TP-Link EAP225-Outdoor | Omada AC1200 Wireless Gigabit Outdoor Access Point | Business WiFi Solution w/ Mesh Support, Seamless Roaming & MU-MIMO | PoE Powered | SDN Integrated | Cloud Access & App

Just received and connected, not a long-term review.I learned basic networking for an Associate's degree in programming I started in 1999. The bubble burst and due to my life commitments I never got into IT but it has helped a lot over the years. Networking sure has come a long way since then. The technologies and acronyms are enough to drive me crazy and I don't have time to figure it all out. In the default configuration the advanced features are there if you need them but this is just for a home network so I'll leave them alone.I'm using this as a standalone access point, the Omada software is probably great but I didn't want to add a controller or have a 24/7 server running it. This unit has it's own web UI that lets you set all of the basic info and a lot of advanced features.It has a scheduler so I'm just going to put some reasonable times in it for the kids to connect and change the password on our downstairs system.We don't have gigabit internet but did recently upgrade to 300Mbps. Our old Apple Airport Express system was certainly faster than our WAN connection but after seeing the insane speeds this AP hits I MAY have to get a controller to use with my TP-Link ER605 and set up a few more of these.Again, it's been 20+ years since I went to school and I haven't kept up with all the advances but the screenshot I've included was taken on my Mac Mini with ethernet disabled, wireless connection to the EAP225 connected to our LAN. Somehow I got faster speeds than I pay for but that MIGHT be some quality or service or similar trickery that the AP provides. Either way it's hella fast AND includes a POE injector which is a great deal at this price point.I had looked at a LOT of mesh and secure wifi systems but could never find for certain if the RJ-45 ports on the back were manageable. Couldn't find any company that even talked about it. Maybe they are but I didn't want to have to fill the ports with hot glue if they weren't.Decided on this instead because it's pretty easy to plug something into the back of one of those but this can be mounted on the ceiling or wall and will kill ALL the wifi upstairs if they try to take it off to get to the ethernet jack.The unit is smaller than I thought it would be. The LED is green and doesn't look like it will be horribly bright. However it has the ability to turn it off (genius!) in the UI.120 yr old plaster house results using EAP225 connecting to testmy.net:*Using 5GHz band in the same room I get 300Mbps or more on iPhone 13 mini, one room over drops to 180, and then in the kitchen it drops to 100. Not horrible.*Using 2.4GHz band it drops to 80 in next room and 20Mbps in the kitchen.Pretty decent with the 5GHz so if you struggle with plaster walls this works well.If you were wondering why we are still using old Apple Airport setup it's because they were able to make a "mesh" system long before they became mass market items. In our impenetrable old house WiFi suffers horribly trying to get through layers of plaster, lath, more lath, and then more plaster so we have Airport units placed where we need them that are connected to a central Airport. They all share the same network name and password so we can roam and automatically connect to the best connection. Usually.After this review I've convinced myself to look deeper into the Omada software and may wind up getting a controller and a few more APs. Will update if so.This is a great price for a great piece of hardware whether you use it as a standalone AP or part of a larger system. If you want something smaller they have a /Wall version with 3 ethernet ports on the bottom and the WAN port on the back.

I'm renting a townhouse with cat6 ran to the ceiling on all 3 floors for in ceiling access points.The router that ATT provided with their fiber service (a BGW320-500) is fairly strong and can make it's way up from the basement closet (where the fiber connection is) all the way to the top floor to the point where it is "usable" but speed definitely drops down to sub 100mbps, and when several devices are using data on the top floor, all the dropped packets can slow the entire network down.Enter this device, which I bought as a trial to use the built in cat6 cable, and possibly buy another 1 or 2 with an OC200 controller (or run the controller software on hardware I already have running) and just disable the BGW320-500's antenna all together. The BGW320-500 doesn't put out PoE, so I needed the power adapter, but it works fine (although its a bit messy in my networking closet and would like to buy a PoE switch eventually). I did fry my network cable tester by having the signal emitter on the ceiling end to identify the right cable in the network cabinet, and then connecting the power injector on to the cabinet end, sending PoE *into* the signal emitter. By the time I realized what I did, it was non-functional and had burnt electronics smell. If you need a cable tester to find the correct cable, be sure to remove the device before connecting to PoE.After connecting the access point to the PoE live cable, it turned right on. It took maybe 30 seconds to mount into the drywall ceiling with the adapter plate. It comes with drywall anchors but the device can't weigh more than a couple of pounds, and 3 screws seems to hold it fine without any additional weight hanging from it. When first connecting it, it was able to hang from just the cat6 cable without any real amount of stress, so if by some chance we have an earthquake and it falls from the screws, it still shouldn't fall to the ground.After that, it's as simple as finding the IP in your router's client table, going to the web access panel, and setting up the SSID/Password (I used the same as my home network). There's even a feature buried in the configuration that you can disable the status LED, which I did, considering it's mounted right outside of my bedroom door.After the SSID/Password were set up, it worked flawlessly. You can see which clients are connected directly to it. The ATT router config menu even shows it as an "access point" which I believe helps it recognize the roaming 802.11 standards, and they somehow control the handoff amongst the two devices with no extra configuration needed, because several devices have switched over to the access point without being power cycled.My phone gets upwards of 280-300 mbps on the top floor now, which was only ~100mbps before, so it's definitely a massive improvement. No more loading delays where I have to drop wifi and connect to 5g to keep moving, everything seems to have "full service" level speed/connection.It actually works so well that my plans to buy another one or two with a PoE switch and a dedicated OC200 controller have been sidelined until I have some more "play money" spending cash, because I just simply don't need them anymore. It seems to cover the largest dead spot in the house, and now I get reliable connection across all 3 floors without needing to spend a couple hundred bucks. Finishing out the full 3 AP setup with a PoE switch is just a "nice to have" luxury at this point.