EDIMAX AC1750 good for an SMB?

N

Neutrino

Gawd
Joined
Nov 10, 2005
Messages
602
Hi guys,

Does anyone here have any experience using this access point?

http://www.edimax.com/edimax/mercha...imax_pro_indoor_access_points_ac1750/wap1750/

review:
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...32667-edimax-wap1750-cap1200-pro-aps-reviewed

It will be used in a dentist office and will need to cover about 4 rooms. It will be used for both professional (dentists,assistants) and personal scopes (patients in the waiting room).


Fortunately I convinced them to place most of the professional equipment on a wired network but they will probably want to to use tablets/phones/laptops on the wifi.

This model it seems that it has all the features I need to keep their devices separated from the patient devices in the waiting room.

What I am very interested however is the reliability/security of this device, the performance seems good from the reviews.

I am also open to any suggestions (must have PoE) and thanks in advance for any advice. :)
 
I would look at the unifi pro or new AC lineup. I am not familiar with the EDIMAX gear, but am familiar with the unifi gear. For 4 rooms you could probably get by with a dedicated access point(a single) and then setup your guest and private network. You can set IP ranges that the guest network cannot access and also rate limit the guest or private wlan.

With AC you need LOS and devices that are capable to use AC speeds. More than likely you would need to tweak the clietns to achieve best speeds.

There are other options similar to unifi from Aruba and Meraki but I have not used these.

Unifi Pro: http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-UAP-PRO-Enterprise-System/dp/B0089QB1SC
Unifi AC lite: https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-lite/


These also come with their own power injectors as well. Setup is a breeze in <10min you should be up and running with both wlans and a happy camper.
 
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I was looking at AC to future-proof it a bit...does it really require LOS? (I presume you mean line of sight)

I have noticed that unifi gear is quite popular and I was considering it; however there are two issues that I see with it (please correct me if I'm wrong):
1. Some people complain that often the firmware is a bit half-baked making them a bit unreliable
2. It seems you need to run separately dedicated software (the controller) if you want any of its advanced features

Not sure if the edimax has the same issue listed at nr. 2

Meraki seems superb but the prices are quite high, I don't know anything about aruba.

I was also considering stuff from zyxtel, maybe even Xclaim (budget brand of ruckus)
 
Yes, line of sight. With a smaller office the issue may be minimal.

1-The Ubiquiti firmware can be a real PITA TBH. It isn't just on their unifi products-even provider grade hardware is plagued with random firmware issues. Sometimes they are really good about fixing the firmware, and other times they are not. You get a decent product at an excellent price but there are trade offs. Firmware issues would be a non-issue in your application with non-AC unifis. There is an alpha build of the controller out that fixes some of the AC issues. You can also do band steering as well, so if you want to force clients to 5ghz, you can.
2-Yes, the controller needs to be installed and running somewhere. You can have it on-premise, or host it elsewhere like AWS or perhaps you have a server that's always on. You can host multiple sites with the controller, so if you had other clients, this could be viable. Otherwise, I am sure the dental office has a server that's either always on, or powered on daily. Huck the software there and set it up as a service to fire up when the machine starts.

I *think* Meraki is Cisco's budget line which would explain the price.

Me personally, I wouldn't focus on AC unless their application requires it. You can get great data rates(100mbps) over N. They won't be AC rates, but for tablets and mobiles its more than plenty. To me, AC is too much messing around if you want to have good to great speeds everywhere. What works well in one room may not work well in another. For example, if I set my unifi pro for 5ghz band steering, my laptop has 30-50% signal. This is me sitting like 30 feet away from it, no LOS. LOS=90+%. No LOS, I can tell when I RDP to my laptop. Desktop to laptop, both win10 and it is laggy, fire up a youtube video or file transfer and the session is worthless. I've messed with adapter settings and AP settings, no LOS=just sucks, and that's not AC, just 5ghz N. Perhaps your experience differs.
 
His method doesn't look like it uses an objectionable testing method. I could just as well lick my finger and say "the wind is 3mph due north". Not scientific IMO.

My questions:
What was the payload?
How was the speed measured?
What are the adapter settings?
What were the router settings(wireless, all settings)?
How did he ensure each device was optimally configured?

I can more than bypass his "reference N" speeds on my N gear. While they do have some good articles over there, you need to apply some skepticism and common sense, and I don't mean this as a dig on you. Many "tech articles" lack a solid, repeatable scientific method to performing their tests. There was also no mention of using iperf, either.

From article:
If you want to do the math, the reference throughput measurements were: 2.4 GHz dn - 28.5 Mbps; 2.4 GHz up - 32.2 Mbps; 5 GHz dn - 18.3 Mbps; 5 GHz up - 14.6 Mbps.

On N here I am breaking 100mbps, no AC APs. My test is not scientific. I am pulling an iso from my technet folder, it is 3.9gb in size and is coming over at 12.6-13mb/sec(100-ish mbps). To push a 3.9tb ISO to that server is slightly slower at 11.8-12.5mb/sec(weaker 100-ish). BTW, 5ghz the WAP is about 14' from my laptop and is LOS. I can tell you it drops to 4-8mb/sec when not LOS.
 
Quick testing on my Atheros (TP-Link TL-WDR3600) based router compared to my Mediatek one (D-Link DIR-860L B1) shows a noticable jump in speed, WLAN NIC is a AR9382 based one.
TP-Link does 10-11mbyte/s while in DIR-860L does about 14mbyte/s actual transfer speed.
 
EnGenius stuff looks nice, still a bit on the pricy side ... blech I hate working with tight budgets (I am drooling over some of the merakis)


sc0tty8 don't worry i will not take anything as a dig at me...i'm a devops guy...networking is something I know on the side (I am far from being an expert).

I had the impression the the smallnetbuilder guys were rather more prefesional at this.

So is your advice to stick with an N router rather than a fancy AC?
 
Me personally I would stick to N until the need is there for AC. Anything network intensive is more than likely hard wired.

Some of the small net builder articles are really good, at least the early stuff was. They may be paying/outsourcing writers more or less for content. A lot of places do this which is why you see some really good articles and then just spam or click bait.
 
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