Likelihood to Recommend I think the best solutions for Meraki APs are kind of that remote office branch office type of situation where you need to provide coverage for say a restaurant or a retail location, but you have less skilled IT employees there. So you can remotely configure those devices to ensure that you're running at peak performance. I think the places where that may not be the greatest fit is in a traditional large enterprise. And that's mostly because the IT departments there are a little bit more seasoned and full-featured. And the advantages of Meraki really can't be recognized there as much as they might be.
Read full review Ubiquiti is well suited to not just indoor WLAN access, but also outdoors. In fact, the range of the outdoor applications, while maintaining throughput is astonishing. I would say this is not a solution for a 1-5 person small office, due to the costs.
Read full review Pros Cisco Meraki Wireless does a GREAT job marketing their product and building your trust. They offer free and very informative webinars that offer free gear for your home network. They rely on word of mouth marketing and it simply works. They offer great try and buy programs as well. They stand behind their product and trust the technology. Cisco Meraki Wireless administrators dashboard is top notch. Their wireless UI interface is integrated with all other Cisco Meraki Wireless products. This makes it easy to use. It has single-use credentials and is seamless. Cisco Meraki Wireless support is also top notch. While they are backed by Cisco, Meraki always feels like you are working with a small business that takes your account seriously. They are specialized and a rare breed in the industry. Getting support from them is a pleasure! Read full review The access points are rock solid for uptime. Once configured, they don't skip a beat and you'll forget they're there. Excellent range and signal strength. Very comprehensive configuration and administration via the UniFi Controller software. The Ubiquiti access points look great! Whether wall or ceiling mounted, they are discrete and neutral enough to just blend in with the building. Being powered via PoE, it's easier to place the access points where they're most useful. Read full review Cons Depending on your business size and budget, the cloud based subscription model may not acceptable to upper management. Must maintain subscription to utilize Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Points. Additional functionality and support for Mobile Device Management (MDM) comes with an additional cost if you want telephone support, otherwise it is limited to a certain number of devices and tech support via email only. Read full review Management of devices has become much simpler with the UNMS application, but personally, I would like to see some AirMax-like devices from their Unifi line where everything could be managed from an Unifi controller. Most Ubiquiti devices are 24V PoE, which is the bane of my existence. I have had several devices fried when staff plugged into standard 48V PoE. They generally don't fail catastrophically, either. You just get strange issues that are difficult to diagnose and eventually need to replace them. Devices seem to have trouble with many patch cables/switches. Make sure you certify any patch cables you make and don't over crimp. Sending devices from the factory with same 192.168.1.20 IP instead of DHCP makes it a pain to bulk-setup devices. Read full review Likelihood to Renew The Cisco Meraki WiFi Access Point dashboard and support license is mandatory so to continue usage we will need to renew the license. We may opt to purchase a more current WiFi generation device if something newer is available at that time. Currently, happy with the use of the dashboard as it is very feature rich.
Read full review Usability The Meraki dashboard is an excellent tool to administer and manage the Meraki WiFi Access Point. Navigating the dashboard is intuitive and there are lots of use cases on the Meraki site. The dashboard is the key to having a great administrative experience with the product, easy to use, fast to find information.
Read full review Ubiquiti makes great Access points at various tiers provided far better coverage and throughput than consumer-grade wireless repeaters and routers. We have not had any performance complaints from guests or from the administration who use the wifi on a daily basis.
Read full review Support Rating Cisco Meraki support has been very helpful when it comes to troubleshooting and supporting their products. There is an online knowledge base with tons of documentation and there is also 24x7 phone support available as part of the dashboard license. Every time I've called support, the engineer I spoke with has been very informative and dedicated to resolving my problems.
Read full review Ubiquiti's support is basically non-existent by design. However, their forums are a great resource if you are willing to do the research and ask questions. Keep in mind Ubiquiti sells hardware, not support so the responses will be from the community of professionals also using Ubiquiti just like you.
Read full review Implementation Rating There were documents that detailed how the WiFi Access Point was to be installed and mounted. The only issue was to cable the device, we use a third party for this type of work and typically has to be performed after normal business hours. Other than that, the installation was easy.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I've found that Meraki Wireless Access Points are able to stack up against all of the other access point manufacturers I've used. I think they are more usable and easy to understand when compared to others like Fortinet, Aruba, or traditional Cisco wireless. I do think the features offered are enough for almost all companies looking for a good wifi plan. They have less detailed settings than Aruba and Cisco so if you have complicated deployments they might be missing some options you are after. Keeping it simple is how Meraki wins. They also have a much easier way to do a zero-touch deployment. You can add the access points in the dashboard and get them running very quickly. They can be managed from anywhere without a VPN or local connection which gives them an edge over their competition.
Read full review We have used products from Netgear, ZyXEL, Cloudmesh,
Datto , Mereki, and EnGenius previously often choosing products based on a specific situation, since starting with Ubiquiti [WLAN] we have pretty much stopped [usage] of all other vendors in the networking field and standardized which better allows us to stock spare equipment. Best part is if you need to replace equipment it is easy to swap it out quickly as the controller also acts as a live configuration backup.
Read full review Scalability It has nothing really to do with the product itself. I think it's more of the positioning of the Meraki dashboard, kind of edging the simplicity over the deep contextual configuration type things. Giving me a little bit more access to tweak certain things would definitely raise that rating.
Read full review Return on Investment KPI generator: Generator of commercial indicators that help us define the client's profile. Consumption data: See in which the network is occupying the consumption by application and user. Heat zones: See which is the area of interest most traveled by the end user. Read full review Initial ROI was positive - but now we need to replace them We were able to deploy rapidly - configuration is easy if not consistent Upgrades are easy to apply when they don't take the radios offline - which happens more often then not Read full review ScreenShots