Hi,
I'm trying to find some new network equipment - switch and AP.
the requirement for the switch:
8x 1 Gigabit ports.
VLAN support (4 should be more than enough, mixed access/tagged on a port is a benefit).
LACP
POE (not sure how many but for now I need 1 for the future AP). should be 802.3at (unless you think 802.3af is more than enough).
managed switch.
all traffic should be offloaded by the switch chip.
Jumbo frame support.
for the AP:
both 5Ghz (at least 866mbit) and 2.4Ghz (at least 300mbit). BTW, if the maximum speed/streams are higher, does lower capacity devices gain from it? (more 5Ghz 433mbit devices can be connected without sharing bandwidth?)
VLAN support (and choose SSID to VLAN)
POE (unless you suggest external POE injector)
1 Gigabit port is enough
MIMO
control transmit power
not sure how is internal antennas compares to external ones. is it enough powerful?
I want to put the AP in a spot where there isn't any outlet so I have to use some POE solution.
For now what I found is TP-LINK SG108PE v3 (there are netgear switches similar to it but not how better they are if at all) for switch and TP-LINK EAP225 (and also Ubiquity UAP-AC-LITE/LR but they cost, is it really worth it?), but not sure good they are. I believe the built-in firmware in both of the is enough but I'll be happy also to get other equipment which support OpenWrt as long as the equipment is more powerful.
Will be happy for some advices.
Thanks in advance!
For switches, I've had good luck with TrendNet, but I have only run unmanaged. I am currently running an older version of the TEG-S24g and 4 TI-PG80s (which have PoE).
I don't have a recommendation for Wifi except to avoid the Ubiquity AC Lite and LR. They aren't OpenWRT friendly, and I also never achieved sustained performance above ~350 Mbps. I gave up on them, ran power cords, and used a mix of linksys routers instead (EA8300/6350).
Hi @sirizha,
there are soft floors and not too big apartment, one floor. I have now both TP-Link Archer C80 and TL-WR942ND and I have good signal in most spots while they both in the corner of the apartment. I want to position the new AP in the center of the apartment with the support of POE.
Take a look to the MikroTik hAP AC2. It's still not accepted in master but its stable and have a powerfull CPU for ussing it as an AP. It has POE support too.
I love MikroTik, I already have their router but when looking on MikroTik hAP AC2 compares to tp link EAP225:
EAP225 support 802.3af while MikroTik has only passive POE.
mounting EAP225 to wall looks easier and prettier compares to Mikrotik.
EAP225 support MIMO and 2.4Ghz with 450Mbps (Mikrotik has only 300Mbit but I guess it's not that important).
I'm trying to understand if the MikroTik one has real advantage over EAP225. the factory software is better for sure, I believe the SOC also, but as a simple AP which support POE and VLANs to SSID I'm not sure it has advantage. (EAP225 looks better, and it's nice for wall mount).
Is there any significant performance advantage for MikroTik?
For the MikroTik you just have to use 2 screws and press a bit to fit it. Its smaller and I like how it looks.
Agree, if you have many devices using 2.4Ghz it will work better on that band.
Both devices are great, choose what ever you want. But if you are planning on using the AP with openwrt then the TP-LINK cpu will bottleneck speeds. Not by so much, but you can expect a throughput of 450 Mbps (shared for both bands). The MikroTik has a much better CPU than the TP-LINK, and maybe in the future you can replace it with a better AP and use the MikroTik for other things as it has 5 gigabit ports, USB and powerful CPU.
Both units will do the work as AP. But using openwrt on the MikroTik it's a must, as RouterOS drivers for wifi sucks.
I didn't realice that i was close to buy the cAP before the hAP. They have similar hardware, but i saw that the antennas from the hAP had a bit more gain, that i could power the hAP with a 12V battery or that it has 5 gigabite ports and a usb and finally bought the hAP. The hAP has a more active comunity here, but well they are the same hardware.
There’s Passive 24V POE used by a lot of Wireless ISP equipment. Ubiquiti WISP equipment uses Passive 24V POE, whereas their newer UniFi equipment uses exclusively standards-based 802.3af/at/bt POE, which is always 48V.
Do not mix the two. Ubiquiti has POE adapters from 48V to 24V so that you can use them to connect the powered device that requires 24V Passive POE to a standards-based 802.3af/at/bt seitch, but you have to use the adapter. If you plug a 24V PD into a 48V POE switch, you will damage one or both pieces.
Agree, have checked and its true. I had 2 ubiquiti last month and they use passive 24V, but they were compatible with 802.11af and that has confused me. Thanks for clarification
Ubiquiti transitioned from Passive POE to standards-based POE in their UniFi line over the course of several years. At one point, their UniFi APs were Passive POE (24V) and their switches were also 24V passive POE. Then they released switches that supported both Passive 24V POE and 802.3af POE (48V), and there was a selector for each port to supply 24V passive or 48V standards-based POE.
Later, they upgraded the hardware in the same exact model number of the AP to work with 802.3af standards-based POE. There was a huge confusion among the users and a lot of APs got fried because they were connected to the wrong kind of POE. Finally, Ubiquiti discontinued switches with 24V passive POE in the UniFi line, and all APs in the UniFi lines are strictly on standards-based 803.3af/at/bt standards. However, their Edge line of switches is still mostly Passive 24V POE with a few Edge switches supporting both 24V Passive POE and 802.3af/at standards-based 48V POE.
I run a Cisco SG250-10P switch, which checks all your requirements. It PoE-powers a couple of OpenWRT access points (Devolo 1750i, no longer available anywhere, I think). The switch has a shock-full of features and was reasonably priced.