In the process of changing from one vendor to EPMP. Got my batch of 2.4 Force 200s in. Upgraded firmware, went to the next switchover. Guys, the interface is so stinking slow! I have used a Dell Mini 9 for a long time installing all the radios of the other vendor. With EPMP, just trying to aim and wait for the numbers to change on the screen takes forever. I move it again thinking maybe the numbers didn't change, then I have moved it to much and lose registration with the AP. Pull it back and then I lose connection to the web page and have to wait until it reconnects, re-registers, and start over. I spent over an hour doing this this morning, then just quit totally disgusted and put the "other vendor" back up.
I know that Cambium has mentioned many times now that they've released ePMP 2000, and they've made significant fixes under the hood, that the next round of development will be on a UI performance refresh and adding some items that got removed, like the bandwidth graph.
That being said, I believe the Dell Mini 9 uses an Intel Atom CPU? If this is the case, it seems as though multiple people in this forum have complained about performance while using an Atom CPU. We use cheap, used Dell laptops with i5's on them and Google Chrome browser and have no issues with the UI whatsoever.
My questions to you is... how much is your time worth? If it's worth $100hr, then dropping $200 on an i5 laptop to save HOURS (potentially DAYS) of time over the course of many installs/configurations... would be considered a wise investment.
The problem with this is we don't use a laptop for surveys as we are on the roof and on ladders. We use our smartphones with a "Survey Pack" they connect to with Ubiquiti airgateway to login and check signals. With Ubiquiti CPE, this works flawlessly and fast with on delay. With ePMP, it is hit or miss whether this works or not and when it does, it is SLOW.
Our techs hate working with ePMP because they can't do surveys and installs easily like they could with Ubiquiti gear.
Eric said it all. Once we're past ePMP 2000 release, our next main focus is UI speed improvements. The ePMP GUI uses a lot of java scripts which in turn demands a lot out of the PC/mobile's processor. The improvements that are being made in 3.1 is to lighten these java scripts and make them more efficient. Rest assured, we're testing the changes against netbooks (atom processors) and mobile devices to ensure we do this right. We've had this on the back burner for a while and we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. I can assure you that the GUI performance is no way indicative of the radio performance which we always stand behind.
One thing I see is that you were having trouble seeing the RSSI (Signal strenght) update on the GUI. Have you tried eAlign under Tools->eAlign for alignment? This particular page is very fast and works independent of the rest of the GUI pages. We have not heard of any complaints from customers when using eAlign.
If your guys are using Android phones, you can try my app: http://newkirk.us/epmpme/ - it's definitively a work in progress, but it will allow you to connect to an ePMP device and see much of the status, alter many settings, and view eAlign all without waiting for the javascript loading/running from the normal webUI. Wrote it for our guys here to use but posted it on the forums here a while back for anyone else to use if they like.
(as a side note, I'm pretty confident the app will break once Cambium starts rebuilding the UI experience... I'll try to keep up with that by testing against beta/RC releases)
we make our techs call in. they're not allowed to be looking at screens for safety. speaker phone in the shirt pocket. a contractor fell a longtime ago from being distracted.
the tech has a small clip on 2.5ah 12v battery on the radio and they can move around while the remote side is checking and qualify the signal. no sweating on the touch pad, or touch screen. no extra headaches or saftey issues, or sluggish gui problems.
if you've got DNS tied with DHCP the office people can open the cpes quickly via hostname and the last 6 digits of the mac. the default hostname is epmp1000_11bb22.yourdomaininformationhere.net
I just downloaded your app and tested it over VPN and it is definitely faster than using the GUI.
I'm going to have our techs download it tomorrow and start using it to see how much better it works than the Web GUI.
Thank you for your work on this and sharing it with the community since Cambium doesn't seem to care how much of a hassle it is to use their product in the field everyday. If they wanted to make us happy, they would copy Ubiquiti's GUI and coding 99% and we would love ePMP products at that point.
Cambium doesn't seem to care how much of a hassle it is to use their product in the field everyday. If they wanted to make us happy, they would copy Ubiquiti's GUI and coding 99% and we would love ePMP products at that point.
That's pretty harsh... I agree the webUI is crazy slow on a lower-resource system (like a phone, tablet, or the Atom-based netbooks we provide to our field techs) but while I would really have liked it to be more responsive from the start, or before now, I'd prefer Cambium focus most of their developers' attention (as they seem to have done) on fixing problems that directly impact the customer experience. (speaking of OUR customers, not us as Cambium's customer)
As a developer myself I'm familiar with the horrible feeling when your finished and tested application reaches the real world, and crawls and tanks on less powerful hardware that you hadn't tested.
You might love it if they copied 99% of Ubiquiti UI and code, but if that's what you really want/need you should talk to Ubiquiti about copying 1% of Cambium's code... seems like a lot less work that way.
We use our smartphones with a "Survey Pack" they connect to with Ubiquiti airgateway to login and check signals.. With ePMP, it is hit or miss whether this works or not and when it does, it is SLOW.
Hi. Well, all of us agree (including Cambium) that the GUI needs a speed up - that is coming shortly, and Cambium's roadmap that is posted elsewhere in these forums do show that right around the corner on the road ahead. :)
I'll also echo what a couple other's have said - with enough horsepower, the GUI experience is fairly OK. I have a Lenovo tablet and it works fine, and I have a Samsung Note 3 smartphone, and it works OK with that too. Like you, we use a 24V battery back with WiFi AP - and we connect the tablet/phone to that - and the eAlign graphs work fairly functionally on our tablets/phones. We did find it too slow on some devices - but we simply chose not to use those devices. :) I'm not exactly sure of the specs of our phones, but I know my Note 3 is relatively good, but it's not near the power of the Note 4 or Galaxy S7 power either.
So - the short term solution is to use Mr Newkirk's awesome app, and/or to power up your Site Survey devices. If I'm not mistaken, the GUI speedup project is due shortly on the agenda, right after the ePMP2000 / Firmware 3.0 release.
>we make our techs call in. they're not allowed to be looking at screens for safety. speaker phone in the shirt pocket. a contractor fell a longtime ago from being distracted.
So you don't install anywere that your installer can't get cell service ? That would be 1/2 our customers or more...
2.6.2.1 is an emergency maintenance release due to DNS issue that some people are running into in 2.6.2. We will wrap up 2.6.2.1 next week. If this issue didn't exist, there wouldn't be a 2.6.2.1.
3.0 was specifically to add support for ePMP 2000. It contains all the changes in 2.6.2.1. We will also try and wrap this up in the next couple of weeks.
3.1 is the release coming up next and one of the biggest changes is a faster GUI. Since it is a release that follows 3.0, it includes all the changes from 3.0. It is just an internal release for now and is undergoing testing. It has some other things which we are not able to reveal at the moment. We hope to have a 3.1 beta out once 3.0 is wrapped up.
I want this 3.1 RC, I'd be happy to load it and test it on my devices.
3.1-RC1 is the very first cut and it is going through internal testing. Knowing you, I'm pretty sure you won't have the patience for 3.1-RC1 :). So please give us some time until we get a proper beta RC out.
I want this 3.1 RC, I'd be happy to load it and test it on my devices.
3.1-RC1 is the very first cut and it is going through internal testing. Knowing you, I'm pretty sure you won't have the patience for 3.1-RC1 :). So please give us some time until we get a proper beta RC out.
Thanks, Sriram
all these new features, Christmas is in July this year!
>we make our techs call in. they're not allowed to be looking at screens for safety. speaker phone in the shirt pocket. a contractor fell a longtime ago from being distracted.
So you don't install anywere that your installer can't get cell service ? That would be 1/2 our customers or more...
Same for us regarding cell service where we install. We don't make our guys call in, but whoever is up a tree or a ladder doesn't log into anything. Another guy down in the bucket/ladder truck cab with a laptop handles that, with multiple POE injectors on the truck, and a mikrotik router so we can reach all of the 10.a.b.c subnets we use plus 10.1.1.254 and 169.254.1.1 over the wifi. Then the guys use any laptop, tablet or phone they want, once it's on that wifi.
We use two-way-radios on a licensed channel to communicate field-to-shop, which have their own pluses and minuses... There's only one button to click (like the old Mac ads!) and these radios are far more durable and reliable than cells - but with security alarm, fire alarm, video, and network crews in the field across 6 counties with about 30 radios live only one person can talk at a time... (although within each crew they can use a different channel or local-only instead of the 20-mile radius repeater, when calling out alignments for example)
Contrary to what some of you do, we've tried to make the field crews as autonomous as possible. Which of course also has its pluses and minuses...
>we make our techs call in. they're not allowed to be looking at screens for safety. speaker phone in the shirt pocket. a contractor fell a longtime ago from being distracted.
So you don't install anywere that your installer can't get cell service ? That would be 1/2 our customers or more...
where your network is available, you can use it to make your phone call. sip apps work great of the cambium hardware, even when signal isn;t exactly hot. (you'll need to use something for a hotpot on the radio of course)
just tossed it out to help some of you with the performance issues on slow devices.
newkirks point of 2 way radios are good too.
I completely get why some providers want the installers to do it. for us, its a safey issue after a sub contractor got hurt. I changed our procedures to prevent a repeat accident.
once the installer has a locked signal light, they call in to 2nd tier directly, give them the mac address, the support person will check epmp1000_abc123.cpe and they're in the radio. we've also found this to be much faster of a proccess.
our install rates fluctuate to as many as 80 a week after we've deployed a new area so we don't always do our own installs, we will higher them out during peaks. the contractor are fine with wiring but teaching someone to meet the complex set of criteria to meet a good link can be hard, and leaves massive room for error, which in turn results in later service calls or mad customers who cancel.
and as newkirk pointed out, cambium has produced a solid radio and from what i can tell, the only hang it has remaining is a sluggish gui on slower devices. in the short time the epmp has been out, HATS OF TO CAMBIUM for producing a product for all of us to provide a low cost, fast and dependable network. UBNT has been working on that for how many years and they still have issues on and off with performance and secuirty? I'll gladly deal with a lagging interface for a stable device.