topic Re: Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode in Unleashed

Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode

atma_tiwana — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 14:51:21 GMT

Hi,

I have 4 Ruckus R500's running unleashed in AP mode.

What benefit is there in setting these up as a mesh instead (other than being able to connect a unit wirelessly in the future).

TIA

Re: Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode

DarrelRhodes — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 15:13:50 GMT

Hello,

There is no benefit to enabling SmartMesh mode if you don't require the functionality and all the APs are PoE powered.

However if you are locally powering the APs then SmartMesh could (depending on your installation) an element of resilience in the event of an ethernet cable being damaged or disconnected.

Please see here for further details: https://docs.ruckuswireless.com/unleashed/200.1.9.12/c-MeshOverview.html

Hope that helps,
Darrel.

Re: Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode

atma_tiwana — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 15:16:04 GMT

Thanks Darrel.

This won't help with roaming between AP's then?

Re: Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode

DarrelRhodes — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 18:41:56 GMT

Hi,

Correct; Mesh being enabled won't affect roaming at all, it's a completely different, unrelated function.

Your wireless design is the first place to start to ensure you have sufficient cell overlap for roaming to work effectively.

There's lots of resources online to understand Wi-Fi roaming better.

Thanks,
Darrel.

Re: Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode

dan_kern — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 16:12:01 GMT

I have 4 R500 AP's and 2 are hard wired and 2 are wireless connected, All running Unleashed Mesh.

The big benefit I see is being able to manage all 4 access points from a single web interface on my PC or using the Unleashed Application on my phones and tablets.

I feel it gives me a better handle on the network, and easily allows for most tweaks and modifications from a single interface. In the past, I had all stand alone AP's connected to a simple switch, and I had to login to each AP individually to control them. Having a simple unified interface using Unleashed allows me to do either global settings or drill down and do individual settings for each AP. For example, I run 5Ghz on all devices in my home, so I disabled 2.4Ghz radio's with one quick tap on my phone application. Later, I picked up an IP Camera, and I didn't notice till I got home that it only runs on 2.4Ghz. So I was able to simply go into the Unleashed interface and pick the specific AP closest to the camera mount location, and enable the 2.4Ghz band only on that AP. On the other hand, if someone comes to visit and has an old laptop that only has 2.4Ghz on it, I can go back into the Unleashed Interface, and with a single tap on the Unleashed app, I can turn on the 2.4Ghz radios with a single click, and all AP's will come to life. Also, my understanding of mesh is that it allows all AP's to communicate with each other and by having a single SSID shared by all AP's, my cell phone or tablets FEEL like they switch AP's more readily than they did when I had individual non-meshed AP's. I know that the actual decision to "Switch" AP's is made by the phone or tablet, but for some reason, seems just seem to be much more fluid when moving between AP's then they did when they were all stand alone devices. The handoff between AP's appears to be much more seamless to me when starting a live video tv stream on my phone while in the back yard connected to the AP in my office, then walking through the house and out the front door and out to the street, the phone switches AP's smoothly and rarely is there ever a drop in the live streaming real time tv show. I also run IPVanish full time on my phone, and that even stays connected through the AP switching with no interruptions.

The downside to running Unleashed on R500 AP's is that now that they have been End of Lifed by Ruckus, you are limited to the current firmware 200.7.10.202.121 and will likely have no additional updates unless Ruckus finds some kind of big security bug and decides to fix it. The reason they say is due to the amount of memory available in each R500 AP. For me running this in a home environment, it works great and I have setup several of these networks this way for family and friends and everyone is very happy with them. I also like the Unleashed phone application that allows me to manage my network from anywhere in the world just like if I was at home. Anyway, hope this helps.

Re: Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode

atma_tiwana — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 16:22:50 GMT

Cheers Dan.

W have basically the same setup except currently mine is fully wired and using unleashed firmware allows me to manage all the AP's from the phone, or web browser.

Like they say wire where you can, mesh if you can't.

Out of interest just in case I have to make one of my points completely wireless what speeds do you get from the completely wireless ap compared to a wired ap.

Also can you confirm the PSU rating for the wireless ap.

Thanks

Re: Ruckus Unleashed R500's, Ap Vs Mesh mode

dan_kern — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 03:50:33 GMT

Atma,

As far as speed and latency is concerned in the Mesh configuration, it really depends on how you set things up. I found this document really helpful when I was thinking about implementing Mesh and I think you will to.

https://webresources.ruckuswireless.com/pdf/appnotes/bpg-wireless-mesh.pdf

As for power requirements, I have purchased off the shelf wall warts to power 2 of my R500 AP's

The requirement to use the female connector on the AP is 12VDC @ 1Amp. I am using an old notebook power supply brick rated at 12v 3.3Amps with no problems at all. The center pin of the connector is Positive and the Barrel is Negative.

I also have 1 powered by an official Ruckus Wireless POE Injector. If your not familiar with this, it's a device that will inject power into the Ethernet Cable to power the Access Point using Power Over Ethernet (POE) connections. The POE Injector is placed anywhere between the Router/Switch and the Access Point. Simply plug in the POE Injector to wall power, then connect the wire coming from the Router/Switch to the LAN RJ45 female port on the injector. Connect another Ethernet Cable to the POE Output port on the injector and plug the other end of the cable into the POE Input port on the Access Point. It's simple and works great.

The official injector nameplate indicates it puts out 48VDC @ 0.5Amps. Power is applied to Pins +(1,2) (4,5) and -(3,6)(7,8).

And of course you can always power the AP's directly from a POE Router or POE Switch. Just be sure the device puts out enough power at the correct voltage to run your devices. I know some of the newer devices coming out require more amperage than the older ones, so keep that in mind if you should decide to upgrade at some point in the future.

Hope this helps!