Anyone on here using a TP-Link Omada system, how has your experience been?
I’ve been using TP-Link modem/routers and desktop switches for years, since the ADSL days and never had any issues. Come to think of it, one of my trusty wifi routers chugging along still have a ADSL modem on board. :smily
Watching some online reviews the natural comparison everyone makes is Omada vs Unifi and apart from the price, performance seam pretty close and reviews seam posative.
I don’t have very complex network needs, so will hardly skim the top of such a system’s full capabilities, though going Unifi will be nice, it comes at a massive cost vs Omada.
I have a property with some distance between buildings and I’m still actually trying to figure out how to permanently get wifi in to the furthest building from my house, so at this stage my thinking is to simply mesh the AP’s until I’ve fully made up my mind and have the budget for laying fibre plus the energy to trench.
Nice thing I see with Omada, basically all the Omada AP’s are mesh compatible, where only one or only a couple of the Unifi AP’s are, if I understand correctly.
Quite a big downside with Omada I think, especially for a guy like me who has 10 thumbs when it comes to networking, is the limited resources. Everyone and his dog seams to be making tutorial videos on Unifi and I think it will be very difficult to get stuck no matter what you want to do, but resources on Omada is quite limited in comparison.
Hi Nicus… I use to be very brand loyal… When I moved to the rental home in PTA I bought 3 TP link Decos… Moving to the home I bought with a 2000 sq meter yard and more than 1000 sqm under roof in different buildings, I bought another 3 Decos… There isn’t 1 sq cm of my yard not covered by TP link…
I am impressed with the performance and price… Not close to the brands ypu have mentioned.
I am willing to run any test you need running… Doing that will teach me more of a field I lack some experience in…
Thanks Jaco
At one stage I considered Deco as well, in fact a while ago I helped a friend to set up Deco in her house and it has been working perfectly for her, but I’m kind of scared that I’ll be buying myself in to a corner if I go Deco.
The entire Omada system seams very flexible with the sky being the limit and yes I know I said my needs are not that complex, but it doesn’t look like the Deco system is very flexible at all.
I for example need a VLAN or 2 with multiple SSID’s across the VLAN’s, something Deco can’t do. I have 2 units which I’ll be renting out in future, so want to keep those entirely separate from my main home network.
Think I’m going to start with only the ER605 router and a EAP 225 outdoor AP to see what coverage and distance I get, then if I’m happy, I’ll build out the system from there.
All Gen 2 Unifi AP’s can mesh, also known as wireless backhaul. Just be aware that on either of these 2 platforms you will need one of their network controllers running to enable mesh. This can be the hardware devices they sell or alternatively a software controller running on a PC or server.
One of the disadvantages of wireless meshing is that it limits your wireless throughput because the AP’s are using around half of it for the meshing side of things.
Thanks, I’m aware of the limitations of meshing AP’s, as said it’s a short term solution till I make up my mind about placement and exactly how I want to wire them.
Plus at this stage I have very slow 10 Mbps wireless internet, so the meshed AP’s definitely won’t be the bottle neck. :smily
Got my toys today, ER605 router and EAP225 outdoor AP. I haven’t had time to really play, plus our electricity was down for more than half of the day. Getting the software controller to work on my Windows 10 pc was a bit of a mission, but it seams to be running fine now.
Will see if I can do some wireless range tests tomorrow, to see how many more AP’s I need to cover the basics.
Some initial unscientific testing of the outdoor AP and colour me impressed.
I temporarily taped the AP on my houses outside wall around 2 meters off the ground, more or less where I figured will give me the best coverage.
It covers the inside of my house half decent which was unexpected, so it seams I’ll only have to add one more AP to the inside of my house rather than two.
It covers the pool, lapa and braai areas brilliantly as expected.
It also gives half decent coverage in our one rental flat which I didn’t expect at all, so I think I’ll just eventually put a AP inside the flat as well, though it’s fine for now.
Then the big one which I didn’t expect at all is that the coverage reaches to a chalet and the store room at the far side of our yard, I’ll measure the distances later. So if I add another outdoor AP on one of those outside walls, then the inside of those far buildings will be covered as well.
In all it turns out I’ll only have to buy 3 mor AP’s where I initially thought I’d need at least 5 more.
For some reason I can’t get the software controller to work on my pc, so I’m running everything in stand alone mode now, but I’ll hopefully figure this out by the time I buy the additional AP’s since you need the controller to set up a mesh.