Andrew luecke

You're overthinking it imho. Just wire them in, Commission them, and done.. In a low density environment / non commercial environment, practically any decent ap will work fine. Mine at home, I simply shoved in 2 unifi aps + router, ran the setup wizard, then turned wifi off on the router (because the wifi on the unifi routers suck). I also enabled wifi power saving support. Fast installation and products like eero are even faster.

Up to you what you want to do. But keep in mind that many products have mesh networking or at least wireless uplinks built in these days. Their marketing simply doesn't revolve around it. Also, most APs basically use a configuration wizard to make it easy. A product like eero for instance does mesh, but what would you gain if you have Ethernet anyway? These products are easier to configure because theyve simply done a good job with the interface, and have included mesh to make it easier for people with no Ethernet. Mesh definitely has its uses. As redundancy, it's incredible, or somewhere with crap wiring, or somewhere you don't have Ethernet. And the quality of mesh on ap's has gotten better (eero for instance I haven't heard anything bad about even in mesh mode). As an installer I had 200+network installs though. Probably less than 5 used mesh full time in any capacity. These were unifi systems which have the capability built in though (we just didn't use it). Choose your aps based on requirements, not the marketing. The trend for all aps is to simplify configuration by making good defaults and hiding the hard stuff

G'day, Orro is back on: https://chowmain.software/drivers/control4-orro

G'day, we recently updated our site and it looks like we missed some drivers.. It should be back up shortly within the next hour or so. I'll let you know when it has been fixed

Just my 2cents, but things like this are never a 2 second job. They require a lot of testing, additional development, and often a mechanism for migration.

Try adding delays

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More features mean more CPU requirements. Furthermore, control4 don't require people to upgrade their c4 os (there are still plenty of people running os 2.9.1 or earlier) If you install a ca10, it will be likely supported for a much longer period. And even when support as a primary is dropped, secondary controller support is available for ages. What would be your proposal to fix the issue?

You mentioned the IP is 192.168.1.108? That's also the default for dahua network cameras. Also ensure there is no IP conflict if you have cctv there

Randomly swapping things isn't the way to approach it.. You need to work out specifically where the issues are.. Make sure nobody is using bittorrent or anything similar or is uploading at high speed (this will destroy the internet) Ensure wifi is disabled on your router, and ensure the only other thing plugged in is your switch.. This is good network practice anyway (for almost all products, NEVER use the wireless built into your router). Ensure all SONOS gear is on wifi. Disconnect the ethernet from all of them. Someone mentioned Sky boxes can cause loops too (but not sure of this) Grab a laptop, plug it directly into the router, run pingplotter and ping the IP of the router, and a reliable internet IP (like 8.8.8.8, which is google, so almost always be online). If you get dropouts, its likely the router or internet connection. However, to confirm 100%, plug out the switch to confirm. If no dropouts on your router happen with the rest of the network plugged out, you have a network loop. IF its not the router, ensure no devices are plugged into anything except a managed switch (don't daisy chain through anything). Ensure RSTP/Rogue DHCP guarding is enabled Open a few command prompt windows, and ping -t IP. This will do a continuous ping.. monitor it. Ping all major network components (Wifi AP's, routers and switches) in different windows. If you get dropouts from all at the same time (particularly regularly in large blocks of dropouts then back), you likely have network loop and the switch you're using is dropping out. If nothing is dropping out (including the ping's to your wireless access points), but your wireless is still dodgy, then its your wifi network. It could also be incorrect wireless configuration. THEN consider switching AP's.. OR reconfiguring the network. If you have dropouts to one device, you likely have interference on that cable, the cable is damaged/improperly made or the product is faulty. Switching to a mesh network won't fix any of these issues, unless a network cable is faulty. In fact, in some cases, it will make things worse. If it turns out to be the wireless network and interference related, you're probably better off with a product like Ruckus which is expensive, but should be well suited for high density high interference environments (but I doubt this is the case). You need to diagnose the issue and determine the exact fault, to be sure you fix it correctly

I'm fairly confused. If you've already got hardwired access points in your house, why are you looking at mesh at all. What are you specifically trying to achieve here? What is your goal? Are you trying to add more ap's to an area with absolutely no Ethernet nearby. Or upgrade them? Again, mesh has its applications, but it's not something that should be first choice in an install, and many brands have the capability built in anyway at varying degrees. You can keep the other network equipment in most cases, but all your aps should be the same to ensure roaming behaviours are correct (because good roaming sometimes uses weird quirks to encourage bad clients to roam. So most importantly, are there Ethernet connections everywhere you want APs?

Also. What country are you in. Different countries have different recommended products

Could be an mdns issue on your local network too.. Maybe something like where .local or something similar is not resolving locally ? What router are you using?

Also, , I may be wrong, but I do recall many of the Netgear cheap products were also on the do not use networking list.

Honestly, in the past we came across all kinds of bugs with the cheap Netgear stuff on the networking side of things (I think it was the gs108 and gs105 series back then). Even many smart Netgear switches in the past had a super laggy interface. Surprisingly, other cheap brands didn't have as many issues (in particular, cheap rack mounted TP-Link gear we found was surprisingly good). Everyone should be using managed switches though. Managed switches are generally built to a better standard and when something goes wrong with a managed switch you have logs available to help diagnose the issue, and firmware upgrades can also be applied to rectify many issues. A lot of the money spent with unmanaged switches we found was later lost due to time wasted when issues occurred. In fact, often when an issue occurred, we often ended up telling customers to upgrade anyway (for STP and Rogue DHCP protection) and it generally fixed the issue instantly instead of forcing us to unplug cable by cable until we found something in the rack and every edge location That being said, I believe that Poe itself uses resistance to detect if it's Poe. Test with a different switch, but also test the fitoff and do a cable test to ensure all pins are correct (or bring the ts locally and test with 2 different cables, we have come across dodgy patch leads before where the pins were too deep

Never mix wifi aps unless you know exactly what you're doing. It overcomplicates things and they deal with sticky clients in different ways sometimes which may not work well. Overall, with a cloud based system, i honestly recommend sticking to the same brand for everything. It makes management significantly easier and less clunky

In general, best to stick to the same brand. A lot of these systems are a lot easier to manage if you use 1 brand because they may automate things on the interface (If you want a full blown guest Network and wifi for instance, It also means that you need to copy More things between both systems, like VLAN's if you choose to use 2 systems, and the difficulty is much higher because you need someone who understands both. Furthermore, some changes will need changes to both). The other disadvantage is that some types of diagnostics may be a bit more difficult too, because logs are spread into different locations

Also. Reduced risk. If there is an issue, control4 can provide support directly. Whereas if you're using another product, you're a bit more on your own if there are issues

By the way Janus makes a colorwheel driver which adds support to many supporting drivers (including ours at chowmain)

Check the baud rate and such. Also, enable null modem on that serial port on the controller from project settings. They could also need some kind of Terminator (but unlikely). Hex also needs to be entered a specific way, you can't simply put the hex (I forget that needs to go in front of each ## though. I think $ or something similar?

Just wondering if there is more info that ceiling ap's have worse RF or placement? As I spent 20 mins trying to find any antenna specs for orbi, but were unable to find any specs. We place motion sensors on the ceiling because they tend to have better line of sight (and the same principle applies to ap's too imho). Freestanding aps seem to have more limited options for placement imho.

I guess it would depend on the application (if it's just for cameras though and nothing else, it might be fine).It would be best to determine the reason (I've seen cases where installers chase winning the quote, and put them in for that reason). I was probably exaggerating a bit though, there are valid reasons to use them. A managed switch allows the installer to put safeguards which protects the switch against network loops and such, allows installers to remote reboot ports (they could set up OvrC for instance to reboot all cameras) and can provide them with better troubleshooting. There is a cost difference between the two. If you can afford it, I'd definitely recommend to the installer to install a managed switch instead.

All "good mesh tech" still has a few issues imho (whether they matter anymore is another debate): Wireless is half duplex (transmits OR receives). Wired is full duplex. 1Gbps of wireless is NOT the same as 1gbps wired. Mesh links add further bottlenecks. Many AP's support Link Aggregation or 2.5gbps/5gbps to add further ethernet capacity. Unless the house is old, noticeable interference on ethernet is rare, unless your installer didn't follow standard practices. I suspect many wireless AP's still use their own Mesh standards. For best performance, you need the same brand generally. If you rely on mesh, you really would want to replace them all. The wireless stack is far more complicated than wired. A cheap switch will likely be more stable than a cheap AP. Complicating the wireless adds the potential for additional issues. It is easier to diagnose and identify the cause of an issue on a hardwired network. With wireless issues though, you don't know if its the mesh link that's causing issues, or ethernet. From the user side a crappy wifi uplink will show as great signal to the end users (and might be degraded by intermittent interference) We've found in some cases, simply moving things around or standing in front of a uplink can degrade performance in some cases.. Many of the same issues which will affect a hardwired backbone, will STILL affect a wireless backbone (network loops, etc). But, now you also need to worry about the wireless backbone too A wired backbone can still use mesh as a backup. Mesh relies on overlapping AP's. Why not just overlap hardwired AP's the same way? If you have 5 overlapping Mesh AP's with 2 ethernet connections, and 1 ethernet connection fails, you suddenly have 4 ap's with many hops (more links to fail, more latency), and only 1 ethernet connection which operates (which apparently might have potential "environmental issues"). However, if you have 5 wired connections instead placed in the same locations (mesh relies on overlap), the faulty AP could turn off it's radio and it won't be missed (or at worst case, use mesh as backup with 1 hop, with better candidates for connection). That being said On a residential system, it's unlikely you will have 2 clients using a lot of bandwidth, so mesh will perform well enough honestly (residential users have more bandwidth than they need these days on Wifi). Relying on Mesh makes sense in cases where you ABSOLUTELY cannot run wires, or the wires are not in good spots. Or, as a backup (which is another reason why many high-end AP's include it but still recommend wired connections). Whether the performance difference is noticeable is another debate altogether. But, always prioritise hardwired uplinks unless the network backbone at the property is totally janky (old CAT5, badly cabled, etc). I've also seen cases where installers skimp on the AP's for wired installs too, but throw mesh everywhere (because they need to). Put more hardwired AP's in than you think you require in a residential installation. 802.11be / Wifi7 operates at up to 30gbps though (so unless the customer is sending raw footage or it's high density, so bandwidth probably no longer matters for almost all applications, as there is probably enough). Installers should already be installing fibre though to key locations, have conduit to support it's installation (or at the very least, multiple copper cables to AP's to support link aggregation). If you have wires, definitely use them imho because the bottleneck will always be the ethernet connection (unless they're transferring between wireless devices a lot). At the very least, troubleshooting imho will be easier and the risks are a lot more predictable.

I wouldn't be using any unmanaged Network switches (AN-110). Also, no mention of what switches and Wireless AP's being used