TP-Link EAP265 HD | Omada Enterprise AC1750 Gigabit Wireless Access Point for High-Density Deployment | Support Mesh, Seamless Roaming & MU-MIMO | PoE Powered | SDN Integrated, Cloud Access &Omada App

Especially like the 'pass thru' function!

I have a few other versions of this AP and got this to expand coverage. When comparing TP-Link EAP to other brands, The main features I wanted were: 1-Controller Software Not Required (Optional), 2-SSID to VLAN Mapping, 3- POE and 4- Price. When comparing this model to the other TP-Link options, there are several options. I eliminated the wifi-6 AP because they look horrible (see update below). If you haven't seen it, think large plastic pie container. I wanted the one with the most antennae, so that left the 265HD and 245. At the time the price was the same, so I went with the 265HD, otherwise I would have bought the 245. Overall, these AP work well as I'm a repeat buyer. They seem to have the weakest signal emitting on the back side where it mounts. Walls and other electrical interference are more problematic as with any wifi signal, but something to consider when trying to find the optimal location and orientation.Extra Ethernet Port: Unlike most of the other TP-Link AP models, this one has two network ports. One is POE in to power the AP and the other is just a standard network port (no POE in/out). I thought that the intent was to allow you to daisy chain one or more APs, but as there's no POE passthrough the device plugged into the second port would require independent power. I did find an alternative use, which was to use both ports as uplinks. This works if you have a switch that's able to isolate specific VLAN traffic on each uplinked port. Theoretically this creates a 2GB uplink, but not sure if it's actually possible to max out both interfaces.Mounting: I really wished the mounting bracket was designed to work out of the box with a standard low voltage gang box. I know it's a "business" product, but not all businesses have drop ceilings. I drilled a few extra holes in the mounting plate and modified the mounting hardware to make it work with no visible holes. (See photos)Controller Software: This has the pros and cons. I have used the standalone mode before as it wasn't too hard to manage, but I thought I'd try the controller option now that I have three. I don't like the 'cloud' controlling my network, so I opted to load the software and run locally. This is a real pain if you have your network managed on it's own subnet, but once running it's very nice. I wish I had the option to use both modes at the same time because if my controller crashes I can't manage the AP. At least the AP will keep working when the controller is offline. The other bad thing is that my oldest AP will not work with the current software. Seems strange due to the fact that the features are nearly identical.Update: TP-Link now offers WiFi6 in a form factor about the size of a smoke detector.

This EAP works great indoors and connects very well to my mesh Network with the hardware controller oc200.I have several tp-link devices. Specifically EAPs 225, 265, and 610I set up two wireless mesh networks and needed technical support.I called Tp-link technical support several times when expanding the network and received excellent service every time.My latest conversation was with a senior tech named Harriet Han,Harriet was very professional very knowledgeable and knew how to guide me to configure the network properly efficiently and quickly.Thanks to people like Harriet and great customer service and specifically technical support like you provided I will continue buying your products.

These TP-link AP's offer a cost effective and expandable way to setup a WiFI network in a larger residence and the centralized controller allows for configuring them all at once to setup an optimal WiFi network with multiple SSID's. The cost is a major attraction and the features are much better than what you get in the average WiFi routers in the same price range as a couple of these. When properly mounted, these things blend well with the rest of the wall/ceiling decor in the house.You do need a stand alone router (I use a MikroTik wired router) and that is an advantage in my opinion. The entire system is lost if you get an equipment failure with an all-in-one WiFi router. With a stand alone router and several AP's the rest of the system will keep on working even if one component fails. It is much cheaper to replace the failed component instead of having to buy and configure a whole new WiFi router with comparable capabilities as these.The setup requires a bit of learning and may take a day or two if you are not familiar, but the basic setup done in a few minutes will work fine and safely for most home uses. I have isolated guests, security system, streaming devices, my work computer, and one group for other devices (laptop, tablets, phones) to their own SSID's. It allows to control network security, priority, and speeds for each of these groups separately.Now for my gripes.. I setup two EAP225 AP's fed via a gigabit wired network in the house some years back and wanted to cover a weak WiFi area and purchased the EAP265 HD. It works quite well by itself, but there are controller compatibility issues between the EAP225 and EAP265. Namely, the EAP265 needs Omada controller V5 while the EAP225's cannot work with a controller newer than V3.x. The only workable solution I found was to run two controllers. They cannot exist in the same computer and need to be in two computers. I have one running on the main PC and the second running in a virtual machine. The user interface and menus are different between the controllers. This is a hassle as you have to configure two systems to function the same way and also make the same changes to both systems when needed. Each system doesn't know that the other exists and thus the hand off of connected devices between the two systems is not coordinated (which is one of the reasons to have a centrally controlled network of AP's). I just wish TP-Link found a way to make the new controllers backward compatible with older AP's.The coverage area of each individual unit is not great. With three AP's in three floors I still lose the signal quite fast once outside the house. In contrast, I can see a pretty strong signal from my neighbor's Netgear system anywhere in my house and most of the yard. I'm pretty sure they are running a high-end mesh system that cost more than all of my network components combined. Also this might be an advantage if you live in a crowded area and have to fight for WiFi bands with your neighbors, or if you don't want the signal to reach beyond your borders for security reasons.I plan to eventually upgrade the home wired network to 2.5G and will replace the old EAP225's with newer AP's with updated capabilities to go with it. Hopefully I will be able to go back to a single controller and not deal with yet another multiple controller setup. I do appreciate the modular expandability and upgradability offered by this TP-Link system at this price point.

As we added devices to our network, our old access point was slowly becoming overwhelmed. (Our computers and other devices would randomly disconnect from WiFi, throughput was slow, and the device itself would occasionally report that it ran out of RAM or had an overloaded CPU.)Upgraded from the single AP to a mesh network (one upstairs, one downstairs) w/ two of these devices, and am getting much better performance, faster connections/reconnections, and no dropped signals. Couldn't be happier.

Easy to setup and use.