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Apple Now Selling Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi System But Will Continue Offering AirPort Line
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Well of course if you have a wired CAT6 backbone you have the ideal situation... and almost anything (including the five year old extreme ) will work okay. My situation is far from ideal. I actually have two side by side two story duplexes that I am supporting (think big 60 ft x 40ft rectangle, 14 rooms, two stories, and basements...FIOS comes in on one far side, no further wired backbone. I had an airport extreme and 2 expresses and I could not find physical locations that did not mean dropouts, slow speed, and total blind spots.
With three Velops, not wired together but meshed, I have no dropouts, can walk around fine streaming 4k, speeds everywhere > 120 Mbps (with some devices much higher, the exception is one bathroom lol where its only 75), so yes, for my situation the Velops far exceed what I could do with the Airport system. and cost the same (I got the velops on sale). I lost wireless time machine capability true, but solved that with my media server that I run 100% of the time (granted not everyone can do that). Oh, and with the Velop I gained more control on what devices got served. Makes enforcing curfew easy (though in practice I only cut off the kids wifi when they are really misbehaving).
Yes, the Velops required more effort on my part to set up. I do wish Apple would re-enter the scene. But, got to deal with what I have today.
Apple has the highest market capitalization of any company in the world. What the hell is Apple spending all its money on? Face ID and the Apple Watch??????
Few routers can do NAT fast enough. That's why you hardcode the IP to wireless devices. We've been doing that for nearly 10 years.
It's not just NAT speed which is holding you bad. We came upon this issue some years ago when we were testing DOCSIS 3.0 before it rolled out worldwide (we were the first to test DOCSIS 3.0 and experienced lots of fun learning).
WD Cloud...a 3 TB disk based system in the basement, TM backs up great. Never had an issue. Also TM to a 3 TB drive via USB. Two backups. Been working for me for the last 5 years.
They should revamp the AppleTV to include the same mesh networking support. Between those two devices you could blanket a house in full coverage.
Well, you may have missed the part where I said it's not likely someone would put a speaker in a basement utility closet - the purpose of a mesh node/range extender in a speaker is to supplement the existing network - enhancing the performance of iPhones, Apple TVs, MacBook Pros, smart home devices, etc. that are being used in the same area as the speaker - the living spaces of the home.
Running a CAT 5 cable from the cable modem in the utility closet to a more logically-placed wifi router in the living room should not be necessary. And with the RF output power of wifi and Bluetooth devices under regulation (gotta live well with the neighbors), a utility closet-located router may just not have the power needed to deliver or receive a satisfactory signal through walls, ceilings, and floors.
Another difference, perhaps, is whether you're looking for a "it just works" solution to a problem, or if you're married to the idea that designing and building a functioning home network requires tech know-how.
My proposition is based on the notion that a person who adds new devices to their existing network is likely to be in need of improved network performance as well. Rather than leave them disappointed when their new stuff doesn't work all that well, it makes some sense to "magically" improve the network at the same time.
Sure, a person can follow the traditional path, and design a network infrastructure separate from their end-user gear - little different than traditional Hi Fi, where pre-amp, power amp, AM/FM tuner, turntable, and tape deck were each free-standing devices, speakers were always of a different make than the power amp, and the phono cartridge was a different brand than the turntable. However, that approach, though fun for those who enjoyed the constant study of spec sheets and enthusiast publications, didn't go over well with the wider population, who wanted a much simpler, far more affordable solution where interconnection is a no-brainer.
I tried the 2 node systems from Linksys, but it didn't have enough "geeky" settings for me. Once I found out that AiMesh was available from Asus, I went back to their routers.
Wipe the shiny way, and this is a Broadcom-based AC1750-class 3x3 802.11ac Wi-Fi router.
Performance-wise, the latest (6th gen) Airport Extreme is near the bottom of available AC1750 products (like the Asus RT-AC66U). WAN-LAN and LAN-WAN throughput in both 5 & 2.4 bands isn't great, comparatively. See https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...ort-extreme-80211ac-reviewed?showall=&start=3
I'll point out specifically that even though Apple is a member of the Wi-Fi Alliance, the AE isn't Wi-Fi Certified. Whatever unspecified lack of ability to meet industry standards for operability, security, and protocol support couldn't be met.
- NOT Wi-Fi Certified
- no web admin, no ability to remotely administer
- USB 2 only
- only 3 LAN ports
- unreliable SMB sharing for larger file sizes
- slow SMB file sharing
- guest network only on 2.4 GHz
- only 4 radio power settings, can't select per radio
- no 40 MHz 2.4 GHz channel width support
- no UPnP or WPS
- no client isolation (so clients can't see or talk to each other)
- no parental controls or web filtering
- no bandwith management or QoS controls
- no traffic, channel, or RF statistics
The device was designed to be easy to use, be reliable and look nice. It's not a particularly fast or capable, but that wasn't the point. During the recent KRACK revelation, Apple was one of the last vendors to release firmware updates, taking 6 weeks. Most other vendors released patches the day of the announcement. So security isn't a focus either.
It's no longer a priority, like much of Apple's product line that doesn't run iOS. IMO, users are much better served by purchasing and recommending critical network equipment like routers and access points from vendors who actively support, iterate, and develop them.
Performance-wise, the latest (6th gen) Airport Extreme is near the bottom of available AC1750 products (like the Asus RT-AC66U). WAN-LAN and LAN-WAN throughput in both 5 & 2.4 bands isn't great, comparatively. See https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...ort-extreme-80211ac-reviewed?showall=&start=3
I'll point out specifically that even though Apple is a member of the Wi-Fi Alliance, the AE isn't Wi-Fi Certified. Whatever unspecified lack of ability to meet industry standards for operability, security, and protocol support couldn't be met.
- NOT Wi-Fi Certified
- no web admin, no ability to remotely administer
- USB 2 only
- only 3 LAN ports
- unreliable SMB sharing for larger file sizes
- slow SMB file sharing
- guest network only on 2.4 GHz
- only 4 radio power settings, can't select per radio
- no 40 MHz 2.4 GHz channel width support
- no UPnP or WPS
- no client isolation (so clients can't see or talk to each other)
- no parental controls or web filtering
- no bandwith management or QoS controls
- no traffic, channel, or RF statistics
The device was designed to be easy to use, be reliable and look nice. It's not a particularly fast or capable, but that wasn't the point. During the recent KRACK revelation, Apple was one of the last vendors to release firmware updates, taking 6 weeks. Most other vendors released patches the day of the announcement. So security isn't a focus either.
It's no longer a priority, like much of Apple's product line that doesn't run iOS. IMO, users are much better served by purchasing and recommending critical network equipment like routers and access points from vendors who actively support, iterate, and develop them.
This perhaps makes some more sense, but there is still a question of a primary base station. The AirPort Extreme is a primary base station and what youre describing does not replace this. It sounds more like an express, which would be fine, but doesn’t answer the question about the extreme which you originally suggested this would replace.
Ya had me until Wonky set up.....what really is the best option? My son is a gamer and relies on the fast Wifi but my XFinity router (the newest one) is not reaching his room and I am not sure why. Getting download of only 28gb and it should be way faster then that. Looking for some answers so I can upgrade to something that works. Thanks,
CB
My experience exactly. In the old Linksys days all I heard was "Dad. the Internet is not working". ReBoot and it would work for a few hours. Then I installed a couple of AE in my primary and vacation home. Immediate stability. Very important at a vacation home wher I wasn't planning on driving for three hours to reboot my router to gain remote Nest thermostat access.
Cisco/Linksys was a bad dream.
Time Capsule is the worst Apple product I've ever purchased.
I bought 2TB vertical model. First disappointment was when I fired up AirPort utility (there is no HTTP managment). The interface is a castrated joke. No logs. No options to set up QoS. No way to see transfer graphs for connected clients. No way to partition disk. No way to set quotas for multiple macs. No way to switch from AFP to SMB for backup. No way to see active wire connections. Long downtime when applying changes. But OK, I bought it mostly for backups.
Yeah... backups...
The disk inside was some apple re-branded Seagate. Cheapest crap on the market. Single disk, no RAID redundancy. And it was working fine for about a year, despite slow transfer speeds around 20MB/s over 1Gbit ethernet. But then it started to throw errors that time machine must create new backup. What? Why? What about my backup timeline? So I've started to suspect HFS quirks (bitrot, images not unmounted properly). I've manually rechecked backup integrity, fixed inconsistency errors and TM happily continued to use old backups. For a few days. And then error repeated. So finally I moved my old backups somewhere, wiped whole TC drive, created new backups. Same story. OK, time to check the disk. Oh, wait. You can not. There is no way to check drive health. No SMART. No raw sector scans. No error messages. Nothing. So I decided to take TC apart and connect disk to my PC for manual check. As you imagined there is no way to dismantle it without breaking some very delicate plastic latches. Because regular screws are too mainstream? When I finally opened it after 20 minutes the disk was still hot. Airflow inside is a piece of joke, there are no top vents and natural convection, air is pushed from bottom to bottom making it perfect dust collecting machine. And after connecting the disk to PC it occurred that it was total garbage. Almost 25% of unreadable sectors. My TM was making unreliable backups for a month on totally broken disk because someone at Apple decided that disk diagnostic interface in storage machine is not required! So I bought 4TB WD Red as a replacement. And of course I had to trim rubber mounting frame, because it was designed for specific Seagate model for no reason.
It was working fine since disk replacement and I was excited when Apple announces APFS. Current model of backup is very inefficient. It is doing slow and resource consuming file-by-file comparison and rebuilding links in Sparse Disk Image Bundle file. So finally there was hope for fast backups that will use APFS snapshot mechanism. Consistency check on backup drive, no more bitrot risks. And... Apple did nothing. TC still runs on HFS and backups are doing file-by-file comparison on mac running APFS. Apple simply abandoned TC support and development.
So if you are considering investing in Time Capsule - don't. Get some NAS that is reliable (both QNAP and Synology offer TC compatible backup with all the goodies underneath - ZSF/BtrFS, RAID, SMART health check, fast controller, soft updates, etc.) and separate router.
I bought 2TB vertical model. First disappointment was when I fired up AirPort utility (there is no HTTP managment). The interface is a castrated joke. No logs. No options to set up QoS. No way to see transfer graphs for connected clients. No way to partition disk. No way to set quotas for multiple macs. No way to switch from AFP to SMB for backup. No way to see active wire connections. Long downtime when applying changes. But OK, I bought it mostly for backups.
Yeah... backups...
The disk inside was some apple re-branded Seagate. Cheapest crap on the market. Single disk, no RAID redundancy. And it was working fine for about a year, despite slow transfer speeds around 20MB/s over 1Gbit ethernet. But then it started to throw errors that time machine must create new backup. What? Why? What about my backup timeline? So I've started to suspect HFS quirks (bitrot, images not unmounted properly). I've manually rechecked backup integrity, fixed inconsistency errors and TM happily continued to use old backups. For a few days. And then error repeated. So finally I moved my old backups somewhere, wiped whole TC drive, created new backups. Same story. OK, time to check the disk. Oh, wait. You can not. There is no way to check drive health. No SMART. No raw sector scans. No error messages. Nothing. So I decided to take TC apart and connect disk to my PC for manual check. As you imagined there is no way to dismantle it without breaking some very delicate plastic latches. Because regular screws are too mainstream? When I finally opened it after 20 minutes the disk was still hot. Airflow inside is a piece of joke, there are no top vents and natural convection, air is pushed from bottom to bottom making it perfect dust collecting machine. And after connecting the disk to PC it occurred that it was total garbage. Almost 25% of unreadable sectors. My TM was making unreliable backups for a month on totally broken disk because someone at Apple decided that disk diagnostic interface in storage machine is not required! So I bought 4TB WD Red as a replacement. And of course I had to trim rubber mounting frame, because it was designed for specific Seagate model for no reason.
It was working fine since disk replacement and I was excited when Apple announces APFS. Current model of backup is very inefficient. It is doing slow and resource consuming file-by-file comparison and rebuilding links in Sparse Disk Image Bundle file. So finally there was hope for fast backups that will use APFS snapshot mechanism. Consistency check on backup drive, no more bitrot risks. And... Apple did nothing. TC still runs on HFS and backups are doing file-by-file comparison on mac running APFS. Apple simply abandoned TC support and development.
So if you are considering investing in Time Capsule - don't. Get some NAS that is reliable (both QNAP and Synology offer TC compatible backup with all the goodies underneath - ZSF/BtrFS, RAID, SMART health check, fast controller, soft updates, etc.) and separate router.
That doesn't bother me as bad as the idea of Google sniffing not only my computer work online, but also every bit coming off any connected gadget in my home.
Just to be certain, I looked at the setup instructions for the Google WiFi kit, and what do I see along about step 3 or 4?
"But before we begin, here’s what you’ll need:
- Google Account"
And also:
"Sign in to your Google Account."
I can't think of a legit reason that someone should have to sign into a Google account to use a router that they own, on their own premises.
No thanks.
Maybe I should have written more clearly.
Agreed, there's the question of the primary base station. Some people will be in the market to upgrade that piece of hardware, others won't. Many will keep on using whatever piece of gear their broadband provider supplies. I'd expect that if Apple does incorporate an AirPort Express-equivalent into HomePod that they will also offer a new AirPort Extreme-equivalent, presumably with enhanced capabilities/ease-of-deployment consistent with what Apple's been doing with pairing of Apple-made Bluetooth devices with other Apple gear (W1 chip, etc.). I just like the scenario of "Improved networking just by owning HomePod," to which you can add, "Even better networking if you also buy a new AirPort Extreme."
The now-old rumors surrounding the disbanding of the AirPort team can be read in a variety of ways. Certainly, the abandonment of AirPort-like devices is one. However, it could simply have been a realignment of product development responsibilities. As a cockeyed optimist, I tend towards the latter. I just don't see Apple abandoning networking hardware at a time when network quality is more important than ever to Apple's sale of new devices.
I’m sorry to hear that man. My 4th gen TM has been working great for the first 3 years. I did upgrade to a 4TB WD Red first day I got it.
I had some restarting issues with the latest FWs but downgrading helped. I’m still investigating by using the older Airport Utility 7.6.1 to go through the logs.
I agree that backups and TM access are slow. Gigabit Ethernet and slow, that was disappointing.
Since Apple is seemingly out of the router business, and I’ve heard mixed results of TM supporting routers and NAS, I’m going to move to a USB3 drive for TM when the time comes to upgrade to a normal router.
No, you think that TM has been working great. While the reality is that you don't know if backup is still consistent with your disk content. Like in my case - 25% of disk space was total garbage. Any attempt to directly access damaged files on mounted spardsebundle was freezing AFP. And still - if only metadata in sparsebundle was fine then TM was doing damaged backups of new files on broken storage without any sign of upcoming disaster. Even backup verification sometimes was giving false positive results and the same backup was popping out as unusable few hours later.
Same here. I use WD Red 2.5" 1TB in USB 3.0 portable case as auxiliary backup.
However i'm slowly crawling out of Apple ecosystem.
Had bad long-term experience with every Apple product I own.
True, I don’t know if the backup is 100% consistent, but I’ve have restored the iMac twice from the TC successfully and recovered files a dozen times with TM. So it did what it was supposed to, when I needed it and that’s all I ask.
I’m satisfied with the Apple ecosystem but maybe a router with a built-in HDD for backups is not the best idea if you want performance.
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Thanks for the info. about the optional Velop web GUI for setup/admin. Based on your experience, it sounds less than great, but usable.
Hopefully LinkSys or Apple will provide something like the Airport Utility that runs on a Mac or iPhone without requiring yet another cloud account. In the mean time, I’ll stick with my AirPorts configured as a roaming LAN linked via eNet.
When you live in the country with 2Mbs down & 400Kbs up, stability and easy of admin dwarf the importance of the speed of the wireless LAN.
— GetRealBro
Except APFS only checksums its own metadata, not userdata. Its explanation for this omission at WWDC was that its SSD controllers and the vendor's SSDs it chooses to install in its devices have their own data integrity systems so the OS didn't need to deal with it anymore.
So while APFS may provide for fast snapshots -- what I'd consider a convenience, it ditches user data integrity -- which I'd consider a necessity. I guess we're all just supposed to be backing everything up to some paid cloud service, preferably Apple's?
I've been moving clients w/existing TM backup solutions to Arq and either a NAS or something cloud-based. No error reporting or any way to get diagnostics on the backup system aside from physically removing the drive and attaching it to a computer? Ridiculous.
Sure, in a perfect world.
Regardless of the weaknesses of using RF to substitute for hard wires, the convenience and overall lower cost of deploying wireless makes it an essentially unstoppable phenomenon. This is true for both commercial and residential installations. The cost of pulling (or even surface-mounting) CAT 5 through an existing structure is high enough to make it cost-prohibitive for a large number of potential users. That's a barrier to the adoption of new technologies, rather than an enabler.
What do you mean by "hardcode the IP to wireless devices" - you mean no NAT, just have public-internet-addressable addresses for every device in your house?
Because DHCP and NAT are two separate things, you seem to be describing "not using DHCP."
NAT is when your internal network uses a non-publicly-routable set of addresses like 10.x.y.z, 192.168.y.z, or 172.x.y.z. Unless you're on an IPv6-only network (which is extremely unlikely, since many public websites are still IPv4 only, so wouldn't load,) you are almost certainly using NAT with an internal non-routable address space. So your DSL/cable/fiber modem/router would have a public internet address of 256.128.64.32, (fake address, not even possible, but using an example that won't be someone's actual address.) Then your router takes all incoming/outgoing connections to/from the computers inside your network, and gives the internal computers a non-routable address that is only good inside your network. Let's say 10.0.0.2 for your main PC, 10.0.0.3 for your laptop, 10.0.0.4 for your mobile phone, etc. Since you only have one "public" internet address, assigned to the router, the router has to do Network Address Translation to deal with internet traffic to/from your network. That is how all home internet routers work. So if you want to reach Google's DNS servers, at the public-internet-address 8.8.8.8 (its real address,) your router says "okay PC 10.0.0.2, you're asking to connect to 8.8.8.8. I'm going to send the request out to Google now with a tag of 'A'." Google says "I got a request from 256.128.64.32 with a tag of 'A', I'm going to reply to 256.128.64.32 with the data requested, with the tag 'A'." Your router added that tag so when the return request comes back, the router will know which internal computer to send it to. "Okay, I got the result from 256.128.64.32 with tag 'A', that's for the internal computer I call 10.0.0.2." That's NAT.
DHCP is the act of automatically-assigning those addresses when a device connects. Not using that would be "hardcoding the IP" per device, as you describe. Because 10.x.y.z, 192.168.y.z, and 172.x.y.z are "non routable" it means there are no computers on the public internet with those addresses (only part of the 'x' for 172 is non-routable, there are some public internet computers that start with 172.) That's how my home network can have a 10.0.0.2, my work's network can have a 10.0.0.2, the coffee shop down the block can have a 10.0.0.2, and your house can have a 10.0.0.2. Because they all have different PUBLIC internet addresses (like my fake 256.128.64.32, or Google's real 8.8.8.8, or Level 3 communications' 4.4.2.2, or 23.47.169.85 (one of the many servers that responds to "www.microsoft.com")) All the home/work/coffee shop networks have routers that translate a single public IP address in to many non-routable "private" addresses.
Only DHCP only takes any form of performance hit the very first time a device connects to a network, as the device has to find out what address it should take.
NAT is what basically every network on the planet uses, since there aren't enough IPv4 addresses to go around. If you aren't using NAT, then you only have one computer at home, and it doesn't have good internet security. Yes, it does have a slight performance hit over direct-connection where you have a public internet address