Aruba Instant On - New Features and Benchmarks!

Time to put Aruba Instant On AP's to the test. How will these Aruba AP's stack up against Ubiquiti, Engenius, and tp-link? Let's find out - PLUS - as a bonus, we go over some of the new features in the Aruba Instant On portal version 2.3. 2FA finally!

Aruba Instant On products (affiliate):

Timecodes
00:00 Intro
01:16 Aruba Equipment Introduction
02:56 Aruba Instant On portal v2.3 new features
07:19 Instant On portal
17:08 AP Benchmark Testing
22:45 Final Thoughts

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[dylanmustach]

Thanks for the awesome review Chris!! I've been using the AP12 for the past four months in a VERY high dense environment. Not with clients, but with AP's. Last time I counted I had ~120 AP's within range of my Aruba AP. I'm absolutely blown away at how well the Aruba has preformed. I have it in an 80mhz channel width on the 5GHz and have 2.4GHz disabled. I consistently push 500+mbps through the AP even with the crowded air space. Latency is also fairly consistent, seeing about 3-10ms on a regular basis with the occasional spike of 100ms. Zoom calls and VoIP have been perfect over it for the entire time I've been using it. I was also testing a Ruckus R510 and Ubiquiti AP AC Pro, both of which didn't perform nearly as well as this Aruba Instant On AP12. I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for easy to deploy AP's with little to no maintained. The 2.3.0 update has added so many great features and also noticeable stability improvements on latency on the AP.

[clellbritt]

I'd love to see a "Bang for your Buck" comparison of the different brand types, Ubiquiti, Meraki, TP-Link, and Aruba. I think you touched on it at the end of the video, but the Aruba seems to be a bit cheaper as a whole system compared to Ubiquiti (at least). I know that can be tricky cause every use scenario will very. Maybe do a Large, Med, small and just price them out for a full setup and compare speeds based on price and maybe coverage.

Otherwise great testing. Thx.

[roentgenmania]

i bought 5 ap12 based on your video! excited to deploy

[philbrutsche]

Hey, coming in late.. the Aurba 1930 switches are the same ODM (original device manufacturer) as a lot of other SMB switches - you can tell if you download a backup config and open it in a text editor. In the non-cloud managed mode they are indeed layer 3 switches... static routing only. They are a similar hardware platform as a Cisco Business Switch 250 (CBS250) or the Cisco Small Business SG250X switches, and have similar capabilities

[alcaponemafia]

Your videos are great. Can you do a test on the RUIJI REYEE access points pleas and also the GRANDSTREAM APs as well.

[simondurrant]

Hi Chris, Love the "real world" approach to testing. I have 2 AP12 and one AP11d. The AP11d is in my garden office and is a great option for that sort of location: four Gb Ethernet ports with PoE pass through so easy to add a camera for security, for example. The AP12s give great coverage in the house and they "mesh" for free! VLANs set up no problem. The only downside I have found s far is that the latency performance could be better. My son complains that it's not good enough for Stadia!

[anthonymendez]

Great video. Just wanted to Chime in as you incorrectly stated Aruba doesn't have a firewall/router option. You can use Aruba's AP11D Access Point as your router. It has the capability to be used as a router so no need to purchase a third party router. Simple setup just plug the ethernet cable from your modem into E0 on the AP11D and follow the setup wizard to use as a router.
For the type of individuals Aruba is targeting it might be easier for users to stick with using the AP11D as their router as opposed to buying a third party router/firewall

[dimitristsoutsouras]

Nice presentation. Quick question. I need to connect 3 APs (AP12) in a simple poe+ non Aruba switch. All APs will be connected to the switch via wire. What I need to do in order to configure just the fist AP (master one) and then the others to extend that network? Is it still mesh when you are using wires? Also I need to do it from local web console of the first-master AP. Is there a way afterwards to go in to the first AP's web interface and select to extend the net via wire and select the second AP and finally the third one?

[awstott]

I have that switch - had to put a noctua fan in it. The stock fan is brutal. Not using the cloud management for the switch though - there is way more options if you manage it locally. Paired it with two AP11s and a AP22. Seems to work just ine.

[aaronrodriguez]

Curious if you did any long range testing on the aruba equipment? IE how does it perform when you are 50 or 100ft away from the AP compared to the others. The only thing I am waiting on aruba to add feature wise is proper port forwarding because I have a few things that work better when you can force a true port forward.

[wotsac]

Getting a couple of AP12. The U6 Lite? I have one, but it's not plugged in. Not worth the suffering - three users with phones and laptops and etc, a smattering of IOT, and I can't keep it stable.

[andrewseamaster]

Careful consideration of options are admirable. Unifi has options spread everywhere I have used them since 2013 and I forget. Sometimes people ask for stuff that's stupid and more consideration of options is welcome. One of my favourite sayings is 'just because you can, doesn't mean you should'

[cvnis]

The reason I sent back the 48port PoE switch and four AP22s was because they lacked the ability to modify channel and power output, I may be making the purchase again now.

[jefftidwell]

I’m throwing in the towel on my UniFi hardware, UDM Pro, and a few U6-LRs. I’m going to go for the AP22 and a pfsense or untangle Firewall. I love the idea and feel of UniFi, but it is just always something… buggy and inconsistent. I want to set it and forget it.

[spiderx]

Does Aruba Instant AP (IAP) support router mode as Instant ON AP?

[asdfghjkl]

Since you now have a switch, will you also do a review of the local management interface of the switch?

[mikescott]

Have you done much more with the AIO APs? Considering moving away from UniFi U6-Lite etc to a AP22.
I’m not a WiFi guy, but do networking and infra etc.
VMware / Microsoft / Nexus 9K etc

[stephane]

Is the auto setting smart enough to assign non overlapping channels on multi AP installations?

[madtitan]

is that the switch making all that noise? jesus that would drive me crazy.

[scarlettschannel]

Hi Chris, did you find the fan noise on the 1930, 24 port, PoE switch excessively loud - I have returned the one I purchased as way too loud !!