Hello. Sorry for this newbie question. What advantages do access points have over mesh systems like Eero, Orbi, tp-link etc.
Thanks. Trying to learn more.
That’s a bit of a loaded question. No need to apologize, it’s a perfectly valid question.
Probably the most important is speed. The AP6 Pro can do 4096QAM which is effectively WiFi 7 speeds without being WiFi 7, meaning your clients don’t have to be WiFi 7 to get the speed advantage whereas that’s “the norm”. WiFi 6E APs need WiFi 6E clients to take full advantage of the 6E tech.
Setting expectations, those systems are [generally] a single router that doubles as an AP, plus 2 APs. At this time, we only offer APs, so you would still need a router.
It’s been a while since i’ve shopped for “traditional mesh systems”, but I’m fairly certain we’d be around 50-60% of the cost. I recall wanting 6E really bad until I saw the price of $1,000+ USD for a 3 AP system. Even adding the cost of a router, we’re still well below that line, with the AP6 Pro retailing for $179.
AltaPass - unique to us. This allows you to have as little as a single SSID but multiple passphrases for that SSID. Some other companies offer this but it’s limited to VLAN assignment; AltaPass allows VLAN assignment, Network Type (premade filtering of certain types of traffic, you can read more about Network Types here), ingress limits, egress limits, bypassing of hotspot, bypassing of filtering, bypassing of schedules; offering a lot of flexibility.
Support. I don’t think I need to go into great detail here. You’re already on the community, if you look around, you’ll see what our users think of our support. 
Community driven. It sounds like common sense, but our customers are why we exist and will continue to exist. It is in our best interest to listen to them. We’re very quick to ingest feedback/feature requests, discuss internally, and implement.
With all of that being said, we’re not in the same subcategory of networking as the brands you mentioned. While mesh is an option, we recommend going fully hardwired whenever possible. Mesh is not a standardized tech so it’s on the vendor to make their mesh implementation as good as it can be. We pride ourselves on having very fast mesh speeds, as I’m sure the other brands do as well. At the end of the day, you will get significantly faster speeds by hardwiring the APs and, thus, to take full advantage, that’s what we recommend. If that’s not feasible, that’s why mesh is an option from Alta. Additionally, we pride ourselves on having an intuitive interface that anyone from your grandma to a seasoned network engineer can use and feel comfortable navigating. Simple, single SSID setups to multiple campuses with multiple SSIDs, hundreds of VLANs, etc etc.
These are just the things I can think of off the top of my head and I’m sure others will chime in with things I’m blanking on right now.
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Thanks for getting back to me Matt. I have learned alot in your response. The support in this group is awesome. I will be purchasing two AP’s on Friday as I am attending a seminar. I will play around with placement in my own home so I can learn more about coverage.
Thank you.
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You’re most welcome.
I’m not sure if you’re in the US, but I know ISP Supplies has a pretty nice deal going on right now where you get 2 AP6 Pros and an S8-PoE for $299 USD which basically gets you the switch for around $20, it’s a really good (limited time) deal if you want to check that out.
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I’m in Canada. Provo has a seminar on Friday. Maybe they will have something similar.
whoa, any idea how long it’s available for?
