A client has two old Picostations in free space at a caravan park serving about 20 caravans. They’ve worked pretty well for 10 years but they’re getting damaged so need replacing. uap-ac-mesh is an obvious replacement but wondered if there is anything in the Mikrotik range that is worth considering.
The OmniTIK 5 ac looks interesting and although a little overkill with five gigabit ethernet ports. However, it appears to only have 5GHz wireless? 5GHz has poorer range than 2.4GHz?
Can you please add the requirements (apart from being outside and handling 20 caravans)?
I would not buy non-ARM architecture if I were you.
https://mikrotik.com/products/group/wireless-systems?filter&s=c&a=[%22arm%22,%22arm64%22]#!
NetBox 5 ax looks pretty decent.
Still perplexed by why no 2.4GHz interface? It mentions the N standard against the 5GHz interface. Can a 2.4GHz client (rare I appreciate but not uncommon) connect to 5GHz? Experience is telling me no. Assume adding external antenna would be recommended for range?
Omidirectional, best signal possible and passive PoE supply. Still need Wi-Fi 4 connectivity.
NO. A 2.4 only radio won’t even see the 5GHZ signal.
Why passive POE?
My Outdoor omni go to is the XV2-2T.
I have used the XV2-23T a few times. But NOT as an Omni. It been up against a wall in all the installs I have done so far.
The UAP AC Mesh is pretty old. Not sure how much longer that would be supported in the controller. However... it is dual band. The Pico's are likely 2.4 only.
Why passive POE?
Because the existing switch is a Mikrotik PoE switch.
The installation may be that old that it is better to replace everything, e.g. with a RB5009UPr+S+IN router that can power several access points with PoE+
But for passive PoE there are options like the new NetMetal ax (unbelievable that they release a new AP with passive PoE…)
I got bit pretty hard by that piece.
Seems it couldn’t power the little access points (af/at) I asked it to drive.
Both manufacturers tried to figure it out and no one could figure it out. Ended up having to put a CSS610-8P in to keep the access points from rebooting. Zero problems once I made the switch.
It’s also important to include that the 50009UP ships with a smaller power supply than the MAX POWER THE 5009UP IS SUPPOSED TO BE CAPABLE OF. So keep that in mind if you plan to power anything with it.
I am happy with the RB5009UPr+S+IN
I use it in several situations, e.g. to power 3-4 UBNT access points, one or two VoIP phones, a 5G gateway.
Never ran into power limits, but there is a firmware bug between version 7.12.1 (where all was OK) and 7.16beta (where it was fixed) causing PoE issues.
I got bitten by that by upgrading our RB5009s to 7.15.1
The powersupply is 96W which makes like 75W available for PoE powering, plenty for a couple of APs.
(but indeed less than the 130W max)
i can second this. we used them as omnis in big camps, they work better than the old 700 line. coverage is huge, we had normal phone reception from around 400m on them, and worked decent at 200m distance.
Sadly those kind of prices are out of my client’s range. Good as they may be. We’ll probably go with Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC which is 10th of the price and is an upgrade from the Picostations. We’re not offering them internet streaming speeds so these will be fine.
Make sure you check if and how long they will be supported… “UniFi AP AC” is an ambiguous product designation, and some of the products with a name resembling that are out of support. Probably can be had for cheap.