This is a great access point, but may be a little daunting for someone without experience. The quick start guide gives you the info you will need to access the WebUI, but goes no farther. If you need more information, you should download the product manual online, which does a good job of explaining everything in the WebUI. It does expect a base knowledge or familiarity with general networking, so if you're a complete novice you may still need to do some googling to figure everything out. It would be nice if the default address was 192.168.1.10 instead of 192.168.1.1 so that it wouldn't conflict with most home routers, but it's really not a big deal to connect directly and then change the IP address manually.
The Web UI is clean, full featured, and easy to use. Like most business/enterprise networking products, changes have to be applied twice. This is GOOD so that you can make configuration changes in multiple areas and then push those changes to the device all at once. It would be nice if the UI gave a "Your changes won't be applied until you hit 'Changes' above" message, but once you know about it it's not a big deal.
Having up to 8 SSIDs per frequency going to different VLANs is great. Right now I have four being used for Home Users, Guests (client isolated), Guests (not isolated), and devices (printers, TVs, etc). With a smart/managed switch and a router on a stick, it's easy to secure these networks. Band steering has worked great for me, but I haven't been able to try out Fast Roaming or Fast Handover because I only have one Access Point.
Range has been great for me. I have the AP in the middle of my house and it can easily reach everywhere else and out onto the yards (~100 ft). I haven't tested any farther distances, but if you need better coverage, you can get another one to fill the gaps (which is sort of the point with these APs). Since I have only one, I haven't used the EZ Controller software, but it should make setting up additional APs easier.
The power adapter is a joke. They should have included a PoE injector instead. With an AP designed for wall/ceiling mounting, I can't see anyone using the AC adapter that was supplied except for testing and initial setup.
Overall this is a great product. It may seem a bit expensive (especially adding another $40 for a PoE injector) compared to typical home routers, but compared to similar access points from Cisco this is a bargain.
| RAM | 128 MB |
|---|---|
| Wireless Type | 802.11n, 802.11b, 802.11ac, 802.11g |
