Review on EnGenius EWS5912FP 8-Port Gigabit PoE+ Layer 2 Managed Ethernet Switch With 130W Budget, 2 SFP & 2 Uplink Ports (802.3At/Af), Up To 30W Per Port, Remote Monitoring by Nate Mims

I was recently sent this model along with a EWS360AP Access Point for evaluation. I have been using a EnGenius EGS5110P for some time in my homelab and have been fairly happy with it for the limited use it has had. I have finally had some time to put the switch and AP through a little bit of torture testing and here are my thoughts.The GUI from EnGenius is effectively the same as it has been for years now. If you have seen it before you know exactly what are you are getting into. While I will say it is much better than certain other vendors, this area of the industry has been improved so much in the last several years that it is kind of bummer that no improvements have been made. You have access to most features you are going to want/need via the GUI on both the Switch and AP Controller side, although there are a few things that is only available via CLI. The Switch supports 802.3at/af much like it's older sibling and I tested several devices that have issues with many POE switches which worked with no issue. The stated 130w power budget seems to be accurate and you can get a live reading of your used power in the GUI which is a nice feature that isn't always there. The stated 24Gbps routing capacity is fairly close as well, although if you are heavy with your VLANing and whatnot it will slow it down. My advice would be to set up static routes if you have a lot of VLANs/devices/throughput as that helped keep things speedy.Now the only major downside is the Wireless Controller. While it is great to have it included it really has some serious issues. First off, as soon as you plug in a AP into the device they are live with the default config. I could not believe that enterprise class device would do this and have never ran into a AP from any other manufacturer that did that. After updating the firmware I could not add the AP to the controller, only after downgrading again could to add and manage the AP. The management options are fairly lacking compared to other vendors, although there is support for a Guest Hotspot service which is actually really user friendly and they have some mesh features built in. The lack from what I have been able to see of CLI support on the wireless controller is a bummer, there are some bulk actions in the GUI there to help with that I assume but be aware if you are a CLI fan. Also certain features seem not to work at all, for instance even though I have turned all the LED indicators off on the AP via the controller they are still live on the AP.For use in a home or small business this is a great option. The fan noise is much lower than in previous models, although a option to control that in the GUI would be nice, so having this in a home or office setting isn't a issue. Having Layer 2 on a device this capable at this price point is a fantastic value. The Wireless Controller and Access Points are a little to be desired, but this is very early hardware so I would hope that most of my issues will be worked out as time goes on.