My least favorite piece of Apple hardware
by Volker Weber
This is a great idea, executed badly. The Airport Express connects to power, USB, Ethernet and audio, both analog and digital. It can act as a wireless access point, a router, an iTunes target. If it would only work. Often it loses its network connection (LED turns yellow), a USB-attached printer stops working. Or it just dies. I have seen so many of them simply burn out. Walter lost one, I lost two, Otto lost one in February. Simple reason: the power supply dies. I used mine during Lotusphere, and it needed a reset once a day.
It. Just. Does. Not. Work.
Comments
Hmm, when in the lifecycle does this trouble start? I have my Airport Express for a year now and so far it never let me down. *knocksonwood*
If you have had it for only a year, you have a 11n version. I am talking about the original device.
Mine is 802.11n aquired in December 08, so no long term experiences.
I just use it as iTunes target ("low cost Sonos"). Works pretty fine. Initial trouble was that the AirPort Express couldn't connect to my WLAN. It turned out to be a problem in conjunction with my AVM Fritz!Box 7270 providing the WLAN access point: The Fritz!Box was configured to use radio channels optimized for 300MBit/s. When You turn off this feature, the AirPort Express works smoothly.
the original ones have great problems in a mixed environment and impede the terminating services at times (e.g. the connected printer). Some of these have been known to burn out (I have one in one of my cupboards still). Apple is very reluctant to acknowledge any errors of these models.
I've had one about 4 years-- currently in the kitchen as an iTunes target. I've had fine luck with it. My only gripe: if only the microwave oven wouldn't cause the music to stop...
Agree about the reliability of the hardware, my original one burnt out, but it is a hugely useful piece of kit for travelling to be able to create a wireless network in your hotel room.
I replaced my old one at LS this year with the 11n version and couldn't be happier with it.
Yes, Matt. I also find the idea great. If it would not fail so often. The newer 11n devices may be better though.
I also have an old one, but haven't had too many problems with it. I use it as my primary access point when not travelling and it only needs a restart every few weeks... If you're traveling it means you won't notice it anyways. Who stays home a few weeks at a time? :-)
Although I don't use the printer or iTunes target features... it's just a small wireless router for me and it works fine for that purpose in my opinion.
On the other hand I don't really understand why there is no single access point that works reliably. Until now I've seen almost any consumer brand router hang at some point waiting for me to reset it. I just don't understand why it's so hard to make something that will either not hang or just reset itself when it does.
That said I think the Apple device is not worse than anything else on the consumer market, the price is decent, and I'd definitely buy one again. And as far as Steve is concerned, that's probably all that counts ;-)
btw: the orange light also starts blinking when it can't renew the DHCP lease, so maybe that's the case for you, but without an external log server I'm not sure there is a way to really find out why the stupid white box is not working :-)
For those of you, whose airtunes died ... check you documents. If you have a parts and labor or similar extended warranty, Apple exchanges the unit for free.
Interesting, I have had one for about four years and my experience is totally opposite to Volker's.
Yes it took some time to learn how to set it up properly and it "fried" after about one and half year of 24/7 usage as my primary WiFi router, but I was able to resuscitate the unit with a little bit of work following this very helpful how-to and I am now still enjoying using it in WDS mode.
Because of my, generally speaking, positive experience with the Airport Express, I trusted Apple and bought a brand new Time Capsule, about six months ago.
That indeed, has been utterly disappointing with unreliable dhcp, mostly slow and dropping connections and ipv6 tunnelling and MobileMe that simply don't work as advertised.
It needs frequent resets as every now and then, for no apparent reason, it blocks connections to the outside world.
The recent firmware updates have made things only worse.
I know it's hard to believe but, connecting my home network over this unit I get less performance and more troubles than via the simple AX.
Actually, Time Capsule is probably the worst piece of new hardware I ever purchased from Apple.
Sorry for this long complain but I had to take this of my chest. :-)
Pieterjan, if your's fried and you had to replace the power supply with this hack, then your experience is not opposite to mine. Actually, I would not want to use this kind of fix, I'd rather dump the device.
Volker, what I was trying to point out is that the functionality of my unit, as opposite to yours, was reasonably good. At least until it lasted.
No great dissatisfaction with the AX firmware which was doing it's job honestly.
I remember you had lots issues with the built-in dhcp server, but I never did.
I believe the power supply has now been fixed by Apple as the problem appeared to be a faulty component, and with the addition of the 802.11n protocol I think the AX is still an attractive piece of hardware.
Do you totally disagree? :-)
Hmmm - I have had the original Airport Express since they came out, and added a new one last fall (at which point I moved the old one into my bedroom). Been running it 24X7 all that time and have not had any issues.
Could be a bad batch, but I consider it one of the best pieces or hardware I ever bought :)
i fully agree - 70€ for the restroom .....
My Airport Express died after 8 months. I used it as an iTunes target. It was replaced by Apple last week.
@Sven: Had the same problem with Fritz!Box 7270. Turned of the 300MBit/s optimization. It did the trick and now I hear music in the kitchen again. Thanks! :-)
My gripe is with the Airport Basestation Extreme, they added the USB but no itunes target/audio interface. This is particularly annoying since mine sits right behind my Hifi and I had to purchase an Express just to play music wirelessly. Seems the Extreme also crashes fairly regularlly as well.
@seth: if your microwave is killing the wifi signal it's time for a new microwave.
I've had no issues with my Express (had it for 3-4 years), but I primarily use it when travelling, so it gets light usage. I now have an Extreme Base station (previous model, no dual-band), and it has been more reliable than the numerous Linksys models I was burning through before.
Should consider myself lucky so far. I have two of those (g-models) which have been in non-stop operation at home for 2 and 3 years respectively. Once in a while I have too restart them, but usually they work several months in a row.
The two are configured as one network with roaming support, which works very well. Printer and AirTunes as well and even the Xbox 360 attached via cable two one of them never complained.
So far the only improvement I would wish for is to be able to attach a USB drive to one of them and then do time machine backups wirelessly to it. I know it is not very likely to happen...
I think you have just had bad luck. We have lots of Airport kit at works and it works fantastically. I use it at home and it's great the new dual band N kit is excellent. The boss has an APexpress connected with to an APextreme and he raves over it.
Are you using a non Apple router and that is causing issues perhaps. (of course it should just work :-)
