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Turkey, Ankara
1 Level
668 Review
49 Karma

Review on TP-Link EAP245 V3: Omada AC1750 High-performance Access Point by Kevin Robinson

Revainrating 4 out of 5

VLAN management in network products

Really good low cost access point that supports VLAN. I haven't done extensive testing of signal strength or speed, but my Veranda IP Camera is connected to a decent signal and speed. do not use the controller or Omada software - web configuration only. I've tried installing software and all I get are endless errors about closed ports - on the same subnet and temporarily disabling the firewall on my desktop, but it didn't help. Still not connecting, hence a star for that and the unnecessary complexity of using VLAN management and potential login issues. One caveat: if you enable the management VLAN (I'm using VLAN 10) it *only* connects to the same subnet (e.g. mine is 192.168.10.x), you can't access it from another subnet, no matter what rules you have set up in your router, if you don't also enable "Layer 3 Accessibility" on the web server *plus* you should also enable "Layer 3 Accessibility" on the SSH server (but not sign up for SSH if you don't want to) if you want to connect to the web configuration over HTTPS. Everything seems very obvious once I found these settings, but it took me too long to figure it out. I assumed it was a firewall setting in my router that allowed me to ping the EAP245 from other subnets, but I couldn't connect over HTTP or HTTPS. None of my other devices - Ubiquiti, Engenius, Netgear - had this problem when I moved them to my management VLAN, hence one star for this unnecessary complexity, with settings scattered across three spots, and *null* documentation too not in the web configuration screens or the setup user guide. A simple two-sentence warning on the Management VLAN screen would suffice - or, here's a crazy idea: Why not put the settings there? Last time I checked, there's no law against duplicating the same settings in multiple places, so you've grouped all the settings that logically go together for the same function, so you don't have to search the entire UI for one setting and another Page that might affect what you want to record. Also, when I log in using HTTPS with Firefox, it keeps asking if I want to save my password (it's already saved), but it shows the password as a string of numbers, not the actual password, so I have to wonder I'm asking I am wondering if HTTPS is actually correctly implemented on the EAP245 as it appears to be taking my password and generating a key from it which it then sends over the network in clear text. Again, none of my other network hardware is causing this weird HTTPS login behavior. All in all, this is a great home/SOHO access point that supports VLANs, but with one star. Management VLAN works fine on subnets after L3 access is enabled. HTTPS, I'm not sure.

Pros
  • GOLS certified
Cons
  • Fair