TP-Link Omada EAPs and cloud controller

Harnser · 1 Jun 2020 at 21:44

There's a lot of love for Unifi on these forums, which it has thoroughly earned.

However I keep running across ads for TP-Link's Omada mesh system. It's cheaper, it's got ugly APs, and has anyone experience with it? How does it perform compared to Ubiquiti kit?

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 05:52

It's not a Mesh system, in the same way that Unifi isn't a mesh system. They're both (supposedly) Software Defined Networks.

Like Unifi (and LOTS of other systems from Ruckus, Engenius, Netgear, Untangle etc.), Omada is a 'me-too' product following on Cisco's launch of Meraki where folks loved the ease of management but hated paying the licence fees. They all have some form of software controller and they have 'dumb' devices that have to be managed from the controller.

I'm sure Omada is great. Most TP-Link stuff is. But why would you buy Omada when you can buy Unifi? Or Meraki/DNA for that matter now that Cisco are hitting back against Unifi with their lower-end stuff.

Omada's software interface doesn't look very pretty, it's priced directly against Unifi (you'll save nothing if you spec like-for-like equipment) and there is a VAST knowledgebase of people who can use and implement Unifi, whereas TP-Link's forums have tumbleweed blowing through them. Of course, a lot of people would see that as a positive sign that everything is really easy to implement!

There are literally dozens of these systems out there. Sadly, for better or for worse, Unifi is the clear favourite in the public eye at the moment and I would need a POWERFUL reason to move away from them, despite all the issues surrounding their routing/security division. For access points and switches they pretty much are the small business and high-end home system of choice.

apachegoose · 2 Jun 2020 at 07:15

> But why would you buy Omada when you can buy Unifi?

As its better and cheaper. The Omada EAP245 out performs the UAP-AC-PRO yet costs 50% less.

We have Omada now (3 EAP245's and 1 Wall) after having previously Uap-ac-lr, and switched as wasn't happy with their performance and really glad we switched. The Omada line is really simple, easy to use and has amazing performance for the money, they are easily the most consumer friendly solution in this area. Only downside with Omada is the wall's 100mbps limit, which is fine for guest rooms etc, but you can't use them generally, its the one thing that almost made me stick with Ubiquiti and upgrade to UAP-AC-PRO's + couple of walls.

Also look at Zyxel, some of their AP's are good but cost more.

PS. The one thing that Ubiquiti really has against it btw is fanbois, god knows why some people seem to love to go on and on about it as some of their stuff is great but they really are far from the best.

PPS. The Omada line can be a proper Mesh system btw. Although given its powered by PoE its slightly odd to use it as one.

Harnser · 2 Jun 2020 at 08:44

WJA96 said:
It's not a Mesh system, in the same way that Unifi isn't a mesh system. They're both (supposedly) Software Defined Networks.

Thanks for the correction. I've seen "mesh" bandied around a lot in magazine articles but never defined, so I eventually assumed it meant a WiFi system where you could walk around and be transferred between APs. What does it really mean?

Here's a glorious example from a review:

In case you haven’t been keeping tabs on the wonderful world of wireless connectivity, mesh takes the flaky coverage of the traditional single router system and replace it with a better coverage by employing two or three units

which sounds like any system with multiple access points.

I'm sure Omada is great. Most TP-Link stuff is. But why would you buy Omada when you can buy Unifi? Or Meraki/DNA for that matter now that Cisco are hitting back against Unifi with their lower-end stuff.

I got called by a Cisco rep in February, and knowing the price of 4x AC-PRO and a 3-year cloud controller license, asked him how much the equivalent Meraki solution would cost. He priced up 4x MR33 and 5yr(!) meraki licenses, which came to £2k+VAT. I've heard a lot of good things about Meraki, but not enough for that price premium. Do they do more reasonable stuff?

Omada's software interface doesn't look very pretty, it's priced directly against Unifi (you'll save nothing if you spec like-for-like equipment)

I know little about networking and even less about how WiFi works, so was reading through the Omada access point specs seeing they had higher db transmit power than Unifi and thinking.. that means they are more powerful so the cheaper models are the equivalent.

When every manufacturer gives different details in their specs, how do you find like for like? I haven't found antenna radiation patterns for the Omada APs, or if they're 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4 (something I see bandied around with Unifi and which are more powerful).

there is a VAST knowledgebase of people who can use and implement Unifi, whereas TP-Link's forums have tumbleweed blowing through them.

That is true, and a very good point.

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 09:17

Harnser said:
I've seen "mesh" bandied around a lot in magazine articles but never defined, so I eventually assumed it meant a WiFi system where you could walk around and be transferred between APs. What does it really mean?

In a conventional system with access points, each access point has a wired connection back to the router. In a mesh, the access points are connected over wireless LAN, either through a completely separate wireless lan system embedded in the access point, or using up some of the bandwidth of the standard wireless LAN. Mesh is almost always slower because it has to use half the available bandwidth just to communicate between access points. Latency is also higher in mesh systems.

Harnser said:
I got called by a Cisco rep in February, and knowing the price of 4x AC-PRO and a 3-year cloud controller license, asked him how much the equivalent Meraki solution would cost. He priced up 4x MR33 and 5yr(!) meraki licenses, which came to £2k+VAT. I've heard a lot of good things about Meraki, but not enough for that price premium. Do they do more reasonable stuff?

Yes, check out Willie Howe's YouTube channel for reviews. They're REALLY going after Unifi. And it's Cisco, so you know it will work. Sort of...

Harnser said:
I know little about networking and even less about how WiFi works, so was reading through the Omada access point specs seeing they had higher db transmit power than Unifi and thinking.. that means they are more powerful so the cheaper models are the equivalent.

Well, there are two things I would ask you to consider about your statement. Firstly, the maximum combined amplification and antenna gain are limited by law, so there is no possibility of one access point being more powerful than another. They're all effectively the same. And secondly, the issue of coverage (not range, range is measured in a straight line, coverage is how much area the access point will reach) is dictated mainly by the client (your phone, tablet, laptop etc.) Imagine I'm standing in the middle of a football field with a megaphone. And there are people in the stands. They can probably all hear me, but I can only hear the ones nearest the pitch and the ones in the upper tiers are completely inaudible. Unless you can give your phone or tablet a megaphone, your phone will always be able to hear your access point but the access point can't hear the phone. That's why the transmit power on the AP-AC-LR is the same as every other Unifi access point but the RECEIVE/Listening antenna gain is higher - that's what makes it Long Range.

Harnser said:
When every manufacturer gives different details in their specs, how do you find like for like? I haven't found antenna radiation patterns for the Omada APs, or if they're 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4 (something I see bandied around with Unifi and which are more powerful).

I would very politely ask you to not use 'powerful'. Perhaps 'better coverage'? The 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 just refers to how many send and receive channels (and antennae) they have. You can combine the channels to get more bandwidth (and therefore send data faster). The thing about Unifi isn't that the access points are exceptionally good. They're not. They're perfectly adequate and the real thinmg is that if you have a building with 5 access points and you want to add a new one, you just plug it in and adopt it. And that's it. It just works. No configuration, no messing about. It gets all it's data automagically from the controller and that's it done. For an IT professional's point of view it's the ultimate lazy-mans tool.

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 09:26

apachegoose said:
> But why would you buy Omada when you can buy Unifi?

As its better and cheaper. The Omada EAP245 out performs the UAP-AC-PRO yet costs 50% less.

We have Omada now (3 EAP245's and 1 Wall) after having previously Uap-ac-lr, and switched as wasn't happy with their performance and really glad we switched. The Omada line is really simple, easy to use and has amazing performance for the money, they are easily the most consumer friendly solution in this area. Only downside with Omada is the wall's 100mbps limit, which is fine for guest rooms etc, but you can't use them generally, its the one thing that almost made me stick with Ubiquiti and upgrade to UAP-AC-PRO's + couple of walls.

Also look at Zyxel, some of their AP's are good but cost more.

PS. The one thing that Ubiquiti really has against it btw is fanbois, god knows why some people seem to love to go on and on about it as some of their stuff is great but they really are far from the best.

PPS. The Omada line can be a proper Mesh system btw. Although given its powered by PoE its slightly odd to use it as one.

Well, as someone who buys LOTS of access points, I can assure you that I can't buy an EAP245 for half the price of an AP-AC-Pro. They're within £8 of each other at my distributor.

And do bear in mind that if I have a Unifi system already installed, I'm not likely to rip it all out and add anything TP-Link.

I've got no reason to believe that it's not a perfectly decent access point, but the point about Unifi isn't that it's an access point. It's a software defined network access point. And Unifi is just better than Omada at that. It just is. Omada is an SDN bodged on top of existing TP-Link managed switches, routers and access points. Unifi is an integrated system. And you will find, if you check my posts both here and on the UBNT community forums (same username), that i'm no fanboi. I do keep buying it, because despite all it's flaws, it's still teh best overall solution to my customer's needs.

[Edit]And yes, Unifi can run in mesh mode too[/Edit]

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 09:41

Harnser said:
I know little about networking and even less about how WiFi works, so was reading through the Omada access point specs seeing they had higher db transmit power than Unifi and thinking.. that means they are more powerful so the cheaper models are the equivalent.

Actually, yes. They do claim a higher transmit power, so the antennae gain must be weaker. Don't get hooked by specs!

Harnser · 2 Jun 2020 at 09:46

WJA96 said:
In a conventional system with access points, each access point has a wired connection back to the router. In a mesh, the access points are connected over wireless LAN, either through a completely separate wireless lan system embedded in the access point, or using up some of the bandwidth of the standard wireless LAN. Mesh is almost always slower because it has to use half the available bandwidth just to communicate between access points. Latency is also higher in mesh systems.

Thanks, that makes complete sense.

Well, there are two things I would ask you to consider about your statement. Firstly, the maximum combined amplification and antenna gain are limited by law, so there is no possibility of one access point being more powerful than another. They're all effectively the same. And secondly, the issue of coverage (not range, range is measured in a straight line, coverage is how much area the access point will reach) is dictated mainly by the client (your phone, tablet, laptop etc.) Imagine I'm standing in the middle of a football field with a megaphone. And there are people in the stands. They can probably all hear me, but I can only hear the ones nearest the pitch and the ones in the upper tiers are completely inaudible. Unless you can give your phone or tablet a megaphone, your phone will always be able to hear your access point but the access point can't hear the phone. That's why the transmit power on the AP-AC-LR is the same as every other Unifi access point but the RECEIVE/Listening antenna gain is higher - that's what makes it Long Range.

Excellent points. The one about coverage being dictated by the client is why I've been asking in the other thread whether it's best to start with a single AP-AC-LR and see how it covers the house, or an AP-AC-PRO. With not much basis I've been leaning to the LR because staying connected to a weak client matters (no more black spots), but the "Pro" has pro in the name so must be better :rolleyes:

I would very politely ask you to not use 'powerful'. Perhaps 'better coverage'?

I will and thanks for pointing it out. I'm happy to be corrected: I know there's a lot I don't know, a lot I don't know I don't know, and I'd rather know than not know.

The 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 just refers to how many send and receive channels (and antennae) they have. You can combine the channels to get more bandwidth (and therefore send data faster).

Is the number of channels/antennae about getting more bandwidth to a single device, or does it really only matter when serving a lot of devices?

Thanks @WJA96, Tuesday has started a good day because I have learned multiple new things!

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 09:55

Harnser said:
The one about coverage being dictated by the client is why I've been asking in the other thread whether it's best to start with a single AP-AC-LR and see how it covers the house, or an AP-AC-PRO. With not much basis I've been leaning to the LR because staying connected to a weak client matters (no more black spots), but the "Pro" has pro in the name so must be better

Actually, there is a better reason not to waste money on a 3x3 access point. I can pretty much guarantee that you don't have any 3x3 clients and even if you do, the instant a 1x1 or 2x2 client attaches to the access point the whole system slows down to the speed of the slowest client. So if you have a 3x3 access like the AP-AC-Pro, you've just wasted any extra money you spent on it.

So a Lite or an LR is the best entry-level Unifi access point at the moment. Or just bite the bullet and get the Wave2 UAP-HDNano or UAP-HDFlex because they are both 4x4 and the great thing about that is they can do 4x4 if you only have 4x4 clients OR they can do 2 2x2 clients, effectively doubling real-world throughput. Or, they can do 2 1x1 clients and one 2x2 client at the same time. And the HDFlex is very easy to mount.

[Edit]Edited before someone points out that I can't add up to 4![/Edit]

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 10:01

Mounting is also INCREDIBLY important with Unifi access points. They are REALLY sensitive to being mounted downwards on a horizontal flat surface so they can establish some form of backplane. It doesn't need to be a big flat surface area, but it does need a flat surface area. In my experience most other access points are much better at wall-mounting than Unifi. That could be an area where Omada is better. So, if you can't mount the access point on the ceiling, from my experience, either buy the In-wall device or the HDFlex model that is designed to be wall-mounted.

Or buy another brand of access point if you're not committed to Unifi.

Harnser · 2 Jun 2020 at 22:29

apachegoose said:
We have Omada now (3 EAP245's and 1 Wall) after having previously Uap-ac-lr, and switched as wasn't happy with their performance and really glad we switched. The Omada line is really simple, easy to use and has amazing performance for the money, they are easily the most consumer friendly solution in this area.

Thanks @apachegoose good to hear your experiences with them. Did you mount the EAP245s in the exact same locations as the AC-LRs, or was the equipment relocated? Curious if that contributed to the better coverage you experienced.

WJA96 said:
Well, as someone who buys LOTS of access points, I can assure you that I can't buy an EAP245 for half the price of an AP-AC-Pro. They're within £8 of each other at my distributor.

You have a good distributor

For consumers not buying quantity the price difference is more marked.

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 22:34

EAP245 is £90-ish vs. AP-AC-Pro is £130 retail. Not £180. Even a HDNano is only £160. So definitely not half the price.

Harnser · 2 Jun 2020 at 22:45

WJA96 said:
EAP245 is £90-ish vs. AP-AC-Pro is £130 retail. Not £180. Even a HDNano is only £160. So definitely not half the price.

Sure, but a larger difference than £8 at consumer prices too.

WJA96 · 2 Jun 2020 at 22:54

Well, the simple fact is that if you buy a decent quantity of kit, prices change.

OldSkoO1 · 1 Jul 2020 at 00:10

Not sure if this is still relevant being 4 weeks on but I installed 3 of the EAP245 and 1 EAPW225-outdoor at my home.

I have Ubquiti kit at work and it’s solid but the performance wasn’t what I expected in a heavily used environment. The tech guy manages it and I asked what I should get for home and tp-link came up.

Did some research and in controlled testing, so not real world, it outperformed Ubquiti plus it was slightly cheaper. This also coincided with an offer including a free omada cloud controller in a 3 pack bulk buy. So very cheap. Extremely easy to configure

Electrician hard wired cat6 to each and the performance is fantastic over WiFi with a bt fttp 900 connection.

Just tested on an iPad Pro at over 630Mbps / 110Mbps same on MBP and iPhone 11 was 520Mbps earlier.

The 3 APs are evenly distributed, set with the correct power levels, no channel overlap and are well positioned. Nice distribution of clients.

highly recommend these APs

WJA96 · 1 Jul 2020 at 09:47

OldSkoO1 said:
Just tested on an iPad Pro at over 630Mbps / 110Mbps same on MBP and iPhone 11 was 520Mbps earlier.

That's extremely impressive. So you got 630Mbps transfer speed in iPerf? Or you saw 630Mbps on speedtest.net?

Which model iPad Pro? 2018 or 2020?

The theoretical maximum on the chipset in that access point is 650Mbps (1300Mbps half-duplex) and I've never seen anything over 430Mbps on that chipset. So if TP-Link really have got access points that fast, they're doing something really voodoo.

The odd thing is, after this conversation, we got in an EAP245 and an EAP225 outdoor and they're probably as good as the equivalent LR or Lite or Mesh but at that you don't save much money. And they didn't perform anything like as well as anything HD from Ubiquiti (Unifi).

Very strange.

OldSkoO1 · 2 Jul 2020 at 08:59

I ran iperf3 many times whilst installing the AP's, before FTTP arrived, to make sure I got good throughput and client distribution between points, before fixing them in the ceilings. I did record the data somewhere but I recall it being in the 450-600Mbps region. It mostly hovered around 500-600Mbps.

Speedtest.net gives similar results. Fast.com seems to be over optimistic.

Just tested it again, on iPad Pro (2018) AC only.

And an average of 3.

As it happens, I was testing an iPhone 11 last night. Average of 5

And of course, on wired, all is maxed out.

WJA96 · 2 Jul 2020 at 10:41

That’s very impressive. I’m struggling with how it’s possible, but OK.

I’m not able to get anything faster than 440 Mbps out of my NanoHD here. With everything else kicked off the network and using a 4x4 client.

So you’ve got something incredible there.

OldSkoO1 · 2 Jul 2020 at 11:20

I agree I didn't expect it to achieve that sort of speed. I had seen 1 or 2 reviews in my research of what to buy suggesting the EAP 245 units do well, i.e. 600Mbps+

We have lots of Ubquiti stuff at work and they do get hot in busy environments. I just wonder if the bulkier / uglier, bigger case design of the 245 helps venting and dissipate heat better.

I'm definitely pleased with the result, especially as its so easy for me to manage too. Wonder if MU-MIMO and beam forming help to get those speeds over 600Mbps.

I only have a couple of AX devices and don't have plans for that to change within the next 2 years so I was keen to get the best AC kit I could find that would go on the ceiling.

WJA96 · 2 Jul 2020 at 16:05

I suspect there is something amiss somewhere. I can also see 650Mbps on my iPad Pro 2018 with Speedtest.net but iPerf3 only reports 250 - 440Mbps depending on what else is on the network.