Ubiquiti Mesh APs/Nodes

[PineyCreek]

Just putting some feelers out there since it feels like the Ubiquiti forums are a morass of random screamers half the time.  I'm looking at installing wifi in a partially-wooded RV park, about 180,000 square feet.  Figure everything's going to be on poles with PoE and ruggedized APs.  I was looking at Ubiquiti's AC-Mesh Pro APs primarily.  I have read the spec sheets and they look like a good fit.

 

The TL,DR summary is: does anyone have experience with the Ubiquit AC Mesh or AC Mesh Pro APs, and if so, what was your experience?

[zanginator]

Right off the bat, I do not have experience with the AC Mesh products (yet I have an upcoming project that may require them). However, I have plenty of experience with other Ubiquiti products.

 

The Ubiquiti products in general are among the easiest I have ever configured with top tier through-put. The use of a central management machine (be that the Ubiquiti software installed on a machine or the cloud key) isn't a must, but really does improve the administration and monitoring of the eco-system.

 

As I understand, the non-Mesh products can do mesh networking, however the throughput is much lower.

 

One thing to note though is if you are using a PoE switch is that some of the AP's are not standard PoE (802.11af 48v) and actually use a 'Passive' 24v system instead which limits you to Ubiquiti kit or the power injectors supplied with the AP's.

 

An alternative would be to take a look at Meraki equipment, however it is by far more expensive with little performance gain in non-congested or heavily traffic'd networks.

 

TL:DR: I really like them and would recommend them.

Other AP's I've used: Cisco, Cisco Meraki, Netgear, Zxyel, Ruckus

[PineyCreek]

On 12/30/2017 at 10:42 AM, zanginator said:

Right off the bat, I do not have experience with the AC Mesh products (yet I have an upcoming project that may require them). However, I have plenty of experience with other Ubiquiti products.

 

The Ubiquiti products in general are among the easiest I have ever configured with top tier through-put. The use of a central management machine (be that the Ubiquiti software installed on a machine or the cloud key) isn't a must, but really does improve the administration and monitoring of the eco-system.

 

As I understand, the non-Mesh products can do mesh networking, however the throughput is much lower.

 

One thing to note though is if you are using a PoE switch is that some of the AP's are not standard PoE (802.11af 48v) and actually use a 'Passive' 24v system instead which limits you to Ubiquiti kit or the power injectors supplied with the AP's.

 

An alternative would be to take a look at Meraki equipment, however it is by far more expensive with little performance gain in non-congested or heavily traffic'd networks.

 

TL:DR: I really like them and would recommend them.

Other AP's I've used: Cisco, Cisco Meraki, Netgear, Zxyel, Ruckus

Hey, thanks for your comment.  I've setup a Ubiquiti switch and APs before, just never their mesh offering.  Also, effectively I would be setting them up in a non-mesh fashion; each one would have its own ethernet cable with PoE from Ubiquiti switches.

 

I've got experience setting up Cisco and Aruba enterprise wifi systems and Cisco/Linksys, Netgear, ASUS consumer kit.