Review on TP-Link EAP245 V3: Omada AC1750 High-performance Access Point by Stephen Ball

Let me first say that I am a network engineer with many years of experience in the high-tech industry. I have managed many enterprise wireless solutions (meraki, xirrus, ruckus, ubiquiti, cisco). I started by buying 2 of these EAP245s and added a 3rd because I was so pleased with the value of this unit. 3 of these divisions serve 40 customers (about 30 home automation devices) and 10 new laptops/iPhones. I have gigabit internet and this setup is on an area of 2700 m². ft. I used to use 2x TM-AC1900 (there were terrible dark spots in the house, often had to disconnect and reconnect to connect to different access points) Pros: - form factor - large antennas do not stick out, easy to fold mount on a wall or ceiling. "Speed and Signal - Excellent speed and signal. See screenshot - Omada - after setting up the controller software is really great. I wouldn't run them in a company, but for a small business or an insanely powerful home solution, this is a great solution. Adding new access points is incredibly easy. Configuration is easy and the analysis/reporting is actually pretty impressive. Advanced Features - The main reason I chose this device is the 802.1r functionality. This ensures seamless roaming. No interruption when walking around the house, ideal for calls over WiFi. The Omada controller gives you a clear view of channel usage. Cons: - Limited advanced features. To be honest, for what I need to do around the house, the current feature set works perfectly. The only function I would like in the controller is an "auto tuning signal" function. Potentially misleading marketing - this is probably my own silly mistake, but I didn't realize the need for centralized control to have a controller on the local network. I mistakenly assumed "Cloud Controller" was a phone/cloud solution provided by TP-Link. You need to start the controller (either an OC200 device or an Omada controller). A "cloud controller" is simply the ability to remotely access your controller when you're offline. I'm running the Omada software on Docker on a Centos7 server. I can't blame TP-Link for this as "firewalld" was preventing the Java application from properly monitoring my server's network interface. Conclusion: Overall, the EAP-245 is an amazing little access point. The low price of the access point and the quality of the business-class controller make it a very reliable home WiFi solution.