R700 in a 3000 sqft home

[victor_thomas_6]

Hi,

I was recently introduced to your products by my AV installer and he recommended perhaps 2 access points for our home. One located centrally and another in our outdoor kitchen to provide coverage to the pool area.

Of course I want the R700, but at that price, I definitely don't want 2 of them. What kind of coverage would I expect from an R700 located in the center of a 3000sqft ranch style home? The pool area would be about another 1000sqft most likely.

Also, would the R700 tolerate an attic location in Orlando, FL?

Thanks!

[daniel_m]

For what it’s worth, I use a single 7982 in my 6000 square foot home—3000 upstairs and 3000 downstairs—and coverage is great. My previous business-class Access Point (AP) had one or zero bars of coverage from my small wireless devices at the edges of the wireless cell. In comparison, it seems BeamFlex allows these same edges to have two bars or more (occasionally I see one bar, but in a second or two I usually see the result of BeamFlex and I have two bars) and this is with 5GHz—2.4GHz coverage is even better.

I expect you’ll get great results with the AP. I am familiar with many wireless vendors—most notably Cisco and Aruba—and, when it comes to a wireless signal from a simple contained little box, Ruckus appears to do it best. That said, your mileage might vary. My home has a fairly open concept and more walls and whatnot might reduce your signal coverage. Right outside of my home the signal is expectedly and notably weaker, but it’s still better than what I had before.

As for your attic, I don’t know if the heat up there is a great idea or not, but I can say it’ll reduce your wireless coverage. Ideally the AP should be as close to your wireless clients as possible, with little to no obstructions or interference near it, and the best place for this would be on a ceiling facing down. If the AP is a bit closer to the pool, you might get better coverage out there and 2.4GHz will pass through walls better than 5GHz.

Overall I am pleased with my Ruckus investment for home use. Hope this helps.

[john_d]

In a home you might be okay, depending on how optimally you can place the AP. This is generally because homes are fairly clean on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz and the walls and floors are reasonable for signal penetration.

I use an R700 in an 1100 sq ft 1 floor apartment and I've lately benefitted from running 2 AP's instead in order to maintain above 100mbit coverage consistently, especially for iPhones/iPads which inherently have weaker 1 and 2 stream radios.

The other problem with apartment complexes is that there's 70 nearby AP's utilizing the spectrum and competing with my AP, so reaching far is more of a function of my AP being able to overpower my neighbor's.

Honestly, I would also consider alternative setups such as having two or more 7372's, or possibly 7982's if you can find them at a good price. 802.11ac's peak transmit rates may seem super awesome, but in practice the number of clients (and the range) that take advantage of it may not work in your favor, and having consistent coverage at a slower peak rate might actually result in faster average throughput.

It also depends on what you're trying to cover. Remember most smartphones and tablets are either 1 or 2 stream, so there might not be ANY appreciable performance difference against a 7372 vs a 7982 or R700 (though the 7982/R700 in my experience has maybe 15-20% better range than the 7372).

(Bottom line is, for home budgets, the 7372 is much better bang for the buck)

[monnat_systems]

I would suggest keeping in mind the Area you are trying to cover and $$$ then couple of ZF7372 would be the right bet. Do a real test to see how they work. that should bump your budget little bit however its going to be peace of mind.

[john_d]

Agreed. This is especially the case if you have a lot of smartphone/tablet users. In my experience, I've found that a single AP covers nearly 2x the distance for laptop/desktop clients compared to smart phones. Part of this is because they almost always have 2-3 spatial streams while mobile devices have 1-2, and part of it seems to be better antenna design.

To the OP, I think you'll almost certainly find the ZF7372 to be a better bet. You won't be able to have those crazy awesome 802.11ac speeds, but you'll almost certainly be able to have more even coverage that's favorable for weaker clients.