I could not find a definitive answer on the internet. My question is what is the maximum number of ioT gadget can a AP support?
All I found was either theorical throughput or manufacturer suggestion based on average use with phones and laptops (streaming, web, e-mail, etc.)
My setup is 3 AP 20Mhz on channels 1, 6 and 11. These are used strickly for ioT devices (mainly switches and the likes). No phone or TV or Speaker. My AP currently have about 20 clients each.
With most Matter manufacturer going the wifi route instead of Thread, the number of device could grow a lot. This is what I wonder about. When will adding another gadget will be too much?
This is going to depend on your specific brand and model of AP as well as your router if that is a different piece of hardware in your setup.
The only for-sure limitation is the number of available IP addresses in your network. Many home networks default to a 192.168.0.0/24 (or similar /24) network, meaning you have 254 usable IP addresses. Many will allow adjusting the subnet masks or using other private IP address blocks, which may give you a larger (or smaller) IP address pool.
In any case, this may be more or less than the actual number of clients your AP or router can handle (the above probably more than a typical AP...). But it's definitely a hard limit.
Manufacturers should provide hard limits if there are any, but I think this is about what you'll get from most, because aside from network-based limitations as above, it likely depends on other factors like how chatty all of the clients are. Their suggestions are likely based on some averages, as you guess.
There is no universal answer to this question (aside from the above constraints). So, if you're looking for anyone with practical experiences with your setup, you'll have to share more information about exactly what that is.
The channel width isn't the limitation, nor the available IP addresses. Each wifi connection is assigned a piece of memory on the AP or router. There isn't a lot of memory available for this and so there is a finite number of devices that can be connected, even if those devices produce no traffic. The actual specific number varies by device and is hard to find for most devices, but is typically specified (hard coded) by the Manufacturer.
Typically, i think it is about 50 devices, regardless of IP address availability. Search for the maximum number of clients for your specific device.
I allready using close to that but spread out on different subnets. So plenty of space there.
That's for sure but the kind of ioT devices I have connected to it are things like switches. Not realy chatty devices. This is why I thought maybe this would allow for a higher number of devices then what is suggested.
This is the kind of limitation that throw a wedge in all those outragous claim of miraculous throughput I found on internet. I guess this count more then any other constrains
You should be able to find this in your AP/Router’s manual. 32 devices per radio is pretty common for consumer grade devices. Higher end devices are designed to handle more. It will look something like this…
I used to administer an Aruba wireless system with 4 controllers, and 450 Dual radio APs. I typically supported over 4000 user devices consisting of phones, pads, chrome books, laptops and some IOT devices. Security cameras were wired. Best practice was to deploy enough APs over enough frequencies and limiting the cell size to keep the user count per Radio as close to 12 as possible. That was for human users enjoying the Internet. For IOT other than cameras, one could easily do 4 to 8 times that. It is a bandwidth issue when you get down to it. How much does it take to control a switch or a sensor? If you plan to have cameras, those are about the same as a person watching you tube. I ought to mention none of it was mesh. The AP back haul was 1G Ethernet, 24Ghz microwave point to point, or in a in a couple places as a last resort, using the 5G radio as a point to point back haul.
Bandwith is one of them. Interference in the area also effect device capacity on give. Channels.
Spatial streams( ie 2x2, or 4x4) a AP has may also have a impact.
Generation of AP can make a huge difference. For instance anything that is Wave 1 AC will be able to handle significantly fewer devices then Wave 2 gear because of tech like MIMO.
Keep in mind just because a device isn't active or transmiting allot of data doesn't mean it will have no impact on device count. There is overhead with the device just being connected.
Until recently I had a 3 puck Google WIFI(wave 1 AC) setup that google suggested limiting less then 30 devices per puck or around 90 total in my case. I was experiencing some minor issues below that in the mid 70's with devices dropping and being slow to reconnect at times. Now i have Unifi with Wifi 6 and it doesn't flinch at supporting all the devices on 1 AP. Looking at diag tools for the 2.4Ghz band it is clear the bigger issue is neighbors and interference. The actual bandwith usage on the 2.4 ghz band is actually low. It is interference from other devices that has the largest negative effect.
You could try the WIFIman app to analyse your network as well.
I use loads of wifi with Omada and 3 access points.
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Summary
Q1: How many devices can the Omada controller manage?
A: Actually, the management scale of the Omada Controller depends on the properties of the Omada Controller host. The recommended requirements of the Omada Controller host are: Intel I3 CPU, 2GB RAM, 10G HDD or above. With these properties, the recommended management scale of the Omada Controller 2.4.x is 500 units.
Q2: How many SSIDs do the EAP products support?
A: There is no limitation of numbers to create SSIDs in the Omada Controller; but different EAP products support different numbers of SSID. For example, EAP245 supports 16 SSIDs (8 for each band). For detailed information of each model, please refer to the Specification or Datasheet on the official website for help.
If I'm not mistaking the vast majority of IOT gadget use wifi 4 (n) on 2.4 band and 1x1 spatial stream. So the advantage of wifi 5 or 6 is irrelevant here.
I check the throughput of each AP. With 20 TP-Link switches being polled every 5 seconds, it shows an average of 32Kbits/sec and a maximum of 135Kbits/sec. Theorically, wifi 4 using 20Mhz channel width and 1x1 stream is capable of 72 Mbits/sec which is more then 500 times the maximum I mesured.
I'm not saying I could connect 10000 switches on each AP (20X500) but, as others have pointed out, in the case of small ioT devices, the limitation is not the bandwidth but some other restriction from the AP hardware.
From a bandwidth perspective yes but not from a client management perspective. The newer technologies include improvements to how clients are managed across spatial streams. Technologies like MIMO allow for more clients as they are managed more efficiently.
What generation of hardware is it? Does it support MIMO.
2x2(N300), 3x3(N450) or 4x4(N600) N doesn't mean it supports MIMO so it is really just about bandwith on N access Points. Prior to AC Wave 2 most AP's were limited to around 15-30 devices each. This is why even the original Gen 1 Google Wifi with 3 pucks i had was limited to around 90 devices as it had Wave 1 hardware . From Wifi5(AC) Wave 2 hardware on MIMO and certain other tech improvements were built into the tech to improve device capacity.
There was allot of optional stuff in late N and early AC hardware that basically became a requirement in AC Wave 2 onward that improved device capacity. MIMO was one of them, Beamforming was another. Increased Spatial Streams became more prevalent with other improvements like those mentioned in the previous two sentences could allow for better device management. This really isn't a simple answer.
Then you also get into factors that are completely outside of the AP or your own wifi like interference from neighbors or other devices, or poor power management on your own gear. Now you have interference coming from cars just sitting around your house as well spewing wifi from their hotspots. I recently found that rokus create a AP and their own wifi network for their remotes.
Unfortunately, it is a very complicated question. My new gear is supposed to support 300+ clients on a given AP, but there is no way I could realistically get there with all the interference around me in my tight neighborhood.
It will likely be similar to the Google Wifi setup I had with a limit of around 20-30 devices per AP. So that means you could be starting to run into a issue soon as you add devices. Just look for devices that are disconnected when unexpected and then reconnect.
All of these numbers are estimates to as every environment is a little different.
Just out of curiosity what AP's are we actually talking about?
My network grew over the years with no planing ahead of any sort. I added stuff as needed, then replace some to end up repurposing the older, constantly building on top of poorly design structure, resulting in a mishmash of 31 APs, network switches, and routers.
Here is a schema. Feel free to laugh but everythings works flawlessly:
