So has anyone installed it, demo'd it etc?
Their concept is great.
The hardware is "marginal"....not the most powerful.....not even medium.
We rolled out a few smaller networks with it...and we'll only use it for super budget setups that will be "light use only" and in some setups where it's nearly impossible to run ethernet to standard APs.
As you probably know....their APs do some repeating.
Say you have 3x APs to spread out over a building...you want the one in the middle to be connected to the router via ethernet (I think they call that a gateway AP) and you put the other 2 into corners of that building...they can pickup that central gateway AP and do wireless repeating from it.
You want to keep the setup so that there's a "gateway AP" for every couple of repeating APs. You want to avoid having too many repeating APs per gateway AP, and even though they can do it...you don't want to have a lot of repeating APs pulling from another repeating APs. (remember...each repeating hop cuts speed in 1/2).
Even just solo...no repeating, these little units are light in power...put a few wireless clients on them and have those clients put a load on the network...you'll see the wireless get choppy.
The "cloud management" is well setup...you create your master account up on their website. Within that...you setup sub accounts for each clients network you setup. Each AP comes in a box with its MAC address on a sticker...in that account up in your cloud you enter each MAC address. Ties in with Google Maps. Within a few minutes you'll see the APs "light up" in your portal, and you create your wireless config on them. Some neat info to get from your portal....nice management system.
IMO, for just a couple of dollars cost more per AP...you get SO much more performance with Ubiquiti APs. We're sticking with them for the majority of our clients. What scares most people away from Ubiquiti is the way you setup their units...and the software "controller" which currently has to be setup onsite. Ubiquiti has been pitching the release of their new cloud based controller...which you setup yourself on your own hosted server. But since just about all our clients are business networks with servers it's no problem for us to have this controller on one of the servers.
But for some smaller biz clients, and for a few "residential" clients we have with larger homes...especially some we have out on a nearby island which is difficult to get to physically...the OpenMESH is fine.
If only we could take OpenMESH's cloud management system and make it work with Ubiquiti hardware...it would be perfect!
