Some important notes:
The included 4 ports don’t look to be PoE, so powering the Access Points will require a secondary device.
The controller supports other Access Points, including their more powerful version, 3x3, outdoor, etc.
Most of this is normal for this enterprise type of switch, this is more for the home/homelab user.
Can this WLC be setup centrally with the APs connected across a VPN tunnel? If yes, can the APs switch traffic locally if configured to do so or do they require all traffic to be tunneled back to the WLC? Do not need 5 additional APs at my home, but if I can remotely support some other locations wireless may have some value to me.
Went ahead and bought this. Took about an hour for basic configuration. Unlike more popular enterprise solutions these APs do not tunnel traffic back to WLC. This means unless you have a flat network and single SSID you will need to connect the APs to a tagged or trunked interfaces. The APs do not go out and find the controller when they come online and instead you initiate the controller to find the APs. I only brought up an AP on same vlan as controller at this point so I can not speak on what it will take to discover an AP across a L3 connection. I will be looking to do this before long, but they say it supports it and considering how easy rest of it was can not imagine will be much to it. Can not speak on performance yet, but being AC capable imagine throughput will bottleneck at my ISP before it does at these APs. Range seems acceptable, and antenna connections on the AP so you could add external antennas to help if needed.
Thanks for discussing this product! I also purchased it and am interested in hearing about your experience in whether or not it discovers an AP across L3. Thanks again!
Set mine up over the past 2 weekends. Awesome professional-grade coverage in my smallish house using just 3 of the APs. I’m not sure if I’ll sell the others or keep them as spares. 3 APs = 1 each on 2.4 channels 1, 6 & 11.
I had a problem where nothing on the system would run over 30 Mbit/s despite my 105 Mbit/s connection.
Turns out my wife’s (older) kindle was having problems playing nice with other devices on the same SSID, making is so that nothing would switch over to a/ac.
I set up an additional SSID for just the kindle, isolating it on its own network, and the problem went away.
I haven’t investigated the captive portal yet, I don’t mind giving guests the password for my guest SSID.
A few more weeks in and I have to declare that this may well be the best Woot! I ever Wooted.
WOOT!
