Help us make the Firewalla AP
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- Building a Zero Trust Network with Firewalla
- Firewalla Tutorial: Segmentation and Microsegmentation with AP7
- Early Access hardware is the FINAL production unit
- AP software in BETA.
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Compatibility Requirements:
- Gold, Gold Pro, Gold Plus, Gold SE: Must run Beta software.
- Purple, Purple SE: Must run Early Access software.
- Firewalla must operate in Router mode.
- Firewalla App must run Beta software.
- Availability: USA customers only.
- Shipping: 7–37 days post-order, in waves (FIFO).
- Order Limit: Soft limit of 3 units per order; exceeding this may delay shipment
- Early access signup ends 12/30/2024 at 11:59PM PST.
- A coupon (small discount) will be sent to early access sign-ups before 1/2/2025.
- You do NOT need to sign up to order.
- We started an AP7 Community Page, please post your questions here
- Full Integration with the Firewalla Security Stack
- Zero Trust Network Architecture
- VLAN Segmentation and Microsegmentation Support
- Easy to install, managed anywhere
- Wi-Fi 7, faster and more reliable
- Wi-Fi Mesh with Ethernet or Wi-Fi backhaul
- Firewalla running in router mode is required
- 8 Spatial Streams, tri-band, low-power indoor unit
- 10Gbit + 2.5Gbit Ethernet Interface
- Early access and beta are available only in the USA. (EU and other countries TBD)
- Price for beta units with discount: $299 to $349
- Final price after 1/20/2025: We don't know; it depends on the tariff
- Tentatively, early access/beta sale starts in early January 2025
Key Principles of Zero Trust
- Segmentation and Microsegmentation: Divide your network into smaller segments to limit the lateral movement of threats.
- Least Privilege Access: Grant users and devices only the minimum access necessary to perform their functions on the network.
- Continuous Monitoring: Continuously monitor and verify the security posture of all users and devices.
We usually run a pre-sale cycle, but due to the political changes (new President), it is not possible for us to pre-sale and build units without knowing possible tariff impacts. Instead, we’ve used the sale proceeds from BFCM to pre-purchase a batch of units.
The AP7 units should be built soon and be available for ordering. We plan to split the orders into groups: (This plan is still tentative, we may also merge beta+early access together)
- Early Access (for our earliest supporters at the lowest price, available mid- to late-December 2024. Must be running Firewalla Gold (v1 & v2), Gold SE, Gold Plus or Gold Pro in router mode)
- Beta Access (about 1 month later, available mid-January 2025. Must be running Firewalla Purple or Gold series units in router mode)
- Production (to be decided after 1/20/2025)
- For details please refer the the status update section below
All units will have the final production hardware, software will be in early access/beta.
- Limited number of units available
- Limited to 3 units per customer
- Early access unit will be using early access software
- Beta access will be using beta software
The Firewalla AP7 Ceiling Mount will come a couple of months after 1/20/2025. It will seamlessly integrate with the FWAP7 Desktop units.
Spec
- Triband 2.4Ghz 2x2, 5Ghz 2x2, 6Ghz 4x4
- 8 Spatial Streams, 320Mhz channel support 6Ghz
- Network Interfaces: 10Gbit RJ45 + 2.5Gbit RJ45
- VLAN
- PPSK+WPA2 Support (Personal Key)
- Mesh with Ethernet or Wi-Fi backhaul
- Dimensions: 5.43 x 3.15 x 7.48 inch
- Item Weight: 1.4 lb
- Power: 30W
- Compatible with and Required: Firewalla Gold / Firewalla Purple in router mode
Status Update: 12/10/2024
- The initial batch of APs is nearly complete.
- We plan to ship some units by air right around or after Christmas to reduce shipping costs.
- Shipping optimization is under consideration to keep the beta/early access pricing closer to $299.
- Apps version 1.64 and 1.980 are targeted for "early access" release during the week of 12/16. These updates will include exciting new features and code support for the Firewalla AP.
- Sales are expected to begin in early January, with units shipping within seven days of order placement. (The exact date will be confirmed next week.)
Status Update: 12/17/2024
- The Firewalla AP7 is coming very soon!
- We are aiming for 1/7/2025 9 AM PST as the Early Access purchase date, but we'll let you know if anything changes! (if the shipment is late, then this date might be pushed back to 1/14/2025)
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Measuring WiFi speed is an art and science. If we present you with numbers from our chamber, they will not be realistic. But in a not-so-noisy part of the house, my measurement iPhone 16 is roughly 1.6Gbit (2x2 6ghz 160Mhz), and oneplus is 3.1 Gigabit (2x2 6ghz, 320Mhz) iPhone is slower because it can only do 160mhz
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Agree with this view or observation. As well, in a consumer setting with congestion, realistically where is someone going to find 320 MHz channel width that isn’t being stepped on by a neighbor’s WiFi 7 or perhaps 6e? For most, congestion is a reality that makes ultra wide swaths of channel width and enhanced speed perhaps unrealistic.
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I am also interested like what Andy asked above. Under what circumstances would you use the 2.5G verses the 10GB port for backhaul and how this will effect max amount of throughput in single and multi-device scenarios. For may users this will be important as it will mean whats sort of switches they have to buy, with 2.5G being cheaper and not a lot of people i expect having 10G networks at home. At what point do you swap fro a 2.5G to a 10G back haul connection? Performance metrics would be useful in helping work this out. Will there be a way to instrument the backhaul link capacity via the Firewalla APP?.
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Another couple of UI features that would be useful
1. Will there be a channel graph ui in the Firewalla Wifi App that shows how the channels are being utilised. interference. Sort of like this ?
https://img.community.ui.com/489f2c0d-0915-40ca-afe4-f9a4bd91116a/questions/0facb979-e2a6-46db-b605-bbf50cb0063f/f470e216-98b9-4d1a-9bd3-56504f079a232. Will there tuning tab in the Firewalla Wifi App that allows you to to visually see i signal strength , with a heatmap or similar etc, so you can work out best placement if you have say 2 or 3 access points?.
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1. If you want full bandwidth from wifi 7, a 5gbit (not common) or 10gbit connection is the best.
2. If you don't have many 6ghz devices that can do 320mhz bands, 2.5gbit will work nicely.
3. Remember, 6ghz backhaul is also very fast, so even with out a physical ethernet connection, you can reach far and fast.
And if you are mix and matching 10g and 2.5g, make sure you take care flow control in your switch. Mixing 10 and 2.5gbit together often will cause problems with tcp
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@firewalla
the bullet point #3 is pretty important for me
currently I am using 1 Asus GT-AX11000Pro and 2 Asus GT-6 in my house with 5G-2 radio as dedicated wireless backhaul at channel 173 under new UNII-4 @ 160 Mhz without DFS. the Main node (GT-AX11000Pro) is set at center location, and GT6s are set at remote node, and each GT6 is about 20 ft away from the AX11000pro with 2-3 wall behind.
With this setup, my PHY rate between each Asus APs are around 1700Mbps(Transmit/Receve), so I am wondering how is the Firewalla 6G radio wireless backhaul in WIFI7? does 4x4 6G radio do both front and back haul?
Does the firewalla APP show the connection speed between each APs?
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Early Access Sale starts on 1/7/2025 at 9AM PST
- Early Access hardware is the FINAL production unit
- AP software in BETA.
-
Compatibility Requirements:
- Gold, Gold Pro, Gold Plus, Gold SE: Must run Beta software.
- Purple, Purple SE: Must run Early Access software.
- Firewalla must operate in Router mode.
- Firewalla App must run Beta software.
- Availability: USA customers only.
- Shipping: 7–37 days post-order, in waves (FIFO).
- Order Limit: Soft limit of 3 units per order; exceeding this may delay shipment
-
I think the posts above from @james and @fw are worth spreading around, as I fear too many are viewing the 2x2 on the 5ghz as "less than" when in reality it seems alot of thought was put into the fact that it's not practically important, and will help keep costs down.
Speaking of which, I just got the email with the discount info! Do we have any info on pricing or is that still being decided?
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@Ben Larkins
"I think the posts above from @james and @fw are worth spreading around, as I fear too many are viewing the 2x2 on the 5ghz as "less than" when in reality it seems alot of thought was put into the fact that it's not practically important, and will help keep costs down."
Not exactly true, as a 4x4 5GHz band with MU-MIMO would mean that the AP could serve two devices at 2x2 speeds simultaneously at those devices full bandwidth. Since the AP is 2x2 then it can only serve one phone/etc device at that devices full bandwidth at a time.
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@M ah good point. Well I'm trusting that the FW folks have done their homework and when it comes to those of us with <100 devices it'll meet or exceed at least my current usage with the Eero Max 7's. I guess it also comes down to the price/performance ratio. Against the Eero Max 7 and a cost savings of $500 I'm thinking it's probably worth it. Actually I think the closest competitor to this would be the newly released Asus BT8. Runs about the same price, one less on the 6ghz (3x3) and one more on the 5ghz (3x3)... might be a better comparison for the FW folks to use. Either way, I'm still curious from what product this is white labeled.
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@Firewalla: can you disclose the Hardware specs (and vendors) for the CPU, RAM, flash, Radios etc. for the Firewalla AP units? I currently use 3x Netgear RAX120v2 as my AP's (Uses a Qualcomm ARM SoC @2.2GHz). Besides the software features and Wifi 7, and 2.5/10G ethernet ports capabilities etc. , I would like to understand if I would be getting a hardware (raw perf) downgrade if I switched to the Firewalla AP's since the 5GHz is only 2x2 on the Firewalla AP. My network is max Gigabit ethernet at the moment and I don't have any Wifi 7 devices. I need maximum performance and range on the Wifi 5GHz band (with ethernet /1Gb backhaul) - at least for now.
PS: I already have the Gold Pro as my router. My Internet plan is "only" 1Gbps at the moment. -
I would also like to see some 5Ghz performance numbers, I have a pair of Alien Routers with 4x4x8 and can easily get 940Mbps with it on the WiFi-6/AX 5Ghz-2 radio (1Gbps ports), the WiFi-5/AC 5Ghz-1 radio gives a just under 600Mbps.
I have found other 2x2 5Ghz radios pretty lacking on some Asus and Synology units I have tested in the past.
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"Fast" is extremely hard to quantify in networking. The reason is, not all wifi routers are the same, and since the Firewalla AP7 is not your normal AP (it does more security stuff on the box), it may be hard to compare, at times, even if we have the router at hand, due to configuration differences, it is not easy to put everyone in the same configuration state.
Anyway, here is what we have so far https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/36925232692115-AP7-Performance and we have documented how we did the test. And please note, the firewalla software is doing inspection at AP layer, so it is actually doing a bit more work than usual during this test.
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Please start using this https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/36636938904595-Firewalla-Access-Point-AP7 for questions and discussions.
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@Firewalla: for those of us, who don't want to be beta testers in the early access phase - but want to lock in the (potential) price savings of buying now as opposed to later when the price increases (like it did for Gold Pro) - is there no presale option, like there was for the Gold Pro?
If the beta/ early access hardware is the same as production hardware, then what stops people from just buying the hardware now and sitting on it (not using it) till the "final" software stack is ready, and just update the units at that time? -
@Andy, I already received an email with the discount. That email says that both the router and the phone app. must be in "beta" mode to use the early access AP's. It also says wait to buy if you are not comfortable running in Beta mode - which I am not - I need a stable setup.
So its not clear what to do in my situation, if I don't want to use Beta mode - but want to lock in the early access pricing. The coupon discount is not big, so that's not the main motivator for me - but I'm expecting a base price jump later (like what happened with the gold Pro).
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