You have been hired as a Meraki hardware designer for a day, what do you do?

[BlakeRichardson]

So you have been granted acess to Meraki's head office for one day to design a single piece of HARDWARE. It can be from any of the Meraki products families, bear in mind the product has to be something that can actually be sold and not for instance a switch that makes you cups of coffee.

I'll get the ball rolling, I would create a 8 port 10Gb copper POE switch with 2 SFP+ modules, this switch would be designed with Wifi 6 in mind so that instead of having to replace larger 24-48 port switches just to add a few new access points in. It would be a full 1RU form factor and would be MS350-8xFP

[PhilipDAth]

You've still be on your induction course for the first day.  You'd probably still be playing video games and having a long lunch.  🙂

ps. That switch sounds pretty cool!

[PhilipDAth]

A digital signage solution would be good.  Something that you could also send camera wall boards too.

[PhilipDAth]

An AI robot that makes wishes come true (I just made a wish for this).

[Nydo89]

Count me in designing stuff!

I also would go for the 8 Port 10Gig POE Design, but featured with an implemented MX. Something like the MX68 with 8 POE Ports 10 Gig and 2 SFP+ Uplinks. 

This beast would be ideal for branch offices in need of a few Wifi6 APs. So no extra switch would be needed. 

Of course it is 1RU and would be called the MX70-8P.

[Roska]

Cloud-enabled UPS for Distributed IT

[Mr_IT_Guy]

Well since the 8-port Switch has already been brought up, I would design an MX that has the capability to tell me what's plugged into the ports (similar to that of current switch ports). 

[kYutobi]

I would bring back the phone system and try that over again. I really did like the concept of IP Meraki phones even though I'm not a VOIP guy.

[Nash]

@Mr_IT_Guy That's functionality they need to add to the dashboard, but you can get it through the API!

You want the call "List LLDP and CDP information for a device". You'll feed it the network ID and serial number of a device, and if that device has any LLDP or CDP neighbors... boom, you get results.

Auvik uses this to determine connections between MX and other devices. I use it manually pretty regularly as well.

(Is my brand "oh hey, wait, you can already do that with the API" yet?)

[NolanHerring]

This is easy

Move the LED on all access points from the side where its useless, to the actual 'face' of the AP, so that you can look up at an AP on the ceiling or in a warehouse, blink the LED, and actually see it blinking. Also make the LED a little bit brighter/larger.

Basically make them like how Cisco makes theirs. LED on the side is seriously such a poor design.

And if your reading this, and 'YOU' are the person at Meraki that signed off on that, shame on you ! SHAME!

[Jack]

How about a Meraki NVR for the MV line.

- Small form factor NVR size like a Apple TV

- Build in 4TB+ Internal HDD for long term retention.

- Build in encryption just like the MV + Controlled thru the Meraki portal

- MV can record to itself and NVR.

- Camera got stolen or destroy? Footage still available on the NVR somewhere secure in the building. No need high bandwidth and costly cloud storage.

[BlakeRichardson]

Some interesting ideas being shared, keep them coming!

[PhilipDAth]

I would upgrade the MX switch port hardware so that it can support both LACP and spanning tree.

[PhilipDAth]

This is really a great thread.  It would have been an excellent community challenge.  I vote we get @BlakeRichardson  to come up with the next community challenge, or maybe we need a community challenge to come up with community challenges.

[jdsilva]

Nevermind

[IPCRich]

Agreed.  I know they want to do away with boxes but a Meraki box would be better than the ones out there that it would be replacing.  

[BlakeRichardson]

@PhilipDAth  the idea was to have a bit of fun but user feedback is also helpful so if the powers that been see this and find there is a pattern for a particular piece of hardware that could fill a gap then thats a bonus!

[CptnCrnch]

MX68-style security appliance coupling the WiFi possibilities from MR with 8021.x available switched ports that also support LACP.

[Roska]

eSIM enabled on MX and Z cellular models.

[SoCalRacer]

Possibly lower end MV and add temp sensor with alerting. Use case would be server rooms to see who is accessing the rack and monitoring temperature in the room.

Next would be hardware similar to Chromecast that could stream the video wall, but would be totally controlled by Meraki. Possibly this device could have AI built in so you could query the API or dashboard, like hey gnomie what is the latency on the wan? or hey meraki what is the highest usage device in hq network?

Another one would be Low end MX or Z series device to support 25 users. Z series is often undersized for SMB office and MX is often oversized, Maybe call it MZ 

USB key or super small physical device, replicates similar capabilities as the Z1, but at a much lower price point. AutoVPN is needed, reduces need for client VPN on endpoint, config is almost zero touch.

[BlakeRichardson]

@SoCalRacer Nice idea, I had the same idea back in 2018

https://community.meraki.com/t5/Off-the-Stack/New-product-line-suggestion/m-p/10463

[cmr]

All switches and MXs should be redesigned to support dual power supplies, ideally internally but if space doesn't permit they should at least have 2 external connections, or one internal and one external.

[cmr]

If just one device a 10 port 10Gbe switch for iSCSI (no PoE needed but could be provided for other uses) with 8x copper and 2x SFP+ and decent size buffers to cope with the odd 1GbE connected host.  Of course it needs 2 power connections, would be called an MS210-10Ti and would stack with the current MS210s and MS225s.  Ideally it would be a half width 1U chassis and the brackets would allow one per U or two side by side in 1U.

[BlakeRichardson]

Lots of awesome ideas here, hoping this thread gives the product teams some ideas. Does anyone have any ideas for the MV or MR range?

[cmr]

MR30C designed for corridors with a long thin coverage profile, cheap as possible as we'd be using them for back of house.  At the moment we have to use MR33s and they only get 1 client going past every so often...

[PhilipDAth]

I see a lot of Hotels deploy PON using single mode fibre to each room.  They do this because it is cheaper than running fibre to each floor, and putting in traditional copper aggregation swicthes, and then running copper to each room.

I wonder if there might be a market for an MR30H with an SFP port.

[cmr]

We used GPON for lodges and chalets but I'd never thought of using it in the hotel, good idea!  However, we did use one AP per 4 rooms so...

[cmr]

... we used MR33 equivalents.

[cmr]

In the lodges we did use an MR30H equivalent with SFP, but also with an analogue port that was presented as a SIP line to the network.