I have a home network with a Balance One Core and two AP One AC Mini’s. If I upgrade one of the Mini’s with an AP One AX, what will I be giving up by not upgrading both Mini’s to the AP One AX?
Great question. I just added an AP One AX to a Balance One Core + ACMini setup. Did you get an answer or figure out the best way to set it up?
Not really. I finally posted the same question on Amazon and did get a reply from Peplink. Since I was limited in the number of characters allowed in my question, I’m afraid I wasn’t able to be clear enough about what I was asking. Peplink just said “you will gain the benefit of an additional access point”. I really wanted to know if I would be better off than if I just added another AP one AC mini. I want to know if there is any advantage to adding just one AP One AX to a network of AP One AC mini’s. I finally just decided to get another AP One AC mini. I didn’t want to spend the extra money for features I won’t be able to take advantage of. Let me know if you get any benefit from the AP One AX other than adding just another access point.
Wonder if you’ll run into issues when roaming between the AX and mini. One being wifi5 and the other wifi6.
This wouldn’t make a difference I think if your device isn’t wifi6 compatible.
I have 2 minis and was contemplating an upgrade to one AX.
- You shouldn’t be losing any functionality IMO
- Roaming back and forth should work seamlessly for both WiFi 5 and Wifi 6 clients
- You will be gaining significantly increased area coverage and speed from the AP One AX - depends on your topology, you may be able to discard of the remaining AP mini and still enjoy better coverage and speed with the AX on it’s own
- If you keep both and you have clients that you know are in the area of the AP One AX, you can set many clients to use a preferred BSSID (Base Station ID) and specify the MAC address for the AP One AX (either 2.4 Ghz or 5 Ghz based on your preference) - this will force those clients to use the AP One AX and get the benefits of the speed and signal strength vs. opt to use the AP One mini - again, this is a hardcoded setting for those cases where this is beneficial to your clients whether they are WiFi 6 or WiFi 5 capable - its just a way to hard link a client to a specific AP
Understand you got an AP Mini for your own reasons but in general there is no reason to not get a next-gen AP as these are generally designed to be fully backwards compatible and give you the option of gradually upgrade your infrastructure over time vs. staying behind intentionally
Hope this helps, Avi
Yes, this is exactly what I wanted to know. Unfortunately, without the benefit of your reply, I took the safe option and just added another AP One AC mini. I don’t have any WiFi6 devices anyway.
Thanks for the info, even though it arrived too late to help me. I delayed my purchase for months but couldn’t wait any longer, and just bought the new mini two weeks ago. The good news is that with the new AP One AC mini, I now have good coverage throughout my house. Once I get a WiFi6 device, I will upgrade.
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On our property in Maine, we have two main buildings, a small office as a third building, and a dock area with a fire pit and lounging area. We put AP One AX’s in the two main buildings and they worked well, but with the nosebleed pricing. We added a mini to the tiny office, and find that it works perfectly with the two AXs, with only marginally less range. When we decided to add wifi coverage to the dock/lounging area, I saw the pricing on outdoor-rated units and balked. I instead purchased another mini and just mounted it in a waterproof box earlier this year. So far, it’s all working perfectly and I don’t notice big problems going from one part of the property to another. Although the handoff from one AP to another isn’t perfect, it doesn’t seem to be any worse going from AX One to mini, compared to AX One to AX One. Overall it’s decent, and there’s no difference that I can tell.
My bigger concern is my mini mounted in the outdoor box. We had some days in the 90s (don’t try to tell Mainers there’s no climate change!) and that heat didn’t affect it. Now we’ll see how it does come winter, or whether its lifespan is shortened over time, being in that weatherproof box. i figured it was worth a try, and will try to remember to report back on results over time.
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I am finding that the AP One AX will not connect to a number of legacy devices looking for 802.11g. The AC Mini works without problems. The AX appears to be pegged on 802.11n/ac/ax. Older b and g devices cannot connect to it. Anyone else with this problem?
Hi Christopher,
could you let us know more details about the 11b/g devices having issues connecting to AP One AX? It would be great if you could let us know models as well. We are aware that Intel based client had issues with 11ax Access Points, but that could be resolved by upgrading FW for Intel client.
I have the following devices that will not connect:
Mitsubishi MSZ-FS12NA mini split head unit
Lenovo Yoga 11 using RealTek RTL8723AU Wlan adapter
IntesisHome IS-IR-WIFI
All 3 devices connect to the AC Mini, no issues. The AX network doesn’t even show up on the Lenovo.
Hi Chris,
thanks for your feedback. We will check this. It doesn’t look like this is related any particular device or certain Wi-Fi chipset vendor.
I agree, but it is happening on older devices for sure. I just purchased an AP One Series Rugged hoping that the ac radio in that device is plug and play with my myriad of devices. Will be able to test the “rugged” in 3 days.
Hi Chris,
Could you please open a ticket here for the team to check further why these devices are not connecting. Thank you.