The access point comes in a remarkably compact square box. What is immediately noticeable is that no power adapter is included. So you must have a PoE switch, or provide an adapter yourself. The AP can be powered with “regular” 15W PoE, but if you prefer 12V power you will need to provide a 30W copy (2.5A). It's not entirely clear why.
One of the novelties of this AP is that you can configure the device via an app on your phone. So let's give that a try! You must first create an account, and set your location (country) there. When you install the app you have the option to scan a QR code that will automatically connect your phone to the default SSID of the AP. A firmware update is immediately available, but the upgrade process is not very clear. Before I knew it I had started the upgrade three times, but in the end it was done correctly. Afterwards I can do the configuration. The first thing I am asked is my country, although I had just entered it. And I also have to state the time zone again, while Belgium is really not so big that it spreads over several time zones. A cosmetic flaw.
The configuration via the app is simple: you set the SSID, type of encryption with password and band (2.4 or 5 GHz). So far nothing special, although it strikes me that the AP does not support WPA Enterprise. An odd choice for an AP positioning for the business market, especially since any 10-year-old Linksys for home use can. If you open the app again afterwards, it sometimes takes a long time before the AP is detected again, which is a bit annoying.
The AP allows you to create a guest network and then offers a few interesting options. You can set up a captive portal where you have to accept, for example, general terms and conditions. In addition, you can set a bandwidth limitation for the guest network, and by default for the guest network isolation is on so that devices on the guest network can't connect with each other, because they shouldn't. What I miss is the possibility to isolate users on the guest network from the local network, ie a filter that allows guests to access the internet, but not to devices on my own local network (printer, NAS,...). You can set a URL filter, but that works for all networks at the same time (so ALSO for my own SSID) so that is not a solution. You can put the guest network in a separate VLAN, extend that VLAN to your router and then filter there, but I think that's a bit too complex for the target audience.
The more advanced settings must be configured via the web interface. For example, you can turn off the Wi-Fi network at certain times, start a packet capture, and see information about the connected devices.
And then just test.
I compared this AP to a much more expensive AP from a major player that has a namesake in skin care. Both are AC wave 2.
Each time I downloaded a 1 GB file; near the AP, at 10m and 20m away (with walls in between). I deliberately didn't play with settings, so eg NOT forced the client to 5 GHz. I think that the AP should send that.
The Netgear AP gave the following results: 24.5 Mbps at 2m, 13 Mbps at 10m, and 5.5 Mbps at 20m.
The other AP gave surprising results: at 2m 44 Mbps (so a lot better than the Netgear) but at 10m (6.6 Mbps) and 20m (3 Mbps) the expensive AP scored a lot less than the much cheaper Netgear.
The conclusion of this brief test is that the device works well, although there are some minor flaws that make me question why you would choose this AP over one designed for home use. Especially since the AP does not support handover from one AP to another.
