small APs for the "underground" ?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Good day guys,

I decided to replace my old networking hardware, which did grow over years to a mixed zoo, by MT products.
To cover the key area of the appartment I’ll try the cAP ax, mounted at the ridgepole of the living and dining area (500 sqft), 13ft above ground.
My main switch is a CRS326, not sure if I’ll keep the five old little Netgears GS308E, but that is another topic for another post I guess.

Where I am still undecided is the equipment for the basement. I have CAT7 available, but most of my ioT devices need WiFi.
As a floorplan doesn’t show the complex structure with its various levels I try to describe the environment.
The walls are up to 18"wide, made of rocks/concrete (old part), and concrete with rebar (new part).
I need to cover three rooms, sitting on two different levels down there. (1st and 2nd basement)
Beside the steel doors there is lots of steel and metal stuff for water and heating, plus the electrical main cabinet and solar inverters / batteries down there. At the lower level I run my mechanical workshop, so even more metal and tools (toys?..)

Based on my basic WiFi experience it is unlikely to cover all with one AP in a a reliable manner, so I thought about using one AP per room.
Preferably little APs, low power, just enough to cover one room. I don’t need high speed data streaming down there, just connecting a few ioT devices and a few computers to browse the Web.

I did not finally decide about VLANs, but might be an option to seperate ioT from core equipment like servers and NAS. So far I understood this WILL add complexity as there are lots of crossover access needs, and it requires decent planning and testing. So for now I think I’ll go with equipment which I could reconfigure with VLANs later on.

Any thoughts and recommendations for the WiFi APs and the VLANs are welcome
txs

2

Not really seeing where the questions are ?

Here are my thoughts.
I am assuming you’re going to setup everything locally (read: no capsman).
In that case, literally the smallest you can get is mAP Lite (about as small as a matchbox !), eventually mAP so there is one more ethernet port if needed.
2.4GHz wifi only, fast ethernet only.
Added benefit with mAP Lite, it has a magnet so you can just stick it to any metal area :sunglasses:

If considering AX, AXLite would be the cheapest option and then you can also plan for capsman with the cAP AX device (eventually, no must).
Also there, 2.4GHz only but AX (up to 400Mbps) and 4 giga ethernet ports (so 3 spare ports for whatever).

You can start up with a flat network (everything in one subnet) but I would advise to consider using vlan.
Once you get how it works, it’s not that complex and easier for future expansion.

PS 2 floors underground, steel doors, computers for web browsing and IoT, also metal tools for toys :laughing: ?
No you make me curious about that environment …

3

@holvoetn
txs for your help. I put a question in my post now :smiley:
The AXLite seems to be promising, having three spare ports doesn’t hurt and price is reasonable.
I am definitely looking into a kind of central management for the network overall, if capsman is something to consider for the APs I’ll look into that, and maybe into the Dude as well.

Wrt the VLANs…the current network is working, so I’ll shift my implementation schedule and build the new network structure in parallel entirely.
Might be wise to then have the VLANs implemented right away as well. Screwing up the test environment doesn’t matter and from what I read so far, there are plenty of opportunities to fail with VLANs. (for sure food for some other posts…)

PS - off topic: The environment isn’t really spectacular, it is not a Bunker, although sometimes it feels like :astonished:). Just an almost onehundred years old house with mandatory fire protection doors for some of the rooms in the basement and a recent extension to the house, with a basement further down, where I have my lathe, drills and tools to work on my old cars (toys). And overall lots of connected legacy systems (natural gas heating, thermal solar system, photovoltaic, house battery, EV chargers, lights, blinds and so on, you name it. Although all systems do function on their own, I connected them to a kind of smart home, controlled by the ioBroker.