mr53 for home use

[mathewvarghese]

Hi Friends,

I presently have Apple Airport Extreme Routers (2 No.s) in my home Wifi Network and am planning to replace the same with Meraki MR53.

I am using the 2 Airport Extremes in "Bridged Mode" due to signal strength issues between the room where my Service Provider Fiber is terminated to the last room in the house which is the kids study room.

Question-1: At any point in time, we have close to 10 devices accessing the Wifi environment. Hence speed is important. Is the MR53 an overkill or should I consider a higher model ?

Question-2: I also was impressed with "Systems Manager", which can help me manage my kids mobile devices, track their locations and also erase the data out of the devices in the eventuality of a loss. However, I was not sure of teh licensing.. Is the Meraki Enterprise License & Support license that I am buying with the MR53 required for me to buy/deploy SM or can I just buy the MR53 & the SM license ?

Quetion-3: Finally, I am also looking for a recommendation for a firewall for my home network. Presently I am using the Mac Firewall on the Mac Devices and Windows Firewall on Windows devices. What is a good model to consider given the above setup ?

Many Thanks in advance,

Matt

[MilesMeraki]

Hello @mathewvarghese, Welcome! Find my answers to your questions below 🙂

Question-1: At any point in time, we have close to 10 devices accessing the Wifi environment. Hence speed is important. Is the MR53 an overkill or should I consider a higher model ?

IMO the MR53 is an overkill. Great for "high-dense" deployments but I have a feeling that you're "home" deployment will not need the density requirements. I'd go for an MR33/MR42. If you want to create a "Wireless Bridge" to cover coverage holes in your home, just use "wireless meshing" between the AP's to extend coverage if there is not physical ethernet connection available.

Question-2: I also was impressed with "Systems Manager", which can help me manage my kids mobile devices, track their locations and also erase the data out of the devices in the eventuality of a loss. However, I was not sure of teh licensing.. Is the Meraki Enterprise License & Support license that I am buying with the MR53 required for me to buy/deploy SM or can I just buy the MR53 & the SM license ?

To qualify for Enterprise System Manager support, you have to buy SM licensing. For example, if you're looking to setup SM on 3 client devices, you'll need to buy 3 SM license. You'll be entitled to Enterprise Support for the duration of the license term within the dashboard.

Quetion-3: Finally, I am also looking for a recommendation for a firewall for my home network. Presently I am using the Mac Firewall on the Mac Devices and Windows Firewall on Windows devices. What is a good model to consider given the above setup ?

Are you referring to a host-based firewall here? If not, I'd recommend looking at an MX (Meraki). If you're looking to replace your existing network gear with Meraki (Wireless and SM) you may aswell look at going "Full Stack" Meraki to get the full benefits of a Meraki/Cloud managed solution.

I run a "Full Stack" Meraki network at home (MX,MS,MR,MV,SM) and can say it's the best decision I've ever made! 

[kredmore]

Agreed on lowering the MRs for home use.  I have full stack Meraki as well at home, including small businesses part time.  Meraki has been wonderful - easy to setup, configure, control, etc.

[PhilipDAth]

I would personally go with a pair of MR33's, and get your self some power line extenders, and plug the furthest MR33 into that and run the network backhaul over your internal power cabling.  I have heard lots of good feedback about the Dlink range (never used them myself).

https://www.dlink.co.nz/home-solutions/connectivity/powerline

This will give you a tremendously better system than using MESH/repeater mode.  Like night and day better.  Like no children complaining about the speed of the cat video on You Tube.

[randhall]

I can vouch for the Dlink "EoP" line. Pretty messed up that it works...

[Uberseehandel]

My rules of thumb for home deployments are:

• don't chase range
• wire anything that does not move
• place an AP in each space that needs WiFi access

Far better to have more small APs operating at low power than a few large ones operating at max TX volumes. For WiFi to work the AP has to be able to hear the client device as well as the client device hearing the AP. In the long run shouty APs often create problems.

Sleepovers can be very demanding. They all want to watch the movie on their own tablet. Then when the gang comes round to watch sport, the same thing happens . . .

I would be cautious about running a full stack in a domestic environment because the MX does not handle the flavour of multicast favoured by many broadcasters. So I have a duplicated stack, completely different networks, sharing a common ISP connection. Multicast, IoT devices, Chromecast, Bonjour, Guest WiFi go on one network whilst there is a separate Meraki MX, switch and APs on the secure side.

Meraki is shooting itself in the foot by not supporting IGMP-proxies on the MX/Z range. Imagine making a box specifically for home deployment that cannot handle streaming IP TV from many providers. Many managed service providers would love to be able to expand their offerings to including Meraki managed client sites that require multicast to function correctly. All that is required is a desire to make it happen.

[kredmore]

We have Hulu for TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. and all streams fine.  We have trialed other services too, like Playstation Vue, DirectTV Now, etc.  Which ones can't the MX/Z handle?  Just curious...

[Uberseehandel]

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@kredmore wrote:

We have Hulu for TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. and all streams fine.  We have trialed other services too, like Playstation Vue, DirectTV Now, etc.  Which ones can't the MX/Z handle?  Just curious...

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They are not multicast, they are unicast. Multicast is used by a few broadcasters in the US, but is widely used in East Asia and Europe. It makes great sense for telcos selling packages and optimises throughput over the network as a whole, including "the last mile". This way, idf there are three TVs watching the same channel, only one stream comes down to the router which distributes it to those switches that have devices wanting access to the stream attached to them.

[kredmore]

Helpful, thank you.