internally it can’t go any faster even if the CPU has capacity.

 

As I eluded to with my responses to @SupaKomputa, the differences are in the internal architecture (CPU and which ports connect to the CPU directly versus via a switch chip). The only reason I would choose the ERPoe-5 over the ER-X-SFP, is if you have more than one ISP and both are faster than 500Mbps. Otherwise (if you just have one ISP) then the ER-X / ER-X-SFP would be perfect for you. The LAN traffic between the ports on the switch chip will run at full speed regardless, meaning if you do file transfers between devices on the LAN ports they won’t be slowed down. The limitation on the ER-X is just that between the switch chip (with all of the LAN ports) and the CPU there is only a 1Gb/s connection - basically you can think about it as an ethernet cable between a single LAN port and an external switch which has all of the physical LAN ports.

 

Non-POE ethernet devices can be plugged into the POE ports without issue, as long as you don’t force the POE ports to output power to a device that can’t support it.

 

MU-MIMO is a relatively new feature that only works with client devices that support it also - and particularly only works on 5GHz. In the 802.11ac standard, there was no changes or improvements to 2.4GHz - everything was done to 5GHz only. This means that the 2.4GHz radio on any AC wireless device, has not changed since 802.11n. That being said, devices with AC wireless will still often work better on 2.4GHz than devices with N wireless, because even though the standards didn’t change, the chipset manufacturers (Broadcom, Qualcomm, Intel, etc) still have gained a lot more experience and knowledge since the time they made the 802.11n chipsets.

 

There are a number of reasons why the 86U might have had issues on 2.4GHz with a large number of devices. I can’t fully promise to you that any particular device would work. I am very confident however that the combination of a Unifi AP and a non-wireless router is you best option. And if you continue having issues with all of the IOT devices on a single 2.4GHz AP, you could just get a second AP and put them on opposite sides of the house, so each one is only handling half of the devices (assuming the devices are evenly spread out).

Thanks for replying and for the detailed information I've just been told one last thing, thought it would be a good idea to run it by you. I've been told this: "You're mixing Edge gear with Unifi gear. Go all Unifi, one centralized control system for them"

I'm assuming the benefits of this is more of a one stop shop for support or is this something which will physically make a difference? 

[mynameisjuan]

The only differences between consumer and enterprise, enterprise has:

 

• More ASICs. Throwing more CPU at a problem is a thing of the past. Routing and switching are done in ASICs, but now with enterprise gear you can run QoS, firewall rules, NAT, encryption all without the CPU even getting involved. This is where the performance really stands out. Prosumer gear and some lower end enterprise gear have pretty weak CPUs really and say you punt a packet to the CPU, performance shits the bed
• Software. While consumer software does pretty much all consumers could even take advantage of, enterprise has some additional features. The main difference is the software is tested in more stressed use cases where bugs and issue with tend to come up more.
• Memory. RAM is very important in networking. NAT, firewall connection tracking, MACs, ARP, etc....are all kept in memory. Consumer devices sometimes have 8 or 16megs. Thats it. Prosumer have a bit more ranging from 128-512. Enterprise are in the 4-16gigs+ range.

Now to the OPs question, Ubiquiti is not enterpise and it never will be. Its prosumer gear just like Mikrotik is. They have a lot of enterprise like features and ASICs but dont perform the same. 

 

You mention wireless though, this is where the waters get muddy. Doesnt matter if you go Ubiquity, Asus or Mist. Wireless has limitations that only enterprise gear with very sophisticated code can even begin to make the smallest of improvements. 2.4ghz wireless will struggle to handle 20-30 devices. There is no way around it (WIFI6). Wireless devices need to wait to talk, they actually pause and listen for a random interval, this mean there is finite amount of air time. Once you begin getting 20-30 devices, devices spend more and more time waiting to talk, hence bandwidth goes down and if too many try talking, they can cause the wait time to essentially time as people keep trying to talk after the long silence.

 

This is why you dont see problems with 5ghz. There is more air time. People think MIMO and other gimmicks will fix the problem, but I listen to wireless engineers and talked with them and in their eyes MIMO is the worst thing created for wireless.

 

If you must use 2.4, dont go out spending $3-400 on a ubiquiti setup in hopes it will fix your problems. 

[Richywilson]

14 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

The only differences between consumer and enterprise, enterprise has:

 

• More ASICs. Throwing more CPU at a problem is a thing of the past. Routing and switching are done in ASICs, but now with enterprise gear you can run QoS, firewall rules, NAT, encryption all without the CPU even getting involved. This is where the performance really stands out. Prosumer gear and some lower end enterprise gear have pretty weak CPUs really and say you punt a packet to the CPU, performance shits the bed
• Software. While consumer software does pretty much all consumers could even take advantage of, enterprise has some additional features. The main difference is the software is tested in more stressed use cases where bugs and issue with tend to come up more.
• Memory. RAM is very important in networking. NAT, firewall connection tracking, MACs, ARP, etc....are all kept in memory. Consumer devices sometimes have 8 or 16megs. Thats it. Prosumer have a bit more ranging from 128-512. Enterprise are in the 4-16gigs+ range.

Now to the OPs question, Ubiquiti is not enterpise and it never will be. Its prosumer gear just like Mikrotik is. They have a lot of enterprise like features and ASICs but dont perform the same. 

 

You mention wireless though, this is where the waters get muddy. Doesnt matter if you go Ubiquity, Asus or Mist. Wireless has limitations that only enterprise gear with very sophisticated code can even begin to make the smallest of improvements. 2.4ghz wireless will struggle to handle 20-30 devices. There is no way around it (WIFI6). Wireless devices need to wait to talk, they actually pause and listen for a random interval, this mean there is finite amount of air time. Once you begin getting 20-30 devices, devices spend more and more time waiting to talk, hence bandwidth goes down and if too many try talking, they can cause the wait time to essentially time as people keep trying to talk after the long silence.

 

This is why you dont see problems with 5ghz. There is more air time. People think MIMO and other gimmicks will fix the problem, but I listen to wireless engineers and talked with them and in their eyes MIMO is the worst thing created for wireless.

 

If you must use 2.4, dont go out spending $3-400 on a ubiquiti setup in hopes it will fix your problems. 

So what would your recommendation be? I'm not too worried about 2.4ghz speed wise, just need the devices to be stable. 

[mynameisjuan]

1 hour ago, Richywilson said:

So what would your recommendation be? I'm not too worried about 2.4ghz speed wise, just need the devices to be stable. 

Im not even referring to bandwidth. My point is 2.4 can only handle so many clients before instability begins to kick in. 20-30 clients would do this if they are all chatting often or if there are a lot of other 2.4 APs around.

 

My suggestion is to move as much off 2.4, set 2.4 to a static channel of 1,6,11 (give it some time for other APs to auto-select different channels) and keep the router out of line of sight from a majority of devices using 2.4 from microwaves, baby monitors, bluetooth, etc...

 

If you want a good solid router, get a Mikrotik hAP ac2, $60 on amazon. Its a very good prosumer router. Shit ton of configuration but it has a user friendly iOS/Android app and its main web page should get you by. An Edge router is completely overkill with no benefits for your situation

[brwainer]

4 hours ago, Richywilson said:

Thanks for replying and for the detailed information I've just been told one last thing, thought it would be a good idea to run it by you. I've been told this: "You're mixing Edge gear with Unifi gear. Go all Unifi, one centralized control system for them"

I'm assuming the benefits of this is more of a one stop shop for support or is this something which will physically make a difference? 

The USG (Unifi Security Gateway) is a fine firewall for most home users or small businesses, but is very feature limited compared to what you can do on the EdgeRouter. Technically there is ways to do additional configuration that isn't exposed in the Unifi GUI, but it is very hackish and not supported by Ubiquiti.

Here's a video about the limitations of the USG:

I deployed a USG for a summer camp where I helped with networking, so they are fully Unifi, but I wouldn't deploy a USG at my house. However, I'm a very technical user, with a business grade connection with multiple static IPs, so I am definitely not the proper type of user for the USG.

 

55 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

If you want a good solid router, get a Mikrotik hAP ac2, $60 on amazon. Its a very good prosumer router. Shit ton of configuration but it has a user friendly iOS/Android app and its main web page should get you by. An Edge router is completely overkill with no benefits for your situation

I agree with most of your points, however I have gotten quite tired of Mikrotik's wireless compared to Unifi. Right now I have fully Mikrotik wireless in my house (all hAP AC - not hAP AC2) using CAPsMan and the fact that my devices can't roam smoothly (yes, I know this is controlled by the clients) when I move around the house is driving me nuts. I know Unifi's Fast Roaming isn't perfect either, but they are making big improvements, whereas Mikrotik doesn't have any roaming assistance features in CAPsMan. This is off topic for the OP anyway since I expect them to only have one AP (standalone or combined in the router), but I just can't recommend Mikrotik wireless for indoor.

[mynameisjuan]

9 minutes ago, brwainer said:

know Unifi's Fast Roaming isn't perfect either, but they are making big improvements, whereas Mikrotik doesn't have any roaming assistance features in CAPsMan.

Ubiquiti's fast roaming is the same way you handle roaming on Mikrotik. On Mikrotik you set the RSSI limit to -80db (or lower) and it will kick the clients. Ubiquiti handles it the exact same way where you can also adjust the same parameters in Unify. Their "fast roaming" is not true roaming, its a fancy name to accomplish the same task. You will not get that outside high end enterprise APs such as Aruba and Mist where the controller actually duplicates the signal for a smooth transition.

 

Mikrotik actually has been proven to have better wireless. Better signal, better sensitivity. The only difference is the settings are not apparent. 

[brwainer]

2 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

Ubiquiti's fast roaming is the same way you handle roaming on Mikrotik. On Mikrotik you set the RSSI limit to -80db (or lower) and it will kick the clients. Ubiquiti handles it the exact same way where you can also adjust the same parameters in Unify. Their "fast roaming" is not true roaming, its a fancy name to accomplish the same task. You will not get that outside high end enterprise APs such as Aruba and Mist where the controller actually duplicates the signal for a smooth transition.

 

Mikrotik actually has been proven to have better wireless. Better signal, better sensitivity. The only difference is the settings are not apparent. 

No, you are factually incorrect. Fast Roaming on Unifi enables 802.11r, which allows the APs to directly hand off a client from one to another, skipping many of the steps required for the client to make a connection to the new AP when WPA2 is in use. This cuts down the connection time on the new AP from long enough to drop some VOIP calls (depending on the VOIP software) to short enough that no drop in the conversation is noticed. This is on top of 802.11 k and 802.11 v which Unifi supports but Mikrotik again does not. The best writeup on these standards is actually from Apple:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202628

 

The “roaming” trick of kicking off clients when they hit -80 (or any other such number) is not desirable for me, because with my AP placement (which is controlled by where the other residents allow me tomplace them) I barely get signal at my car, or the far end of my back yard. If I enable this type of control on my current Mikrotik setup, instead of a weak signal, I would get failures to connect.

 

2 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

You will not get that outside high end enterprise APs such as Aruba and Mist where the controller actually duplicates the signal for a smooth transition

I work with Ruckus and Aruba on a daily basis. They don’t do roaming that way any more - that method requires that neighboring APs be on the same channel, because there is no way to force a client to change channels. In fact Unifi used to have exactly this feature, called Zero Handoff Roaming. But with the new standards of 802.11k, 802.11v, and 802.11r (which aren’t new by the way - they came out before or at the same time as 802.11ac) you no longer need to have neighboring APs on the same channel in order for clients to roam nicely. 

[Richywilson]

49 minutes ago, brwainer said:

No, you are factually incorrect. Fast Roaming on Unifi enables 802.11r, which allows the APs to directly hand off a client from one to another, skipping many of the steps required for the client to make a connection to the new AP when WPA2 is in use. This cuts down the connection time on the new AP from long enough to drop some VOIP calls (depending on the VOIP software) to short enough that no drop in the conversation is noticed. This is on top of 802.11 k and 802.11 v which Unifi supports but Mikrotik again does not. The best writeup on these standards is actually from Apple:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202628

 

The “roaming” trick of kicking off clients when they hit -80 (or any other such number) is not desirable for me, because with my AP placement (which is controlled by where the other residents allow me tomplace them) I barely get signal at my car, or the far end of my back yard. If I enable this type of control on my current Mikrotik setup, instead of a weak signal, I would get failures to connect.

 

I work with Ruckus and Aruba on a daily basis. They don’t do roaming that way any more - that method requires that neighboring APs be on the same channel, because there is no way to force a client to change channels. In fact Unifi used to have exactly this feature, called Zero Handoff Roaming. But with the new standards of 802.11k, 802.11v, and 802.11r (which aren’t new by the way - they came out before or at the same time as 802.11ac) you no longer need to have neighboring APs on the same channel in order for clients to roam nicely. 

You guys are way past my knowledge base at this point but then again i only just started looking into anything not consumer this week so no surprises there. I have $400 in credit at the pbtech website, kinda back to square 1 not knowing what to get now lmao 

[mynameisjuan]

6 hours ago, brwainer said:

Fast Roaming on Unifi enables 802.11r, which allows the APs to directly hand off a client from one to another, skipping many of the steps required for the client to make a connection to the new AP when WPA2 is in use. This cuts down the connection time on the new AP from long enough to drop some VOIP calls (depending on the VOIP software) to short enough that no drop in the conversation is noticed. This is on top of 802.11 k and 802.11 v which Unifi supports but Mikrotik again does not

I probably shouldn't have gone so high level. Ubiquiti has said in their own documentation that their implementation is not entirely per the standard for 802.11r. You can find this in tons of r/ubiquiti threads. It's still booting the client once a threshold is reached, it's just informing the device, hey better get ready and start authentication with their master key. Cuts out a ton of steps if I remember correctly.

 

802.11r still will cause VOIP issues without k/v It alone is not fast enough to allow a near instant transition. It's where v comes in. At least where any implementation I have heard of or seen. A wireless engineer tore Unify apart show casing how it handles roaming with terribly buggy software and now following the standard to a T.

 

Yeah Mikrotik doesn't support it, people have been asking for years. Part of me thinks it because they know what their product is used for.

 

6 hours ago, brwainer said:

The best writeup on these standards is actually from Apple:

That's a terrible write up. Even Uniquiti's is better

 

7 hours ago, brwainer said:

work with Ruckus and Aruba on a daily basis. They don’t do roaming that way any more

I could have swore they had or at least moved beyond r/k/v where they would essentially handoff as they roam to eliminate authentication altogether. I'm no wireless expert and if you work with Aruba I'll take your word. My knowledge is from Enterprise podcast who bring wireless engineers on to explain how Aruba, Mist and Meraki are handling clients and the dos and donts.

 

Roaming in general sucks either way in Prosumer equipment.

[mynameisjuan]

6 hours ago, Richywilson said:

You guys are way past my knowledge base at this point but then again i only just started looking into anything not consumer this week so no surprises there. I have $400 in credit at the pbtech website, kinda back to square 1 not knowing what to get now lmao 

Ignore our side conversation. We are talking roaming which I assume you don't need.

 

Again with a need for a single router, I would stick with the hAP ac2

[Richywilson]

5 hours ago, mynameisjuan said:

Ignore our side conversation. We are talking roaming which I assume you don't need.

 

Again with a need for a single router, I would stick with the hAP ac2

This one here: https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETMKT1264/MikroTik-RBD52G-5HacD2HnD-TC-hAP-ac2-Wireless-Acce ?

Judging by what you guys were saying above, It doesn't sound like anything will fix the 2.4 issue 

[brwainer]

1 hour ago, Richywilson said:

This one here: https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/NETMKT1264/MikroTik-RBD52G-5HacD2HnD-TC-hAP-ac2-Wireless-Acce ?

Judging by what you guys were saying above, It doesn't sound like anything will fix the 2.4 issue 

Having more than one AP, so that you don’t have all of the devices on the same one, and particularly they can be on different channels, will help. That would be easier to do with Unifi, but can be done with Mikrotik or even just regular routers.

[Richywilson]

25 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Having more than one AP, so that you don’t have all of the devices on the same one, and particularly they can be on different channels, will help. That would be easier to do with Unifi, but can be done with Mikrotik or even just regular routers.

Thanks for the info so adding an access point would even work on a regular consumer grade router or should i stick to prosumer? 

 

 

[brwainer]

18 minutes ago, Richywilson said:

Thanks for the info so adding an access point would even work on a regular consumer grade router or should i stick to prosumer? 

 

 

You can add AP(s) to any router, even one that has its own builtin wireless. Just don’t place the APs (including router with wireless) close to each other - you want the client devices to pick one or the other based on signal strength. Or you can choose to make the new AP have a different SSID and password on purpose to manually choose which devices connect to it.

 

An AP is just a switch where one of the ports (technically two if it has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) are wireless radios with clients connected.

[Richywilson]

1 minute ago, brwainer said:

You can add AP(s) to any router, even one that has its own builtin wireless. Just don’t place the APs (including router with wireless) close to each other - you want the client devices to pick one or the other based on signal strength. Or you can choose to make the new AP have a different SSID and password on purpose to manually choose which devices connect to it.

 

An AP is just a switch where one of the ports (technically two if it has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) are wireless radios with clients connected.

Sweet, my house isn't that big, literally just a lounge, bathroom, bedroom and hallway so not really much choice in the closeness of the access point so I'll give it the different SSID, appreciate all your help

[Richywilson]

3 hours ago, brwainer said:

You can add AP(s) to any router, even one that has its own builtin wireless. Just don’t place the APs (including router with wireless) close to each other - you want the client devices to pick one or the other based on signal strength. Or you can choose to make the new AP have a different SSID and password on purpose to manually choose which devices connect to it.

 

An AP is just a switch where one of the ports (technically two if it has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) are wireless radios with clients connected.

Hey, sorry i just started looking for the new router, you mentioned any router, but it would need to be a router with POE wouldn't it, not just the standard ethernet ports?

[brwainer]

6 hours ago, Richywilson said:

Hey, sorry i just started looking for the new router, you mentioned any router, but it would need to be a router with POE wouldn't it, not just the standard ethernet ports?

The AP (at least for Unifi APs bought as single units) includes a POE injector will add power to the provided data connection. Just make sure the “LAN” side goes to the router and the “POE” side goes to the AP.

[Richywilson]

13 hours ago, brwainer said:

The AP (at least for Unifi APs bought as single units) includes a POE injector will add power to the provided data connection. Just make sure the “LAN” side goes to the router and the “POE” side goes to the AP.

Sweet, I'll give this a go. I'd really love to move things onto 5ghz but sadly things like the broadlink mini, ring doorbell, smart plugs etc all only allow for 2.4. Oddly my laptop does too. May try opening that up and switching it over to a dual card. It's probably the only device i can get away with doing that on. 

[brwainer]

1 hour ago, Richywilson said:

Sweet, I'll give this a go. I'd really love to move things onto 5ghz but sadly things like the broadlink mini, ring doorbell, smart plugs etc all only allow for 2.4. Oddly my laptop does too. May try opening that up and switching it over to a dual card. It's probably the only device i can get away with doing that on. 

Until very recently, there wasn’t cheap wifi modules suitable for smart home devices that had 5GHz support. I have heard that 5GHz modules are now cheap enough that manufacturers can start putting them in without affecting the overall final cost, but that still requires manufacturers start designing with those. If you have a working baseline platform and software for one product, you are likely to reuse that for the next product designs for a few years. The average consumer doesn’t know enough to look for and choose products with 5GHz support.

 

Do research jnto whether your laptop has support for a better module from the manufacturer. I have a Lenovo laptop with 2.4GHz only, and the BIOS is locked to not boot if an unapproved module is put in. In that generation, Lenovo didn’t introduce any 5GHz modules, so that laptop is stuck with what it has.

[Richywilson]

9 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Until very recently, there wasn’t cheap wifi modules suitable for smart home devices that had 5GHz support. I have heard that 5GHz modules are now cheap enough that manufacturers can start putting them in without affecting the overall final cost, but that still requires manufacturers start designing with those. If you have a working baseline platform and software for one product, you are likely to reuse that for the next product designs for a few years. The average consumer doesn’t know enough to look for and choose products with 5GHz support.

 

Do research jnto whether your laptop has support for a better module from the manufacturer. I have a Lenovo laptop with 2.4GHz only, and the BIOS is locked to not boot if an unapproved module is put in. In that generation, Lenovo didn’t introduce any 5GHz modules, so that laptop is stuck with what it has.

It's the P17Fv5 from Gigabyte which honestly surprised me it didn't have 5ghz, i just assumed it would if I'm honest.