Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

I use it both at my home office, and we just installed it for one of our clients with about 11 different units in their building. We have been pretty impressed with it.

It has improved our organization immensely. We were using:

1. Not enough access points at one of my clients. They did not have enough.
2. They were using Ubiquiti, which was getting overloaded with traffic. Therefore, it has been a big speed improvement, as well as in coverage.

I find it very easy to manage because of the cloud management, so I can update all my buildings at once and see all of my clients from one spot. That is probably one of my favorite features, as well as it has good security with its Layer 7 protections. It has a lot of overall functionality.

At this price point, I would not mind seeing a four-way channel, instead of a 3x3 or a 4x4, like they do in the Cisco Aironet system with their other brand. For the same price point in this other Cisco brand, it is a lot cheaper, and you can get a slightly better throughput than you can with these. It does not have the cloud-base. This would be something that I would like to see, and they do have it in their bigger units, just not at the price point we were at for the MR 42s.

So far, there have not been any issues. 

The only ones that we did have were with some wiring in the building. 

The products were fine. The only time they have gone down is when they first had to do firmware updates. It has only been three weeks, but so far, they have worked very well.

I have not had any issues with scalability. If we need any more, it is literally just plug and play. It will immediately go in the network, because it is cloud-based. Everything from the network is on the cloud, so it just pushes right into the new device.

I have not yet talked to technical support. 

I talk to our rep if I have any questions because I have a direct Cisco rep.

We had Ubiquiti UniFi and the standard APs. They were not the ACs; they were the standard APs. Their coverage was always rough. We had a lot of dropouts due to speed issues, and this particular client of mine was putting in a new system in their building, and we knew this was going to push the WiFi really hard. Therefore, we knew we would have to upgrade it when we put the system in.

It was very straightforward. I did all the setup on it.

If you are wondering if Meraki can work for you, contact one of their representatives because they will do onsite trials where you can set up their system. If it does not work, you can send it back to them for no charge.

We were looking at improving the system that we currently had with Ubiquiti. We also did consider Ruckus and Cisco (the standard Cisco units). 

The reason I went with Meraki was mainly for its ease of setup and control of multiple locations, which this client has. It will allow me to integrate another system very quickly, as we continue expanding for them. Being an offsite vendor, and having remote access into it, the simplicity of that made a big difference in choosing their system.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: The device needs to hold up to what they are telling me it can do. I want to see good throughput from it, as well as that it has security and protection. 

Usability is a big one. How simple it is, easy it is to set up, use, and for the client to understand. Finally, it would be the technical support. They have to have a good technical support base.

I do not know which version we are using. 

I find Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN to be more secure and easy to use. It is easy to control. 

With the solution, we have a little mesh and wire LAN, and the performance is awesome.

The price can always be better. 

There should be better Spanish-language technical support. 

I am wholly in agreement that the solution is stable. 

I agree wholeheartedly that the solution is scalable. 

For the moment, we do not have plans to increase the usage. 

There should be better Spanish-language support. 

The solution's setup was easy.

The previous deployment took, perhaps, two weeks. 

We were assisted by the main controller and several partners. 

Our experience with them was positive. We found them to be helpful. 

There was an engineer who was responsible for configuring the solution and a technician for connecting the cables in the wall. 

I have not seen a return on our investment. 

As is always the case, the price could be better, although I do not recall exactly how much this comes out to. I do know that I make tri-annual purchases of the solution. The fee is once every three years. 

We did not use another solution prior to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. We considered Fortinet as an alternative, but felt Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN offered better wifi and was a superior routing solution. 

I am a customer. 

There are, perhaps, 25 or 30 people making use of the solution in our organization. 

The solution is trustworthy. I find it easy and secure. 

I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN as an eight out of ten. 

I primarily use the solution for network connectivity. They have a microcontroller and size the firmware with access points. I didn't need to buy another controller to control all of them in one click. At any one of the access point, I can configure the whole network.

It's a very useful product.

The solution is stable. So far, it has been issue-free.

I have found the scalability to be very good.

Cisco offers pretty expensive devices. 

I'd like it if Cisco made it possible to integrate its solution with HP.

The initial setup is a bit difficult. 

I only installed the solution one month ago. I haven't used it for very long. 

The stability of the solution seems to be very good. There are no bugs or glitches. it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The product scales well. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.

We have 500 users who are on the solution currently.

I've never had to reach out to technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

I'm also familiar with Ubiquiti. 

The initial installation is a bit hard. It's not quite like, for example, Ubiquiti. If you have a mountain of access points, it will take a while, as it typically takes a technician 15 to 20 minutes per access point.  

The installation doesn't require a lot of people. It took only a few guys - one for integration and one for administration.

The solution is pricey. It's an expensive product.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. It's been extremely reliable and I've been happy with it.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the solution to smaller offices or organizations as Cisco can be expensive. Something cheaper, such as D-Link, may be better in small environments. 

We use Meraki Wireless LAN to provide wireless services at a school.

Meraki WLAN is easy to deploy, includes a cloud controller, and updates continuously. It also offers high visibility. 

We had one location for over a year, so I was familiar with the console for three years and the wireless solution for over a year.

Meraki WLAN is solid. I can't recall the last time I had to replace an AP or anything like that.

I would say that Meraki WLAN is scalable, but the licensing makes it a little difficult. You can't just add on more APs within your scope. You have to purchase more licenses to scale.

I really only used my sales engineer for support. He was able to answer most of my questions, but he was previously an engineer before, so I didn't have to call them. 

Deployment is straightforward. It requires very little configuration.

The licensing isn't very customer-centric. They may have improved it, but previously, if you forgot to pay on a certain day, your service would be shut off. 

From a purely technical point of view, I would rate Meraki WLAN eight out of 10. If you are considering implementing Meraki, I would suggest considering the size of your team. If you are strapped for resources, I would say go with something else over Cisco. But as far as functionality goes, I would rate it over some of the others, like Juniper and Mist.

With Cisco Meraki, I've tried motherboard, switches, and wireless, and everything is good. If you want to complete visibility, then you are required just a firewall and switches, and wireless. 

The solution offers good features and good performance. It's quite stable. We have never faced challenges just from our ID access point.

You can scale the solution easily.

The problem with the solution is that if you go for firewall, then there is no SSL encryption available. If you are talking about deep packet inspection, that is not available. If you want SSL encryption, then you have to integrate with Cisco Umbrella. 

If they could work on the Meraki firewall hardware, and add SSL decryption as well as more application control and deep packet inspection, that would be ideal. 

Also in Cisco Meraki access points, MAC filtering is not available. If they could add that feature, that would be great.

I've been using the solution for two or three years at this point. It's been a while. 

The stability is very good. There are no bugs. There are no glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

This is a cloud-based product and the best thing about a cloud-based product is if you have a cloud controller and access point, then you don't have to worry about that key for licenses. If you've got 70 access points, you can register there. If you have 1,000 and 2,0000, you can also register there. There is no need to change any controller hardware as that is a cloud-based product, which makes it fully scalable. You can add to it and still maintain a single point of management. 

This is a pure cloud-based solution and everything is managed by the cloud.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

It's for our head offices, remote offices branches. The solution is primarily used for giving access to our users, including controlling their access and granting access.

The solution is easy to use. With the cloud dashboard, it's easy to control the APs and other items. It has controlling, content filtering, and other options. A lot of things are there. It has a lot of great features.

The solution is stable.

The scalability is good.

I am new to this solution. At the moment, I am not the right person or in a position to suggest something new or point out something that's lacking. I time to use it properly and see the pros and cons of the product and the requirements regarding our business.

The dashboard could be a bit better. I'd like to see more information about the whole controller and APs. It should be as simple and convenient.

I haven't used the solution for very long. It's been about a month. 

The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It does not crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The scalability of the solution is great. However, it depends on the business' needs.

I can't speak to technical support. I didn't actually open any ticket, so I am not sure. I can't say how responsive or helpful they are. 

I've been using Aruba Wireless Controller, and Huawei - just the controller. I'm new to this environment and I'm new to the device.

I did not handle the initial setup and I didn't configure anything. I've just started administering the solution actually. I can't speak to the implementation process and how difficult or simple it is.

I can't speak to the pricing or licensing. It's not an aspect of the solution I take care of.

We're just customers and technical users. 

We use different versions, such as the MX64, 800 series, and 100 series.

At the moment, I'd rate the solution at a six out of ten. I have no experience, or at least, not too much experience yet. 

I think the IoT integration is the most valuable. I started applying IoT solutions 12 years ago on location-based services. Aruba had implemented this at the time. So I think the integration, particularly into the applications and stuff, is pretty interesting in Meraki. It's a substantial network from my point of view. It's good.

You're starting to see CO2-type sensors come into the classrooms and stuff like that. So it would be nice to build some "if-then" functions into IoT-type sensors. For instance, if a classroom has high CO2 levels, you could automatically open the Windows and use heat exchange to bring in fresh air into the room. At the same time, you could have the temperature control adjust automatically so it doesn't get too hot or too.  So you would need to plug in some configurable where you collect the output from the sensors and have it carry out some small actions based on that. I think it's well within Meraki's capabilities. 

I've been working in IT for 40 years. I was working on Nortel products even before Cisco, so I have more than 20 years of experience in WiFi alone.

Everything works. I can't knock the product. I know a lot of the senior management within Meraki and used to work with them at Nortel. I know many people who work on the product side, and I've never had a problem. I've deployed Meraki for one customer with 2,500 sites in the UK, and I don't think I've ever had a wireless AP go faulty on me. We've just never had a failure, to be quite honest. That's unusual.

The only thing that always causes problems with Meraki is the license. It's a bit of a bugbear with Meraki, and it remains today. So it's an unusual concept compared to the other products in the marketplace, but then it does cause a bit of a nuisance from time to time. The license they sell is difficult.

I've worked on Meraki and other Cisco products as well as Hewlett Packard, Aruba, Siemens, and Aerohive. Aruba's first-class product is easy to work with, and I've done a lot of the complicated location with services on the Aruba kit. Most of the WiFi solutions are pretty good. The main difference between products is the application integration for location-based or IoT services, and Meraki has a good lead. You can buy IoT centers that work. So I know they're pretty basic sensors, and they are a bit expensive. However, I don't think you can beat Meraki when you're talking about multiple deployments, particularly in retail and stuff like that. It's very good for that. With loads of different sites and small amounts of kit, it works perfectly. I haven't had many problems, and in the many times I've worked with the kit, it's never failed me. That's unusual.

I rate Cisco Meraki WLAN mine of 10. However, it would be a 10 out of 10 if it could apply some conditional logic where the result from a sensor triggers an action on another IoT device, such as a motorized heat exchanger, to bring fresh air into the building. If you were able to do something like that, it would improve things even more. It's a good LAN, but there's always room for improvement. There are some things that I'd like to see, such as more applications, integrations, and stuff like that, but apart from that, it's pretty good.

When you look at the benefits, some wireless solutions are more flexible than others. Meraki is easy to configure and monitor. The best thing Meraki can do is give them a test AP on their network because there is some problem with APN allowing other kits on the network and letting people test, but handover between the APs is satisfactory. I've got four APs in my home that go between the office, workshop, and high space, and the handover is still seamless. The coverage is brilliant from my point of view. I deployed it in a large warehouse, and handover was seamless. It was covered. To me, the easiest way is to get a customer to test their network with two, so they can do a handover and allow them to test and configure. That's plug-and-play.

I've worked on this solution for a couple of clients who already had it deployed. It has many good features and good integration. This is more of a hybrid setup where the switch takes over a lot of responsibility depending upon what you have deployed. It takes a lot of control and allows for cloud-based management of your Wi-Fi network.

One of the key problems is that, similar to a solution like Ruckus, if you lose connectivity with the controller, your Wi-Fi network is immediately impacted and users are unable to connect to the network. It's a challenge because then your budget inflates as you have to invest in a high availability kind of solution and have more than one controller. If you are spread across a large area geographically, then you may want to have multiple controllers at different sites so that if one fails you always have a backup to go to and you're not dependent on the links that connect to your offices. It can become costly as a result. 

There is nothing much that can change but I believe the hardware could become more economical. The licensing part is okay, and compared to other cloud-managed Wi-Fi's, Meraki is well placed on the pricing, but the hardware costs a bomb. If they could reduce the price of the hardware, the access points, that would be a great benefit for them.

The solution is stable and more secure when you compare it to Ruckus because if you have an MX firewall, you automatically get the firewall features over your Wi-Fi as well. The outcome is that all the data passing through the Wi-Fi definitely passes through the firewall. 

Meraki is quite scalable. 

Thanks to my experience with Wi-Fi, I haven't needed tech support from Meraki. One good point about Meraki and Cisco overall would be the documentation. It's extremely comprehensive so that you don't need to call tech support unless you encounter a specific problem, and you can find most things by doing a Google search.

I believe the initial setup is pretty straightforward although I've never deployed the solution - I've managed it for clients. We currently have three companies that are using this product. From a maintenance perspective, it requires a couple of maintenance staff to keep a tab on the solution, depending upon your work environment. 

Licensing is on an annual basis and there is also the hardware inventory. If the firewall goes down, for example, that could cause a problem. The point of failure and the work involved around it makes it a more costly solution.

For anyone looking for a simple management solution in a geographically spread-out network, Meraki is a good bet compared to Ruckus. However, they lose points on the cost as well as on the complexity of its multiple-tiered structure, where you have an MX firewall or a switch, your Wi-Fi access points, and then the cloud. It's too much and could be as easy as having the cloud and access points, but the product has an additional tier integrated, which makes it somewhat complex.

I would place them at eight out of 10.