Aruba Wireless Network Access Point, 802.11ac, Instant Model (IAP-205-US)

Being a Network Engineer and having used Aruba's products in an enterprise setting made this an easy decision. They have great products and perhaps I am a bit biased, but I think their wireless rivals that of Cisco's. I only paid $273, a bit steep for 802.11ac WiFi for the home, but well worth every penny for an enterprise grade wireless device. These WAP's easily go for between $600 - $800 each, so this was a steal. They are fairly simple to setup if your not a technical person.One of the great features of these IAP class access points is that you do not need a wireless controller, as there is a virtual one running on the device. You can of course convert them to normal AP mode where they can be controlled by a separate Aruba controller (using ArubaOS), but really no need for it. Additionally, if you need more coverage in your home, you can add more IAP's to your setup and the new ones will auto learn the config from the master AP and join the cluster. Really a great feature, if I see it on sale again, I may buy another just to add even more coverage.I live in a semi-attached home and have it sitting in my living room, which is about midway on my property and towards the back of my home proper. I have very good WiFi range in the house. From my second floor bedroom to the living room (opposite side of the house) I have very good speed tests and get full bandwidth speed about 95% of the time. The Amcrest HD WiFi security cam I have outside the front of my house also sends a nice picture back to my cell phone wirelessly.Another nice feature of the IAP's is the ability to set up multiple SSID's. If you have a lot of friends/family that come over, or if you have a home office with many client visits, you can stand up a "guest" SSID just for them and allow them the ability to create a login for access. Another cool feature is the band steering and client matching capabilities. Lets supposed you have a lot of noise in the 2.4 Ghz range (other home wireless routers in the neighbor creating noise), the IAP-205 can band steer those devices connecting to your SSID over to the less often used 5 Ghz range. Additionally with client matching enabled, you can balance the client count across the channels in the same band.There are also really good firewall features, DHCP support, as well as RF application visibility allowing you to see what apps are consuming the most airtime. One last thing, this AP doesn't come with 9 antennas that make it look like a UFO in your home, which I feel is a plus in itself. All the antennas are integrated inside of the AP. It does get very hot however. I have mine plugging in to an old Aruba 650 controller with PoE support at home. If you don't have PoE, you may want to consider getting the AC power adapter with it (not included) or invest in a PoE injector.What else can I say... It's a great product. If you want to enterprise grade 802.11ac support at home, pick one of these up, you wont be disappointed.

AP works great but there's no support from the mfg (now HP) when you buy it from Amazon.

If you have a problem with this unit in the future, do not expect to get any support from Aruba without purchasing a support contract. This seller is not an authorized dealer for Aruba or HP and they will not recognize your warranty or request for support because of that. Stay away if you may want telephone support for this unit!

For my SOHO set up, I had used a Cisco Aironet 1142N-A-K9 for four years before it finally croaked. I had 8 wireless devices permanently connected to it with another 10-20 guest devices as family and friends visited our home. When it died, I replaced it with a Cisco WAP 561-A-K9 which I thought would be an upgrade to my old Aironet but it failed miserably after a week. I decided to go with another vendor as autonomous WAPs in the price range I was looking for were scarce and/or had poor reviews except for this product.Anyway, this IAP 205 has to be the easiest WAP I have ever set up. 5 minutes and I was up and running. The interface is simple compared to the Cisco GUI I have used. The WAP is about the size of a smoke detector, yet appears to have better signal strength than that of the two Cisco devices I previously used. I also like the ACC (Advanced Cellular Coexistence) feature which minimizes interference from 3G/4G LTE networks.The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't come with mounting hardware. Requires a separate purchase. I mean it's a WAP; it's meant to be mounted so why not include?

Plastic case is really cheap and mounting options are limited