I bought one of these for the opposite end of my ranch-style house, since my router's wifi was weak at that distance. I like that it's POE, so I only had to run a CAT5e cable to it and hook it to my POE switch (although it comes with its own POE power injector which is a nice bonus). The setup was fairly straight forward using the app to get it set up initially, and later using the built-in web admin page through a browser for additional changes.
It puts out a decent signal, but I was a bit disappointed in that it didn't quite make it from its location to my office, which is on the same level, but about 50 feet away with about 3 hollow (stud/drywall) walls between. My office seems to be somewhat of a dead zone in the house due to its layout, so I ended up buying another for near my office, creating a triangle around the perimeter of the house with my router and the two APs. When you're within 20-30 feet of the AP and no walls, it works very well and signal is quite strong.
In my tests, it provided full throughput for my internet service, just make sure you connect it to a gigabit router and/or POE switch or it will only operate at the speed of the slowest link. My existing POE switch was only 100 mbps (for security cameras), so the switch was limited to that throughput, so I added a gigabit POE switch and connected the APs to that instead and they now show full throughput on internet speed tests.
One feature I really liked was the ability to add additional SSIDs. During initial setup it asks for your 2.4GHz and 5GHz passwords, but I also have a 2.4GHz and 5GHz guest networks on my router. After the initial setup, I went into the browser interface and found a small "add" (+) button near the list of SSIDs and I was able to add the guest network SSIDs for each frequency. I was also able to select them as "Guest" networks in the AP configuration pages. I duplicated the SSIDs from my router and there doesn't seem to be any conflicts. Wirelress devices just seem to pick up their connection from the closest AP or the router depending on where they are in the house, which is how I hoped it would work.
For installation, the mounting plate attaches to the ceiling, then you "twist" the device into to three "tabs" until it lock in place. This part was a bit tricky as the tabs seemed tight. Getting it to twist into the tabs is difficult to align as you place the AP over the bracket, and I really had to push the AP up and rotate it hard to get it to snap into the bracket. The "snapping" process on one of them took a lot of force and I thought I broke it when it finally locked in, but it was fine. It has a tab you can insert a paper clip into to release it from the bracket for removal. I think the mounting plate design could use a bit of a rework given my experience, but it's certainly not a reason to pass this by.
Another inconvenience was the fact that updating the firmware causes all your settings to be lost. This happened with both devices. I hope future updates don't require a full reconfiguration of the device each time.
I'm looking forward to great wifi throughout my house now. So far, the devices that were previously located in a "dead" or "weak" spot (for example, streaming boxes that could only able to get 1-3 mbps) now get 90+ mbps so it definitely solved those issues. Just be aware that depending on the size and layout of your home, you may need more than one. I didn't want this to be visible in the center of my living room ceiling (which is the center of my home), so I had to install them in hallways which are more on the perimeter of the home, thus needing more than one to get full coverage.
For the price, this was an excellent choice for our home and I highly recommend it.
| Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
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