<I’m a software dev wearing the network admin hat at a small shop>
I need to upgrade my entire network. I thought I was going with MikroTik for their PoE switches (~40 IP cams). I started with the wireless (two cAP ax APs), but the steep learning curve has given me pause.
Does anyone have experience with these? I’ve heard terrible things about CAPsMAN and wonderful things about CAPsMAN2.
Seamless roaming (CAPsMAN) is my top priority. The center of our space (bank vault) casts a dead-zone shadow. I have full coverage with two APs in opposing corners, but as you round the corner of the vault between the APs, the signal gain/loss is exponential.
Other requirements:
Ten employees with most things being hard-wired.
Two mobile workstations on wifi that need to move around/in the vault.
I need 3 SSIDs for a base network (Internal) plus two VLANs (IoT, Public/Employee)
It will be 3 VLANs once I replace Internal’s older unmanaged switches.
Should I return these and go with a different brand? I looked at Ubiquiti, but I’m not a fan of cloud anything.
Switches are great, but unimpressed by their APs. I ended up going with TP-Link after huge support issues with Engenius, and early EOL from Unifi giving me only 2 years of supported devices.
Yes they support multiple SSIDs, and Mesh/steering, and seamless routing.
The most important thing to me was self hosting the Omada controller and not being depending on 3rd party hosting or cloud services like EnGenius or Unifi.
I would look at all their AP options though as im just an overbuilt SoHo user with 4 APs and under 100 devices/users (well 4 users but lots of on devices).
Ubiquity cloud is not a requirement. As long as you have a hardware/software controller onsite they will be fine. I think now they require an account for the initial setup but after that it is all local. The “winning setup” imo is a higher end AP setup such as UniFi/EnGenius/Ruckus/Aruba/Meraki, Mikrotik/UniFi switches, and pfSense firewall. Aruba and Meraki are definitely more expensive commercial setups and I believe they require cloud connection.
Learning the MikroTik way is like banging your head into the Cisco wall, except it costs 1/10th.
As soon as Capsman is set up and the APs are hooked into it, it has been rock solid for me (more than some big names, actually).
Leaving stuff on Auto can work, nothing beats putting some thought in to set things up proper (and then backing up the config in case you break something half a year later).
I have been on the verge of returning these for days, but yesterday I finally got them working. I’ve yet to test out the roaming, and the slave AP isn’t using the channels I defined, but overall things work.