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externaluse
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Hardware advice; large family home / 802.11n or ac

Mon May 23, 2022 2:04 pm

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to figure out the best hardware for a large family home. It'll require from about 3 to maybe 5 access points. The router is supplied from an external vendor and cannot be changed; it's close to a Gigabit connection.
For ease of configuration and in case of any resets I'd love to use Capsman.

Without going bonkers on pricing, which product (wall installation, POE capable) would you advice for either 802.11n or ac?

Can I use one of those access points as a "master" to configure capsman, or does that always require a router like a cloud core? If not, what device could provide Capsman whilst not necessarily taking over any jobs of the router? (ie no DHCP, routing, firewall etc).

Thanks for any advice!
 
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mkx
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Re: Hardware advice; large family home / 802.11n or ac

Mon May 23, 2022 2:51 pm

If you insist on CAPsMAN, then I'm afraid none of Mikrotik APs are really great. Audience is IMO very nice product (it's not wall-mountable), has a very good coverage and performance, BUT to unleash all the benefits it has to run ROS v7 (close to be prime-time ready, but not entirely there yet) with wifiwave2 drivers. The later is incompatible with CAPsMAN (for now).

Many users (myself included) think that running CAPsMAN for less than 5 APs is excessive. So you might want to go with a few Audiences (say 3), try to see if you actually need more to cover your house, use them as stand-alone APs and when ROS and wifiwave2 get friendly with CAPsMAN convert the setup to CAPsMAN managed swarm of APs if you find managing a few APs manually overwhelming. One of audiences will easily run CAPsMAN.
 
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anav
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Re: Hardware advice; large family home / 802.11n or ac

Mon May 23, 2022 3:19 pm

Before purchasing audience, ensure you search on the forum for Audience and read all the threads.
Personally I would use WIFI6 products (access points) now available that are affordable. I would start with two of them and then
if coverage not sufficient then contemplate a third.
 
gotsprings
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Re: Hardware advice; large family home / 802.11n or ac

Mon May 23, 2022 5:57 pm

Install ACv1 stuff now, in the hopes that it would at least be updated to 2016's ACv2, "someday"?
 
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Ca6ko
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Re: Hardware advice; large family home / 802.11n or ac

Tue May 24, 2022 2:56 pm

@externaluse
For home use, CAP ac devices for ceiling mount and WAP ac devices for wall mount have proven to be good. I would recommend using a switch with POE to connect and power the devices. The manager can be run on either of these devices. The biggest challenge is designing a WiFi network of multiple access points. The points need to be properly positioned to choose their coverage size, channel, bandwidth, and power. And then this data is simply transferred to CAPSMAN.
802.11n devices should not be used.
 
externaluse
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Re: Hardware advice; large family home / 802.11n or ac

Tue May 24, 2022 6:34 pm

Thank you so much for all the advice, it's greatly appreciated
I think I'll start with a POE switch and connect a few WAP acs. I'll probably be back with a few questions once it's all up and running. Hardest part appears to actually get hardware from somewhere at the moment...
Thanks again!
 
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anav
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Re: Hardware advice; large family home / 802.11n or ac

Tue May 24, 2022 6:50 pm

Good luck, you will need it, regarding, keeping your hair regarding capsman, overall performance woes and of course, the bruises from family members being irate (physical and emotional scars). Enjoy!

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