Aruba Instant On AP11 | Wireless Access Point

In favor:
- Scope and stability. It is the first time that we have not suffered saturation of the wifi making use of streaming several clients at once. It brings an option to accept distant clients even if the connection is weak (it comes well so you don't throw IoT devices connecting from Easter to bouquets).
- No need to have a physical controller (it is virtual-in the cloud). It is managed by app or web. It seems simple at first glance, but then some hidden options come out.
- APs are added via bluetooth or manually and multiple sites can be managed with their APs. They inherit the configuration of the site without having to go one by one changing parameters.
- Bring most of the options you were looking for: notifications on your mobile if the internet goes or an AP goes down, work with the VLANS that manages the firewall, possibility to create several private and guest Wi-Fi networks (with internal or external captive portal). WPA2+WPA3 that goes well with all customers except with an xbox and an older iphone connecting to a WAP2 network.
- Statistics and usage blocking by application. It comes with a filter that is a good complement to the firewall. It is classified by topic and updated by HP directly (they are not editable blacklists). Useful to leave a more filtered wifi for children.
- Materials. Nothing to do with the typical junk that no chicha, no limone.

Against:
- No injector or source. They understand that it is going in an installation with a PoE Switch af.
- It's not filtered by mac. They understand that it goes in an installation with a radius server. I have installed it on the firewall but I would have preferred not to get complicated and load an excel with the allowed macs.
- It gets pretty hot. In working environment I have seen aruba APs last for years and zero problems. time will tell if the series InstantOn is just as reliable.

In short, a wonder compared to the ap omada I had and other economic and simple solutions. Finally without cuts and without wasting time trying to solve the problems of wifi.

Note: If it is a reconditioned product, you must reset to factory before you can add it (reset 15 sec when you turn it on).

So, with the COVID19 crisis of 2020, a stable and reliable WiFi connection became ever more important while working from home. The equipment provided by Virgin Media (a rebranded Arris router) was proving to be completely inadequate to the task. The signal that the Virgin hub was putting out was weak, it wasn't reaching the back of the house or upstairs. It was hopeless at band steering; it refused to put clients onto 5GHz unless you forced it and its so called dynamic channel selection was a joke, it was always using channels which were already in use by other access points in the vicinity, even on the 5GHz band. Add to that, the DHCP service on the SuperHub was constantly crashing too; devices which had static IPs worked but ones which had dynamic IPs frequently didn't. The only way to fix it was to reboot it.

That all said, the SuperHub was adequate as a internet gateway so I decided to go out and look for a new wireless access point, rather than replace the router entirely. I originally planned to get a Unifi AP but the requirement for controller software to configure it made the option less attractive. I recently helped implement an Aruba wireless network at my workplace so I decided to see how much an Aruba IAP costs in the real world. It was then I found out about the InstantOn range and I decided to order the lowest in the range, thinking it would be adequate for me.

Well, it's certainly that! Theoretically it's slower than the Virgin Superhub 3 in that this AP is a 2x2 and the Virgin is a 3x3 but in practice it makes no difference; my internet connection is still significantly slower than this AP's maximum throughput and I don't copy much data between devices on my network. The Aruba AP puts out a stronger signal on a channel that isn't in use elsewhere so the connection is more reliable and has no interference from neighbouring houses. Band steering works.

Setting the thing up is very Meraki-like, there is an app for iOS or Android which does the initial setup. Further configuration can be done using that app or using the web portal. The AP can broadcast multiple SSIDs and can put them on different VLANs. It can use a PSK for authentication or a RADIUS server. It has a guest network facility with a captive web portal. It can act as a router as well which wasn't something I expected when I ordered it. You can also do mesh wireless with it as well; connect another AP to your network without physically connecting it to the wired part of your network.

It also has some rudimentary traffic analysis and content blocking facilities built into it and it reports on the amount of traffic that passed through it and each category in the last 24 hours. I would say that this is the weakest feature of this device at the moment. The reporting only reports on what's happened in the last 24 hours and its database of apps seems to be pretty small. It's fine for home use and perhaps even SOHO but you wouldn't want to use it if you needed a more thorough reporting facility.

All in all, I'm very happy with this device and would happily get another one if the need arose.

Very stable wifi connection throughout apartment, at the farthest corner there's always at least 1-bar and remains stable and never disconnects. Compared to wifi router R6400 v2, the difference is obvious.