I have only had my 8 port switch for 24 hours, but it feels like an old friend. Alta is really nailing it with their user experience. It took me 5 minutes total from opening the box to being fully set up with VLANS, LLDP-MED, Voice-VLAN, etc. Alta fully admits they have a long way to go on having a super feature rich controller, but the necessary basics are already there and the JUST WORK. Making changes to the switch is dang near instant. I swear it’s even faster than the APs. No waiting for provisioning and hoping it works.
Once all set up, the switch takes less than a minute to boot up from power off, check in with the controller, and start moving traffic. They included the hold-shift-to-reboot option, and I am happy to report it does NOT power cycle POE on a reboot! That is a small thing, but very much appreciated. The casing is plastic, but it does not feel cheap. It feels well thought out and looks polished. The power supply is heavy. It feels well made, not a cheap Chinese knockoff. I only have one POE device running off of the switch, but I am happy to report that neither the power supply nor the switch are running hot. There is so much to share! I asked permission to share pictures, so here’s a photo dump. Switch pictures are first, followed by controller look and feel as of the date of this post. Firmware on the switch in these pictures is 1.2d.
Let me know what other questions I can answer or what else anyone wants to see. I am super excited for Alta and what they are producing.
