Average Reviews:
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I got this access point because I wanted a more or less permanent, whole house solution for wifi access, with RADIUS authentication for my own devices and an open network for guests.
The Engenius brand is made by Senao which (I believe) makes some equipment for netgear and others.
I like the smoke detector form factor. It installs pretty easily onto the ceiling. The holes are not lined up exactly with a ceiling box which I think it should have been. But no big deal, just use the supplied anchors and screws and attach it to your ceiling. You can turn off the LEDs if they get too annoying. Since they are blue they are bright at night.
The internal antenna performs well for its intended application which is access inside a building. At least in my case the signal did not propagate well outside which necessitates a separate AP for outdoor use. Not a deal breaker by any means. Power over ethernet is a must for this device, and it works well in that regard.
The LAN side is 10/100 which isn't really a big concern but it would have been nice to have gigabit. But it is rare to exceed 100Mbps throughput anyway on 2.4GHz 802.11n.
Lots of features including all of the encryption methods (WPA, WPA2, WEP), RADIUS connectivity, NTP, even a graph which tracks traffic. It has VLAN tagging which works fairly well, and a management VLAN which handles the web interface, ntp and RADIUS traffic. I currently have mine setup with three VLANs connected to a pfsense firewall. One VLAN is bridged to my LAN and associated to my primary SSID which uses WPA2-RADIUS. This authenticates against FreeRADIUS on the pfsense box. The second VLAN is associated to a different SSID, is open and is a separate subnet and firewalled off from my LAN. This is for guests. The third is a management VLAN which handles the web interface, RADIUS traffic, ntp etc and is not associated to any SSID.
Everything works really well. Throughput is excellent on b, g and n.
However, it wasn't always this way. The firmware it shipped with (v1.1.2) had a bug where the unit would not connect to RADIUS at all. v1.1.3 had the same problem. Downgrading to an earlier version (v1.1.0) fixed the RADIUS bug but made the unit so unstable it was unusable. Version 1.2.1 fixed everything and now the unit performs flawlessly. So as soon as you get this unit, UPGRADE YOUR FIRMWARE! (and use the WIRED connection when doing so otherwise you'll brick your unit).
Another minor quirk is the DST settings. You have to set exact dates for DST. This means that you'll be setting the dates every year, since the dates for DST changes every year. Just leave it at GMT and avoid the hassle. The web interface will also force you to close and reopen your browser and relogin if you time out. If you use tabbed browsing you have to close all your tabs and restart your entire browser. You can also access the web interface from only one IP at a time. I suppose it's a security feature but it gets annoying if you change IPs or are on a laptop and move from wireless to wired (which you might end up doing when configuring this unit.)
Tech support is a hit or miss. I sent an email and it bounced back with an error. Two days later I get a reply from some guy saying he will run some tests and get back to me. No communication from them for weeks and then they release the new firmware, problems fixed. I write them back to tell them that it works, and a new tech support person starts over with me as if the previous conversation never happened. Since it was working now I told them just close the ticket.
Overall this is a nice access point and really nice for a whole house, conference room, hotel/motel or office setting where you want something discreet with a decent set of enterprise features. But as I said there are a few quirks, while not a deal breaker are a bit annoying.
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Product Description
300 Mbps Wireless N Access Point/Repeater With Embedded Antenna
Product Details
- Brand: EnGenius
- Model: EAP9550
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 11.00" h x 3.00" w x 9.00" l, .62 pounds
Features
- Wireless N 300Mbps Access Point / Universal Repeater with Smoke Detector Design & 802.3af PoE
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