In reply to cnMaestro notifications - again - #3 by tophfro
Why is it dying? Please help me understand the issue Chris.
@Sakid_Ahmed
Its not they they are physically dying or not working but that product development seems to have come to a halt. Ive had a few issues with the deployment methods and usability of the RV22 in cnM (i can dig up the ticket numbers if needed) and was told that these things would be worked on and others would be run up the chain. The only thing that has changed is that I can update the subscribers email under the managed services account. Something even as simple (at least seems like a simple fix) as disabling notifications from cnM of when an RV22 goes offline, like Jacob originally posted about, hasn’t been done or even communicated about further.
I have one customer that phycially unplugs her router anytime shes not actively using her wifi. I get an alert email every time… it’s desensitizing me to actual alerts when an AP or Backhaul goes down. When I first started deploying these, I had one unit installed at my grandfather’s house. The remote mesh unit would randomly show as offline in cnM. The mesh unit was specifically installed so that a WiFi camera could be installed on the far corner of his house. The WiFi camera was still streaming video but the mesh unit showed as offline….
I had an install today where I had to delete and re-add the RV22 to the customer account 3 times before it actually showed as online in cnM and updated the custom config for that customer.
I say all this because I don’t know if the issues are actually the RV22 or if it’s cnMaestro or the integration between them (I suspect it’s the latter two which is why this is posted here).
One other subscriber issue: I can’t change a customers connection type from Fixed Wireless to Fiber without deleting the subscriber account and starting over (cnM issue not so much an RV22 hardware issue)
I would have to agree with him, looking at the stagnant developement of this product.
We recently adopted them and they are buggy as all get out
We have the issue where some process statically writes the DNS entry, so if we onbard and prep in office, they dont work when deployed because our office DNS is local to the office
The subscriber account code isnt manually generated, so we had an issue where our tech wasnt recieving the invite to get the code, theres no manual code generation or alternate way to generates access for a customer to the app
There is no bridge mode
There is no port forward/dmz
theyre abysmally slow at power up and fatally slow at showing up in cnmaestro, to the point Deco makes more sense. If we were to install a base with three clients, just the placement verification would probably take two tech hours of waiting for connection to verify the mesh quality
The LEDs arent colors that old eyes like mine can differentiate
the wired mesh is archaic. The ghetto LAN-LAN connection with the client device LAN not bridging brings me back to 2001 and is a recipe for customers to plug into that port, such that we ordered port blanks to avoid it
After all our testing and demo deployments, we did the first set to a production customer and they promptly removed it to insall a Deco system because their NVR required port forwarding. Bridge mode, or port forwarding would have resolved that. Neither of those things are one off requests, theyre standard to mesh/wifi systems.
It seems this was a half baked product that was released with great intentions and then the engineering department lost interest. Thats a shame, because the coverage is insanely good, and the multiple ports make it more useful than the Deco and keeps us a 100 percent cambium shop
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Sorry to hear about these issues. I am using the RV22 as mesh in my own home so I’ll speak from my experience. These two comments have a lot to unpack, I’ll try to capture the high points.
PROBLEMS MAINTAINING MESH LINK, AKA DROPPING, FAILING, ETC
cnMaestro will show you the mesh link quality metrics independent of the clients. Navigate: click your mesh node, then Performance tab. like this:
scroll to the bottom and look at SNR and Datarate. Here’s my mesh link:
Note that my mesh link is running at 932Mbps/1100Mbps with SNR of 30/31dB. This is right where I want it to be. Between 30 and 35dB. This mesh link is carrying about 10 devices, so it needs to be running at maximum. This is true for any Wi-Fi mesh you may choose. Please check these values and see where your system is running.
I’ll do a second reply to discuss features and design goals of the RV22.
Second reply to talk about the RV22 design goals and features.
We did not start the RV22 with the intent to open up all possible router configurations, etc. The market is moving toward a “it just needs to work” model where complexities are hidden. having said that, there are, of course, some tablestakes items that RV22 is not supporting yet.
GOALS OF THE PROGRAM
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Give the ISP a three-way integrated solution: AP+Cloud+App that can be customized to their benefit. The AP hardware and the App can be quickly customized with the ISP brand, and the App does not badger your customer with ads to buy Cambium products (like some others). The App supports as many “brands” and “sub-brands” as the ISP desires. They can be pushed to the subscriber App in a minute and used to differentiate the ISP service from competitors.
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Simplify the configurations by automating anything that can be automated, e.g., channel selection
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Cambium-on-Cambium automation. The RV22 and FWA can be associated to the same subscriber record in cnMaestro. This creates a link between the two and allows us to prioritize channel selection so that the FWA SM always gets priority over in-home Wi-Fi.
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Maximize the mesh link performance. The mesh link carries a lot of traffic, so we purposely designed the radio and antenna system for maximum mesh link quality and throughput. I have tested several competitive products in my own home without attempting to optimize anything. I consistently find the RV22 rate-at-range to be higher than competitive APs. I also acknowledge that I have only tested a handful of devices, so please share your results directly with me. I WANT to know how you are using it.
MISSING FEATURES, AKA ROADMAP
Many ISPs have shared their experience directly with me and the team, thank you for doing that. We have identified some of the things in this post thread and some other things not in this thread. We are scoping the work effort on:
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Workflow enhancements. Several ISPs have given us good feedback where we can speed up the workflow and/or make it useful for a field technician. This category includes things like coordinated and automatic firmware updates, app based technician workflow, unlocking the subscriber email address, etc. The next release of cnMaestro will allow you to change the subscriber email address without deleting and rebuilding the entire subscriber account.
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Splitting the SSID across different radios. This one is key to operating the network with lots of home IOT devices. Very often these home IOT devices have basic Wi-Fi clients and often choose the wrong radio to connect with. We will resolve this issue by allowing more configuration of the radios and SSIDs.
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Enhancing the integrated speedtest tool. Currently, you can use the default distributed speedtest that Cambium provides within cnMaestro, or you can point it to your own speed test server located within your network or at a different site, for example hosted at a nearby IXP. today, you can run speedtest from the App or from the cnMaestro tools menu. Enhancements will expose the test parameters such that you can use the test parameters for reporting purposes.
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Port forwarding. Yes, I agree with the comments. Port forwarding is still a thing, surprisingly. I have set up security NVR systems myself that do not require port forwarding, and a lot of gaming is going to online hosted realms like Steam, Discord, etc. But but but - port forwarding will be required for many more years.
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Additional UI cleanup to improve the overall experience.
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Thanks @DaranHermans
I appreciate the goal of simplifying the end-user experience but as @maxwire mentioned it seems like the whole process was released half-baked or just to check off a box on someone’s To-Do list. I did a walk-thru with a couple of the guys via support. I gave them my list of issues including how we did our installs (using the cnArcher/Installer App, which is another hot mess for a different discussion), to not being able to change the type of subscriber connection (Fiber, FWA, home Site), not able to change the email for the end-user, and just the general clunkiness of the workflow in deploying these things. During the walk-thru session, the guys suggested that I pre-configure everything in the office before sending it out for installation. That’s never really worked because I can’t add a device to a Managed Subscriber until the CPE/SM is on-boarded. I can’t on-board the CPE until it connects to the network/AP. If I connect it to the test AP in the office, and cnMaestro pushes the firmware update, then the installer can’t access the radio via the Apps to get it connected to the new AP and align it. The WebUI for the CPE isn’t very friendly on phone browsers (currently using iPhones) and in 4.8.1 for the 3k AP’s the menu doesn’t scroll so we can’t even get to the eAlign screen unless we bookmark it on the 169.254.1.1 IP address. There’s also the DNS issue that was mentioned above with the RV22 itself. If I set them up in the office first, they will not reconnect at the customer’s house. I have to hold the reset button to clear it all out before it will work (which after resetting takes another 5+ minutes to come back up and there’s that awkward waiting with the customer watching and wondering why the equipment I’m providing to them “works so slow”.)
As for the other Goal points:
- The App and branding have been great so far. Kudos to all for this.
- See above
- The integration with cnM and the frequency coordination was one of the reasons I was excited to use this product.
- I can’t talk to the mesh side of it much because I just haven’t had much need for it. In the 4 instances I have used it, the wireless meshing was good enough. The other three, I had to hardwire because of the building construction material (see ticket 419121) or because the mesh unit was in a different building (Workshop or Barn). As mentioned by maxwire, the fact that the WAN port can only be used for WAN has been an issue. My end-users ended up plugging the hardwire line into the WAN port and then calling our support because it wasn’t working after they moved it. (if a $29 unit like Vilo could make this work, surely Cambium could have figured it out too). That being said most of my customers/end-user don’t need a mesh unit and if they do, they’re usually supplying their own because they have other integrations (such as the Eero or Orbi, etc). The mesh is a nice feature but it’s not a must-have for me and i think part of that is due to the good coverage a single unit provides.
Other points of interest:
While it may not be a huge thing, POE out on the WAN port would be a nice touch and clean up the installation wiring. With the CPEs using passive POE and customers being prone to use the WAN port for wired meshing, I understand that this might be a non-starter but its still worth throwing out there.
The LED color choices weren’t the greatest. I think a flashing blue would be better than the purple. It’s hard for many of my customers to tell the difference between blue and purple.
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