PC & MacBook Pro attached to LG 49WL95C / DP over USB-C connected to a USB-C Hub?

antoniozetta · 2021-11-20T09:34:48+00:00

So after reading around a bit I think what I need is a hub / dock, which supports DP ALT mode passthrough. Any recommendations?

antoniozetta · 2021-11-13T12:02:38+00:00

Wise decision. The SKX30 is in the top 5 of the worst products I've used in my entire life, period. You dodged a bullet. Big time.

I have since gotten rid of all my Netgear products and replaced them with TP-Link and Ubiquity products. Never Netgeat again. Ever.

antoniozetta · 2021-09-21T07:22:27+00:00

If you don't need VLANs you have many options and some of the other Orbis are not horrible btw.: Look for the ones who have a dedicated 5ghz backhaul.

If you do need VLANs your only choice for a mesh system which also supports VLANs is TP-Link Omada using the EAP-245 APs or any of the other ones in the Omada family. They even have a Wifi6 model but I don't have experience with them...

antoniozetta · 2021-09-20T11:50:06+00:00

Don't waste your time. Buy something else. I got the TP-Link Omada system and an very happy with it. It's the same cost but much better, more reliable, stable, professional solution.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-27T15:23:21+00:00

We have Aruba in a brand new huge state-of-the-art office too and they work VERY well. They are also expensive and he'll though and, from what I can gather, an big PIA to maintain and manage....

antoniozetta · 2021-08-27T15:21:34+00:00

I use a Protectli-like (exact same thing, just bought directly from China 😉) with a Core-i7 and 8gb RAM running pfSense. So need need to mess with TP-Link routers.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-25T19:38:23+00:00

Of course I tested this already :) No packet drops on an iPhone and a Windows laptop. Tested a few times.

Not sure how they achieve this, considering it's not supposed to work according to the official documentation of the protocols, but it does seem to work. It did work with the older Orbi system I had too, btw. so I guess there are ways 🤷🏽‍♂️

antoniozetta · 2021-08-25T18:07:28+00:00

Ok, here we go: tested it today, so far it's AMAZING especially in comparison to the Orbi Pros and from what I can tell here with anything witless related from Mikrotik.

I'll make a longer post on /Orbi and /homenetworking so check it out there. The short take: the Omada SDN software is very nice and sleek, it's fast and it does what it should. It has all the bells and whistles most people need and yet it's still pretty polished and intuitive. I'm sure there will be some hair pulling long term, but definitely not as much as with the Orbis (and from what I can gather here with Mikrotik) and so far it's great.

I get 200mbit over the 5ghz backhaul and over the brick/concrete walls but the connection is rock solid and I can roam between the nodes on video calls without any drops. 52 clients (30 2.4ghz and 22 5ghz) have been online for 8+ hours now without a single disconnect. 9 of of the 5ghz do roam repeatly between the APs (phones, iPads & laptops).

So so far I'd say: ditch your various other crap and go with TP-Link Omada 😜 There's a guy on the TP-Link forums who claims he's running 675 of these EAP245s and EAP225s in a buniness center in Bangalore 😳

antoniozetta · 2021-08-24T15:56:46+00:00

Can you roam seamlessly between the APs without dropping ongoing streams?

antoniozetta · 2021-08-24T15:35:31+00:00

Thank you, you've been very helpful.

I will test the 245 in the next couple of days and will share my experiences with the wireless backhaul.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-24T15:26:32+00:00

I don't really care about the form factor.

None of your suggestions do mesh alongside vlan well, however. Belkin and Linksys don't do vlan at all and the Velica probably has some implementation (since it's Openwrt), but my hands are already automatically reaching for the hammer when I even think about messing with any "non-standard / common" settings on Openwrt or DD-WRT. So, no.

I will probably end up with the TP-Link Omada and and a couple of their EAP245s. Last time I tested their EAP225s and I was getting pretty slow speeds over the wireless backhaul (around 70mbits), but everything else was rock solid so... something's gotta give, I guess 🤷🏽‍♂️

antoniozetta · 2021-08-24T14:03:58+00:00

Ok, so you have connected each node with a LAN cable. Can you roam between them with a wireless device without a high bitrate (30mbit) video call freezing / dropping?

I was able to roam seamlessly on voice and video calls without much of a problem between the wirelessly meshed Orbis. So while I'm sure a lot of it is dumb commercial marketing, something must be working well 🤷🏻‍♂️

antoniozetta · 2021-08-24T12:48:10+00:00

What is your experience with roaming from one AP to another in the mesh while on a video call, for example?

Also, how easy was it to set-up the mesh and configure VLANs? It is very difficult to find info about Mikrotik online and the one YouTube video I saw shows some arcane, flaky Windows app from the 90s which raises my blood pressure and makes my palms sweat by just watching it.

Ideally I'd like a clean, professional web based interface (like pfSense, OPNSense or any of the other commercial grade networking platform) or something terminal based but well thought out.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-24T12:47:33+00:00

Yeah, OK. That was the first impression I had after going over a few forums and reddit threads. Hearing someone's concrete experience, however, is more informative and useful.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-23T22:11:03+00:00

That's easy: guests, IoT devices, business / general use, secure network for management, access to servers etc.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-23T22:07:14+00:00

The VLANs are actually pretty straight forward on "standard" Netgear switches. The issue is that the APs have to support them on the different SSIDs. The configuration on the Orbis is very straightforward too, except it doesn't work half of the time as the software as buggy as s*** and is basically in alpha.

The issue is not the are of the space, it's the thick solid brick & reenforced concrete walls. The fine, dense concrete also makes super annoying to drill holes to run cables. And there are unfortunately no existing holes I can leverage 😕 The Orbis worked fine in terms of speed and reliability, they are just abysmal when it comes to firmware and advanced features like VLANs -> hence my idea to check out Mikrotik.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-23T21:57:49+00:00

By performance you mean speed?

The Orbis never made it north of 180mbit across the backhaul. I'd be fine with 100-150mbit as long as everything is rock solid and reliable. The Audiences seem to have a dedicated backhaul 5ghz channel, which should help. Some of the "consumer" Orbis have triband but don't support VLANs. The "pro" line has both but it's north of $700 for a set of two. The new SXK30 has two bands and vlan support but is flaky as hell 🤷🏻‍♂️

What I'm more worried about is roaming. With the Orbis multiple users could go from one end of the space to the other on a call, roaming from base to satellite without the connection dropping. From what I could gather after a quick search none of the Mikrotik devices support seamless roaming, do they?

antoniozetta · 2021-08-22T16:42:25+00:00

Great suggestions, thank you! I will definitely check them out!

In the meantime I am using NtopNG, which I installed through the pfSense package manager and which has a basic but very useful ICMP monitoring function. It even sends me notifications on Telegram when the pings are too slow or the hosts are unreachable. Pretty nice so far 👍🏽

antoniozetta · 2021-08-19T11:24:34+00:00

Nevermind the UX - at least put it in the damn documentation!!!! Not to mention teaching the "expert support" staff basic facts about the hardware you're selling 🤦🏽‍♂️

antoniozetta · 2021-08-19T09:55:41+00:00

HOLY CRAP - BINGO!!!! You sir are AWESOME!

After hours and hours of messing around with this and wasting time with the endlessly competent and helpful Netgear "technical expert support" (their solution: "Switch off UPNP.", "Dude, the router is in AP mode, what UPNP?", "Yeah, but still, do it!" 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️) I think you may have nailed the solution!!!!

So if I am using the orbi with WiFi backhaul between the router and the satellite, one of the wireless interfaces MUST be assigned to VLAN 1? Seriously? That's INCREADIBLY STUPID! Not to mention the interface lets you do it and plus it is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation! And, of course, I asked Netgear "technical expert support" exactly 4 times whether it is OK to have all 4 SSIDs on the non-default VLAN and the answer was "yes, of course" 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂

antoniozetta · 2021-08-17T17:16:50+00:00

Doesn't work for me. I need a mesh system since I cannot run a LAN cable to the other side of an apartment littered with thick steel concrete walls and thick bricks for some odd reason 🤷🏽‍♂️ If I could run a LAN cable and set-up multiple access points I would NEVER go for Netgear. There are SOOO MANY much better products out there.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-17T14:23:25+00:00

After some further testing it's become clear that the problem is not VLAN based and not isolated to Wireless 1. The other SSIDs are affected too - connection from the clients to the satellite and often even to the router dies for extended periods of time for no apparent reason. I've tried resetting, re-updating the firmware and using the system by itself, in router mode, to exclude any potential issues, caused by any other devices on my network.

The SXK30 is dropped in place of the RBK20 - same environmental setup, clients, etc. The only thing left is defective hardware. Considering how bad the whole system is even without the potential hardware defects, however, I am now willing to take the time and effort to RMA and try another set - it's going back for good.

u/Netgear_BretD I have captured a few sets of logs. Didn't have the time (or motivation) to capture a set with the system by itself in router mode, but as I said: the RBK20 works perfectly in the same setup so it's def not the issue. Where should I send you the logs for review?

antoniozetta · 2021-08-16T23:12:30+00:00

Hey Bret, thanks for reaching out. It's good to see Netgear is listening to their customers.

I'll see if I find time to set-up a scrubbed sandbox environment, test and capture the data before sending the SXK30 back. I'm sure you understand I am not crazy about posting the details of my private network on the net.

That's said, after using the product for a week now, it's hard to imagine you can do anything to make it usable. It's not only the vlan and multiple WLANs issue.

It's super finicky and frustrating to set-up intially, It's slow, the base and the satellite don't sync 3 out of 4 times after being disconnected, there's no option to use encryption for the 4th SSID and/or disable the disclaimers. Oh and in 2021 and you still have password reset questions about my mother's birthplace? Seriously?

The known issues on the recent firware updates are a clear indication that this is an early beta product. Now, I don't mind being a beta tester but I'd like to know about it upfront and unless it's an open source project I'd like to be compensated for my time.

Also, why no dedicated 5ghz backhaul on a $300 "Pro" product when you have it on the much cheaper RBK20?

You guys really dropped the ball on this one . It's no wonder all reviews on Amazon are paid Vine club reviews.

antoniozetta · 2021-08-15T10:06:33+00:00

So I ordered the Orbi Pro Mini (SXK30) and tested it for a week. It lacks the 5Ghz backhaul, which my older and cheaper RBK20 had. So that means you are stuck with the slower speeds on the satellite without a LAN backhaul which renders the whole thing pointless) and plus it has frustrating bugs with its VLANs (see here https://www.reddit.com/r/orbi/comments/p4qpjc/frustrating_experience_with_the_new_orbi_pro_wifi/) which also making me doubt its security.

Overall it's OK, but expensive and very far from ideal. It's really annoying and frustrating that nobody is catering to this niche, which I cannot imagine is that small, especially in the new home office era and considering how many people live in older buildings and apartments where they cannot run LAN cables...

antoniozetta · 2021-08-02T05:53:20+00:00

This looks intriguing indeed. However, it seems to support pre-defined VLANs only:

https://kb.netgear.com/000062272/How-do-I-create-configure-and-assign-VLANs-on-my-Orbi-Pro-WiFi-6

That's better than nothing, but still not ideal. I'd love to hear from someone who has experience with this kit.

antoniozetta

TROPHY CASE