I wholeheartedly appreciate this content. This is great stuff, please don’t change a thing and keep up the reviews!

There are so few commercial review sites for wireless access points its discouraging and extremely hard to find any real world testing at all from HP, Cisco, Meraki, Ubiquiti, Engenius, Cambium and all the rest. I among many others would love to see so much more WAP reviews from the commercial space from you and/or others.

Spider router thing that's actually commercial grade and not...basically still Crap Residential grade :) - awesome

Thank you Wendell for your quality videos on networking equipment

@Level1Techs

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you! ~ Editor Amber

This place is an underground bunker!

@williamp6800

3 жыл бұрын

In another video he mentions it was owned by a former NSA employee

Enjoying my U6-LR. Works great.

Meraki has the products I feel most comfortable with in commercial settings. The Ubiquti models I've installed and tested are a close second but I've noticed some performance issues in large open areas. I'll be looking for an opportunity to test out the Engenius products since you've highlighted them on your channel.

Really liking these comparison videos. I would like if you talked about some of the cheaper/lower end APs from them too. In my house, we generally have very few wireless devices; a couple of phones, a couple tablets and a few things like Rokus, but they are rarely really running at the same time. So for me it doesn't make sense to get an expensive AP with the capability to handle a huge number of clients. For me it's mostly about giving good consistent speed and solid coverage. I switched from a consumer router/ap to 2 Unifi AP-AC Lites and my wifi has basically been perfect since. My only concern is the software updates you are talking about and any future device upgrades, so I want to be in the know about which brand I should go with next.

Would be great to see more of this kind of testing throwing in some more vendors and more models from each vendor.

Ruckus unleashed is promising, hope they expand what you can do as far as switch management goes it's a promising alternative to basic network setups without touching the CLI.

Interesting testing. Currently running Unifi AC Pro, but it's not exactly up to par performance wise with more modern solutions. Looking forward to more Unifi Wifi6 products and updates.

Another good comparison would be the The Zyxel NWA210AX WiFi 6 PoE+ Access Point with the Zyxel XS1930-12HP 8-Port Smart Managed Rackmount 10-Gigabit PoE++ Switch (or the Zyxel GS1920-24HPv2). These can be managed locally or via the free NebulaFlex cloud service. They were early with Wi-fi 6 kit, seem to be feature rich and well made but there aren't any reviews of them in action, which would be very interesting to watch.

What Ruckus models did you test? Your chart didn't express models for those two.

@bfourney

Жыл бұрын

Exactly, like bro which Ruckus, they have like 50 different models

Thx for the video!, When you get the Unifi ap up and running and did some tests, please consider also comparing prices. I mean if I get 900+ Mbit/s for €450 + or 800Mbit/s like you said for around a €100....i still think UniFi has a compelling proposition.

@alexatkin

3 жыл бұрын

I'm wary, my nanoHD was doing 700Mbit when I first got it, latest firmware it seems far less stable between 400-600Mbit. Meanwhile Unifi Controller is telling me everything is great with 99% quality. I could understand if it was crosstalk, if I wasn't testing on exactly the same devices from exactly the same position in the same room as the nanoHD. Don't get me wrong, 700Mbit is not terrible, its it randomly tanking that's the problem. Performance was rock-solid consistent on my S10 when I first got the nanoHD, was actually shocked it was getting 700Mbit from an 866Mbit link rate (80Mhz channel). Less impressed that I had to bump up to 160Mhz with a 1300Mbit link rate down, 1733Mbit up to get exactly the same speed on my laptop, but it worked so I was fine with that. Except now that's still getting those link rates but doing 400Mbit down and 300Mbit up. Its really soured me with Ubiquiti as I could achieve that with a cheap consumer router and OpenWRT, I upgraded to the nanoHD to avoid the issue of firmware updates randomly tanking performance. When I upgrade to WiFi 6e I'm throwing whatever money I need to at the AP to get something that is ACTUALLY reliable, it wont be Ubiquiti. As I can't see a need to upgrade further for a very long time so I don't want to be the same situation again.

Which ruckus AP model were you using? Did I miss that mention?

@AaronSchmidt52

3 жыл бұрын

I was wondering the same thing myself.

What is the model of the comparison device for Meraki and Ruckus? I do not see their description in 3 parts of the series

Any reason you didn't test any Aruba "hpe" equipment?

Wendell, sometimes you have to bend the rules when vendors refuse to honor their warranty. Buy the same model directly from Ubiquity then return the broken one to them. Since the serial numbers are likely recorded, you may need to swap the guts (yes I know the serial number is probably baked in the BIOS but I doubt it will go that far) so the serial on the outside matches what you purchased from Ubiquity. It's dishonest to be sure, but so is making excuses to deny a warranty claim.

Just bought into Omada/TP-Link. Relatively easy to set up the management console in a Linux container, then I have my pfSense issue it a Let's Encrypt cert for the web panel. I'm happy with it.

@TNT.No7

3 жыл бұрын

Same here. Though i get some drops with twitch streamjng. In my mind its because of the WMM QOS and the lack of dscp markings on the downstream traffic. Have you experienced any similar issues? Occasional packet drops and the like.

@ZachGoethel

3 жыл бұрын

@@TNT.No7 No noticeable issues; one of my roommates plays on PSN and had some lag issues, but that was a router config problem. Packet loss has been fine. Occasionally my Pixel 3's connection takes a dump, but that's rare and fixes itself.

didn´t know Wendell was a prepper...

Fresh pt3. 👍

Used Engenius in the past, B/G - N days, they had good devices, tried using them with AC (EAP1750H) but the devices would only work for a few days then would stop sending traffic, the devices would have to be hard reset (powered off then back on again, they had a memory leak issue in software). Engenius support was no help, all they would say is "we should have firmware out to correct the issue", three months later still, no firmware update. Engenius wouldn't warranty the devices or refund our money because they didn't feel that the devices were defective. We were stuck with non-working devices we ended up replacing them with Ubiquiti and haven't ever looked back at Engenius.

@AntenDS

Жыл бұрын

Old post but i had the same issues with Engenius in the past with their older EAP300 and EAP600 models. They would just stop passing DHCP traffic and only a reboot would reset them so it is seems like this is a historical bug with them. I have not had this issue with Ruckus and Ubiquiti.

thank you

Are the ewp377 and ecw230 firmware interchangeable? Could you buy a ewp377 and flash with firmware that supports cloud management?

What Ruckus unit were u using ?

The uap 6 lr is much stronger than the lite 6 in my own testing with speeds up to 1100mbps to my xps 13 9300 Fantastic to see a bi t more competition in this space

Quick comment for those of you who are thinking, "I only have a few devices:" the fact that my home system is in this class (I am unifi, but not a fan boy or anything), made it so that when suddenly the entire family was doing separate zoom calls all at once, everything worked. Didn't plan for the virus, but at least my wifi was ready.

Have you looked into Cambium's AP products? There software looks incredible, I'm just wondering if their hardware justifies their price.

Pay subscription for a router? What...

@vgamesx1

3 жыл бұрын

I mean it kinda makes sense, most consumer routers get at most one or two updates a year for about 3-4 years, sometimes not even that often.

@joshndroid

3 жыл бұрын

gettin sick and tired of bullshit subscriptions to everything

@stranger7968

3 жыл бұрын

@@vgamesx1 Makes sense from the point of view of manufacturer as they can squeeze more money out of their customers, but it's just not a good deal for consumers.

@jcnash02

2 жыл бұрын

It’s a support subscription. They will overnight you a new device if it fails. You have 24/7 support from a real human. Firmware updates over the term.

I see Wendell... I upvote... I have 3 Unifi AC Lites in my house (front, middle and rear basically) and they seem okay... but seem to have issues every now and them with them basically freezing and loosing throughput requiring a reboot. Might have to look at other solutions once WiFi 6 gets a bit more mainstream

My issue with unifi is slow DHCP from the gateway and other issues with the gateway and the "key" device. Everything else in my system is great. The switches work well, the access points are great, and the setup is easy. However, the small gateway device I got really needs to go.

Do you store your backup disks offsite there since it's basically EMP-ready?

Why was Aruba not included in this?

“Bought the bullet” 😂 people just say words without any thought.

This is great! I'm looking for something to replace my Unifi UDM. Somehow that stupid thing thinks my ESP32 is doing about 10TB per day of wifi traffic...

which Ruckus device did you use?

@amaralarama

3 жыл бұрын

Either something ancient or he was only testing on 2.4GHz with 20MHz channels. I have a lot of Ruckus, Meraki, etc. (I build large scale networks professionally), and much of it in nasty RF environments. I have stuff that is end of life that top the Ruckus numbers he displayed easily. I didn't catch whether or not he was testing using iPerf or some other testing tool.

@balikbayan21

3 жыл бұрын

@@amaralarama They're all over the map: Engenius is a 4x4:4 AX ap, Meraki is an 8x8:8 AX, Ubiquiti was a 4x4:4 AC wave2, and Ruckus is without any descrioption. There's no logical reason why an MR55 wouldn't outperform the EWS377 if conditions were consistent.

@amaralarama

3 жыл бұрын

Yah I agree, and a little more details on the equipment, configuration and testing methodology would be helpful.

Any updates?

Already invested in ubiquiti, maybe I'll try engenious next time.

Have you heard or tested Amazon eero Pro mesh

I also had problem with the Unifi 6 Lite, specifically with the Roku Streaming Stick + (model 3810X) which are .11AC i tested 2 roku stick+ and 1 roku stick (model 3600X) which is .11N only. the stick + could not achive throuput (in the 5GHz) at al failing [ 0mbps] the built in speed test in the roku setting. the roku stick non + was fine, but i think it's because it's working with 5GHz 802.11n. i guess that when there is an AC client the AP is doing some stuff that is for AX or something like that. just to be sure it wasn't a problem on the stick + side, i did the same test with an unifi AC-LR and it perform well. Also the Unifi 6 lite is not AX capable in the 2.4Ghz band, only in the 5GHz band and with the random trouble i had i guess it's really a half bake product right now :(

so much info to unpack, maybe look into the mikrotik gear

@Slash27015

3 жыл бұрын

I opted for mikrotik instead of ubiquiti, and honestly the equipment is great! the only downside is the time between hardware upgrades, as everyone is still waiting for wifi6 despite it already being almost 2 years old..! yeesh heh..

@blackax

3 жыл бұрын

@@Slash27015 100% I love the gear the config's are a little bit to understand at first.

Do you have any experience with the MikroTik stuff? Their switches and routers are a good value but pretty quirky from time to time. Wondering how good their wAP stuff is.

@MrV1NC3N7V3G4

3 жыл бұрын

Patrick over at ServeTheHome works with MicroTik and has done a few videos on them if you haven't been following him.

@mos6581com

3 жыл бұрын

MikroTik's wireless gear isn't too hot. The wired routers are fantastic and feature packed, as are the point to point radios. But standard AP performance is lacking.

I would love a video breaking down optimizing for gaming, to get the lowest ping and best performance for gaming. Because there is way too much bullshit online by people who claim to know better, and what they claim, doesn't work.... For now, I am using a Aquantia network card, yes it was their "gamer" branded card (aqn-107) but its still technically enterprise grade? seems to work pretty well. I like how you can set the card to use 1-2-4 or 8 cores for the multithreading which is insane. Then for a router we have the ASUS RT-AC86U.... which I think is a decent router? its dual core which is better than a single core (I think?). And of course we have verizon gigabit, so that router is fed from the FIOS box in the basement which gets a direct optical feed from the street. And sometimes in gaming I swear my shots don't hit. I remember WAY back when we had comcast (.768/.256) we bought a d-link router to go behind the comcast modem, and the way it handled packets made gaming way better. It was insane how much better it was vs the router we had prior (i think it was an old linksys). The other issue with gaming today is this idea of "fairness" when it comes to ping. They use "lag compensation" which causes a "peeker's advantage" instead of "ping advantage". A high ping that should be playing on their local servers ends up playing coast to coast and its just bullshit. I hate it. I feel like if companies want everyone on the same server, they need to place the server in the middle of the US. This will result in 40-50 ping for east, 40-50 ping for west, and then middle us would get 5-30 ping. This would result in "fair" gaming. Instead we have east coast servers, where I get 5-20 ping, and then we have west coast servers, where I get 60-90 ping. There is no reason for me to play on west coast servers. EVER. Literally no point. But in newer games like "call of duty warzone" it can end up placing you on an opposite coast server just to fill lobbies. Which makes no sense. I mean, I could understand doing this back in the late 90's and 2000's because gaming wasn't as wide spread as it is today. But today's gaming, there are more than 10x the amount of people playing video games online.... we don't need to be forced together. Funny how when gaming was new, we had "ping advantage" so east coast players like myself always looked for servers were we had 5 ping.... no reason to play on 90 ping servers. And back then there were less people gaming, and we still filled game servers to a large degree. Easily 10x more gamers today, and we STILL end up with a system that ruins the experience. Lag compensation works on the idea of "player a shot player b, was player b actually at that location when player a shot". The problem here is, player A say you there, but they have 90 ping. You being player B with say 10 ping, was actually 10 feet to the right. But because player A did in fact see you in that location when THEY SHOT, the shot registers and the enemy dies. These calculations are also a reason why today's gaming sucks, because its eating up computational work on something so fucking stupid. If My 90 ping is preventing me from getting kills, I should simply play on a lower ping server..... period. And that's what we need to go back to.... we need to "make gaming great again".....

synapse built into the motherboard: NOPE. Im out. NEVER had a good time with that.

AAAAND IT'S GONE _engagement_

i have recently purchased an engenius EWS357AP after watching these videos. i cant for the life of me get ssh working. ive enabled it in the web ui but the username and password ive set for the web ui doesnt seem to work. is there a default ssh password or something? have you had similar issues ?

@Level1Techs

3 жыл бұрын

There is a default password and you can reset the pw from the web gui let me know

@joshualynn5250

3 жыл бұрын

@@Level1Techs yeah i couldnt find an ssh specific password just a web ui one. but i just found the answer on your forums forum.level1techs.com/t/question-regarding-engenius-ews357ap-and-ews377ap/169248/7 basically it truncates the web ui password to 12 characters ... so i just used the first 12 characters of my password and it worked. kind of ridiculous though but glad i figured it out

@joshualynn5250

3 жыл бұрын

OK so ive been doing some testing and im not getting great results. First EWS357AP is a 2x2 device where as the EWS377AP you tested is 4x4. second im not in a faraday cage, im in a condo with a lot of wifi traffic, that said ive used wifi analysis apps to see what channels are open and channels 52 to 64 are silent (which doesn't mean there is no interference just no ssids on those channels), fyi i had to put the AP in the Canada region to use those channels so not sure why that is, maybe I shouldn't have done that? third, im not using iperf (i guess i could) im just using speedtest.net app on my wifes iphone 12 pro (in the same room as ap), we do have gigabit internet though and i can get 800 to 900 mbps on speedtest.net on an ethernet connection so i didnt think it would bottleneck. anyway im not able to get much faster than 200mbps which is not bad but id like to use more of my fiber when on wifi if possible. from your tests you managed to get iperf speeds in the 900s for iphone and ipad on the 4x4 solution. even though mine is 2x2 id still think faster than 200mbps would be possible. maybe im wrong, or maybe there are some tricks to getting the best performance. what other settings did you change from the default ? any suggestions would be appreciated

@Hauteclaire16

2 жыл бұрын

@@joshualynn5250 did it work out for you in the end?

@joshualynn5250

2 жыл бұрын

@@Hauteclaire16 yeah I've never been able to get those speeds. Maybe with the 4x4.

I have an Asrock X470 taichi ultimate, and 2x B450m Pro4, the X470 taichi ultimate broke with a BIOS update, at first, all of the networking stopped woring, didnt matter what i did, resetting the BIOS, rolling it back to a previous version, nothing worked. but eventually the storage controller stopped working, bought a cheap B550 to replace it because i'm done messing with it, and a working computer, is more important than 10g+1g+WiFi

Unifi for the bin in my book always will be had several routers fail one after another in setup that was in 24/7 operation with 116 IP cameras we couldn’t keep unifi in this environment went to Cisco an been running non stop for 4 years now!

@jcnash02

2 жыл бұрын

You should really consider doing an update or 2.

With all us farm boys finally getting real internet from starlink, could you give us an idiots guide to setting up a udm pro??

1:12

Which Ruckus AP were you using?

@A-r-o-h

2 жыл бұрын

Same thing I wondered. I have a hard time believing Ruckus benchmarked this badly.

@zuighemdanmaar752

Жыл бұрын

Exactly. Not even going above 300 mbit/s in a clean RF environment tells me it's either tested on 2.4 Ghz or it's badly a configured WiFi 5

Oh boy... I would just love my bios to fail due to Razer Synapse like my mouse constantly does.

Looking for some suggestions from the group we have a 4000' House and looking for 4 A/P WIFI 6 and some killer WIFI access for Control4 or URC Remote in the future. Cheers Peeps....

Boiler snake merch!

Well, it's not for me but I'll watch it anyway

Feeding the algorithm with like/sub/bell and comment. PSA: make a hotkey to help

I've never seen a killer NIC that's actually not worse than regular NIC.

As soon as the obligatory KZread ads finished, the video seemed like you chopped off ( x seconds ) at the front end of you mobo ad. Just FYI

@Level1Techs

3 жыл бұрын

I think there was a few frames of the asrock and amd logos at the beginning, do you mean that? ~ Editor Amber

Try cambium and call the day

Whoever is putting these videos together please work on leveling out the sound between cuts

What about the privacy issues of ubiquiti, I thought you of all people would bash them for it.

I use TP-Link EPA-225-Outdoors and EPA-245's..... Changed my life!

@PatrikKron

3 жыл бұрын

Do those get updates? I have a consumer router from tp-link, and seams forgotten very short after release. So I’m a bit hesitant to TP-link, but that might be unfounded for their non consumer market products.

@TheJkilla11

3 жыл бұрын

@@PatrikKron yes regularly, they also have control software/hardware, I believe Wendel did an episode talking about them. My friend who's a systems engineer recommend them as I have a large network.

@PatrikKron

3 жыл бұрын

@Justin Brown Okay thank you! I’ll consider it when it’s time for an upgrade. A year ago I thought that my next network equipment definitely would be Ubiquity, but It seams they are getting worse (buggy updates, sudden EOL, cloud key requiring cloud account).

@MrNodoz

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah they're doing great stuff with Omada management and compatible devices.

tp link now have some wifi 6 omada products

I thought you needed a Ubiquity account to use any of their devices.

@robspiess

3 жыл бұрын

They try to make you think so (sort of like Windows 10), but it's not required.

EWS377 for 300 USD ? should be better right, the Unifi 6 LR is 180 USD.

Absolutely zero info on WHICH ruckus was tested? Like maybe show all the WAPs side by side at least? Who goes through the trouble of all that testing and then doesn’t even show the process

If you run 80Mhz channels on your wifi, you are opening yourself to a lot of interference. In a real world scenario, I would want to see them on 20Mhz channels with many clients connected at once. That's when you will start to see who can actually maintain speeds even when loaded down with clients.

@Level1Techs

3 жыл бұрын

This is a good point. But faraday cage. Best case scenario testing. There is some value in revisiting in a future video with your way though. Not in a faraday cage.

consumer grade crap, i agree with u

In my experience, Unifi is a shit show. Really annoying and disappointing.

What about fresh tomato?

How is this even a comparison? You don't even do the most basic thing, which is mentioning/listing out the models of the APs tested!!!

Can we get some tplink stuff too 🙏

No please no, not the Razer crap again, wtf, why buy the motherboard to have razer bloatware and tracking junk forever on your system? Why this sort of double standards Wendell?

Never watch a video with a one minute add to start it, so annoying.

@kanseidorito5287

2 жыл бұрын

You might as well never use youtube again in your life

Meraki is crap