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We have 95 Meraki APs at our school. Bought a 5 year licenses and got 5 free. Meraki support is great. APs have a lifetime warranty too. We are migrating from Cisco switched to Meraki as the web console is great to use.
It is pretty good I am currently running it on production about 32 APs all over the clients location.
After having deployed hundreds of UniFi APs, I don’t think I could bring myself to pay license and maintenance fees for my WiFi networks.
I agree that the business model is less than ideal. I’d be fine with a service fee each year, but that would be called a lease for me. Which means the hardware should be free. So either yearly fee with free hardware, or I buy the hardware and I don’t pay a yearly fee :). But well, I guess there’s a place for everything, they haven’t filed bankruptcy 🙂
Love the channel! Great to see another IT professional sharing their knowledge and helping folks. I personally love Meraki and would love to use them everywhere, however, when the budget doesn’t allow me to use Meraki, I generally fall back to a Unifi setup.
P.S. Dig the FreeNAS swag 😉
Uh, LOL @ 5:30 – Dude, did you say “traffic shaving”? 😀 Good stuff!
That Meraki business model is garbage. The AP should be free or like 80% off list, then the annual subscription service would make sense and only then be competitive.
Being connected to the Internet all the time for local WLAN management makes me nervous. They try to address that here: https://documentation.meraki.com/zGeneral_Administration/Cross-Platform_Content/Behavior_during_Connection_Loss_to_Cisco_Meraki_Cloud but I’m not sure man … seems risky. Not to mention when they accidentally DELETE you from their cloud service: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/06/cisco_meraki_data_loss/
They seem incompetent and over-priced to be honest.
Ubiquiti for the win, amIright?!?
Thanks for the overview – nice to see other products here too.
P.S. I’ve noticed over the last several videos that you make in your office / studio there that the audio clips a bit. Sounds like the mic gain is a little hot or the compression/limiting should be turned up a wee bit.
ave been looking forward to this
You can do a short webinar with Meraki and receive a free MR33 with 1 year licence
It’s nice, but definitely on the premium end of the price levels… yikes.
If you look around for a few minutes and get a quote from a vendor you can get a significant discount off msrp. I’ve found this is common for Enterpise networking. You can budget off msrp but expect the real price even plus tax is a good bit lower than msrp when you go to buy. Then you look good coming in under budget at least this is why I think they do it but the problem is msrp scares away some because they don’t know you can get that much off msrp.
no to Cisco from me, been burned before, but thanks for the video 🙂
Meraki is trash. Will never use them again. Ubiquity for life!
Could you do some comparison between Meraki systems and the Aironet systems? Also a comparison between Cisco/Meraki systems vs Unifi?
Too expensive and too much cloud dependent for a network appliance…
This license system of Meraki is just extortion, pay us or your hardware stops working! Not only is the hardware expensive but you are completely locked in and forced to pay them.
That screw kit looks like what came in the UAP-AC-PRO black boxes.
Happily running OpenWRT on mine since June 🙂 It’s a superb little device with great signal strength.
better then unifi?
The hardware pack is probably made how it is because they know you’re gonna be on top of a ladder installing, and chasing loose screws falling out of bags sucks.
Nothing says “we do hardware.. Not software” like a super high license fee. Buy it for the hardware? sure.. Cisco has solid hw. For this cloud software bs? No thanks! Get r00t and take control of the hardware your organization purchased. Highjacking stuff you bought? What’s this.. Windows 10 or something? Rofl
I am a ubiquiti guy, but work at a school which has a 100% meraki network. I will say meraki is very nice if you can afford it. Also it is a lot cheaper if you go through a cisco dealer. The MR33 usually goes for about 2-$300 depending on inventory levels.
When you free year is up are you going to install OpenWRT on it? Also, be careful with Air Marshal. Since we operate in public bands in the US we can’t legally knowing cause interference with others broadcasting. A little experiment like that cost Mariott $600,000.
No way ! Only a very rich client would buy this. I would never be able to sell this with a straight face.
Great video! Shame the Meraki line up doesn’t support IPv6 yet. I believe it will pass V6 but you can’t set rules etc 🙁
Great video I totally agree the product is solid but the pricing models is a little out there
If you go with a good reseller, MR licenses run about $100/y. The MR license works for ANY MR access point, you also get 24/7 tech support, free hardware replacements. You also have 30 grace period if you go over your license term.
That said. I use Cisco/Meraki/Unifi/Edge gear at home.
while the licences are expensive it does give your APs a lifetime warranty. I have 50 APs and my 3 yr old Mr 24s died they replaced them with mr 42s. it has been nice. also my parent company has a 50% discount on equipment from volume licensing and that makes it much more affordable.
Well… nice box, but it is not that shiny like the TP switch box you have.